Posted on 07/15/2012 6:00:43 AM PDT by reaganaut1
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Jessica Schairer has so much in common with her boss, Chris Faulkner, that a visitor to the day care center they run might get them confused.
They are both friendly white women from modest Midwestern backgrounds who left for college with conventional hopes of marriage, motherhood and career. They both have children in elementary school. They pass their days in similar ways: juggling toddlers, coaching teachers and swapping small secrets that mark them as friends. They even got tattoos together. Though Ms. Faulkner, as the boss, earns more money, the difference is a gap, not a chasm.
But a friendship that evokes parity by day becomes a study of inequality at night and a testament to the way family structure deepens class divides. Ms. Faulkner is married and living on two paychecks, while Ms. Schairer is raising her children by herself. That gives the Faulkner family a profound advantage in income and nurturing time, and makes their children statistically more likely to finish college, find good jobs and form stable marriages.
Ms. Faulkner goes home to a trim subdivision and weekends crowded with children’s events. Ms. Schairer’s rent consumes more than half her income, and she scrapes by on food stamps.
“I see Chris’s kids — they’re in swimming and karate and baseball and Boy Scouts, and it seems like it’s always her or her husband who’s able to make it there,” Ms. Schairer said. “That’s something I wish I could do for my kids. But number one, that stuff costs a lot of money and, two, I just don’t have the time.”
The economic storms of recent years have raised concerns about growing inequality and questions about a core national faith, that even Americans of humble backgrounds have a good chance of getting ahead.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
It is not entirely coincidental that the unwed mother profiled in the story was ditched by her black boyfriend after they had three children. Obama's father similarly ditched his family. It would be nice if more white women woke up and looked at the rates at which black men desert their families. Once upon a time families could explain such things to their daughters, but now stating such facts is called racist. Ask John Derbyshire.
This NYT pity piece should have been accompanied by the Captain Obvious photo. God intends for children to have two parents to take care of them. Doing it another way will create many problems. The Left wants ever-bigger government to be Daddy. How’s that working out, America?
“But a friendship that evokes parity by day becomes a study of inequality at night and a testament to the way family structure deepens class divides. Ms. Faulkner is married and living on two paychecks, while Ms. Schairer is raising her children by herself. That gives the Faulkner family a profound advantage in income and nurturing time, and makes their children statistically more likely to finish college, find good jobs and form stable marriages”
Then clearly, per the Supreme Court, we ought to TAX Ms Faulkner out of the second income of her husband and the additional time her husband provides in order to address the inequality! NOT! Guess what. There is NO INEQUALITY HERE! It’s LIFE!
To achieve equality force Mrs Faulkner to get a divorce.
“It is the privileged Americans who are marrying, and marrying helps them stay privileged,” said Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University.
Talk about making stuff up just to fit a pathetic agenda. Also, personal choices in who these single moms marry (or have kids with) comes into play; whether the 'I do's stick or not, responsible guys pay to support their children; losers don't.
Then Ms. Schairer should have kept her legs closed until her honeymoon. Harsh, but that’s how it works. She made her choice to sleep with and have children with a man without being married, and sadly they all have to face the fallout.
}:-)4
A woman who works her butt off at a daycare center to help her husband support their family is not “privileged” in any way except for having more common sense in her great toe than her shack-up friend has in her whole body.
Matthew 5:32: but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the cause of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
And again, He says: Malachi 2:16 "For I hate divorce,"says the Lord, the God of Israel, "and him who covers his garment with wrong,"says the Lord of hosts. "So take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously."
Several key items from the article itself show that even worldly people who do not acknowledge God know the truth:
“It is the privileged Americans who are marrying, and marrying helps them stay privileged,” said Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University.
Sara McLanahan, a Princeton sociologist, warns that family structure increasingly consigns children to “diverging destinies.” (One destiny good, the other bad...in other words.)
Getting involved with someone who had a different value system: My pleasure is more important than your destiny or life outcome.
Abortion crossed her mind, but her boyfriend, an African-American student from Arkansas, said they should start a family.
This woman still has character left, and that is the MOST impressive thing about the entire article. She keeps herself and her children going to church to try to establish a value system. That is more than can be said for the "boyfriend" who sends no child support. And, last and most important of all, she admits it is ALL because of her poor decisions. The first step to solving a problem is to admit that you have one.
You will NEVER hear this from the Democrat party.
She got pregnant during her first year of college, left school and stayed in a troubled relationship that left her with three children when it finally collapsed six years ago. She has had little contact with the children’s father and receives no child support. With an annual income of just under $25,000, Ms. Schairer barely lifts her children out of poverty, but she is not one to complain. “I’m in this position because of decisions I made,” she said.
This nation has got to return to God or it is going to face destruction. I am hearing from more and more FOREIGNERS here that the situation is developing rapidly into the same situations that lead to extreme violence in their countries.
Very true and well-thought-out comment.
The statement is correct. Marriage builds wealth and divorce destroys it. Documented many times over.
Oooh...good one.
I hate to break this to the Times, but even if the married woman stayed home and the family lived on one pay check the rest of these facts would still be true.
The real class division in our country...the one that matters...is between people who can write an article like this and be proud of it, and people who’d be too damn embarrassed to.
Looks like that is already happening. From the article:
In February, she received $7,000 of refundable tax credits, the low-wage worker’s annual bonus.
And it's not a "bonus". It's a %&***%# welfare check administered by the IRS.
This isn’t about equality or privilege. This is about personal choices and the consequences of our actions.
However, if the pity-party authors are trying to make the case that society (i.e., the cost of living) should be molded around the single-parent concept, then that will only make the 'privileged' married ones even more so, as they'll have double the support (until the tax man penalizes them.)
I wish one of my own family members had the character to understand this. Unfortunately she has deteriorated into severe mental problems and lives in a world of her own, where she is perfect and everyone else is wrong.
Exactly.
While this was definitely a barf article, at least the NYT allowed a little truth to seep in...
” Ms. Schairer.....she is not one to complain. “I’m in this position because of decisions I made,” she said.”
The NYT is the one doing the complaining.
Folks, mostly white, who work hard from the start are unfairly granted privileges -- what gives that the status to dictate winners and losers? the Nytimese ask.
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