Make marriage matter more

Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | August 31, 2003 | Jim Wooten

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Poverty in the nation*** Is poverty pre-ordained? I think not. A married couple, both working full time at a minimum-wage job that pays $5.15 per hour, would earn an annual income of $20,600. Keep in mind that few adults earn wages as low as the minimum wage and those who do earn a higher wage after a few months on the job. If a married couple both working at the minimum wage had no children, they would not be poor; if they had two children, they wouldn't be living in the lap of luxury, but neither would they be below the poverty threshold.

Let's look at poverty in female-headed households. Divorce and death of the father might explain a small part of why there are so many female-headed households. But the bulk of it is explained by people having children and not getting married in the first place.

Having children is not an act of God. It's not like you're walking down the street and pregnancy strikes you; children are a result of a conscious decision. For the most part, female-headed households are the result of shortsighted, self-destructive behavior of one or two people. They might have bought into the nonsense of "experts" like John Hopkins University sociologist Professor Andrew Cherlin, who said, "It has yet to be shown that the absence of a father was directly responsible for any of the supposed deficiencies of broken homes." The real issue, according to Mr. Cherlin, "is not the lack of male presence but the lack of male income." That's a call for fathers to be replaced by a government welfare check. ***

A cry in the black education wilderness***The great disappointment of my ongoing crusade to foment a revolution in black education has been the lack of a response, and even hostility, from black leaders in this community. Naturally, I expected everyone to drop what they were doing and hop onto my education movement bandwagon. ***

[netmilsmom]

Wow! How un-PC. Thank you for posting this. I have some nieces I'd like to share it with!

[friendly]

Marriage, education, ethics, religion,and all other aspects of civilization are under massive (generally "successful") assault by the democrats. The rationale seems to be that this is the democrat road to power, and must therefore be encouraged in every way.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Bump!

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Marriage, education, ethics, religion,and all other aspects of civilization are under massive (generally "successful") assault by the democrats.

Yes indeed they are. In a socialist's world view (and religion), government must be the answer to all things. And all the things on your list undermine that goal.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Reporters have a role, too. We just assume fathers won't be present or part of the solution and rarely explain where they are or why they're not being held responsible.

Much was made by reporters and other Democrats, when Dan Quayle was named to the 1988 Republican ticket, of the fact that although Senator Quayle was hawkish he had joined the National Guard rather than upping for Vietnam. The apt rejoinder to that is, "But at the time, you told Mr. Quayle not to go to Vietnam, didn't you?"

Well, the same principle holds here. Reporters are far too busy telling men to be irresponsible and telling women to have abortions to be have any moral authority to preach responsibility to anyone.

[friendly]

This is why a major cash industry in socialist Cuba is prostitution.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Reporters are far too busy telling men to be irresponsible and telling women to have abortions to be have any moral authority to preach responsibility to anyone.

Bump!

[Tax-chick]

When a child dies, it is usually one raised by a mother or grandmother with a non-parent male present, usually as the abuser.

The under-emphasized factor in practically all the abuse deaths we see in the news - the most dangerous person in the world to a young child is the mother's live-in boyfriend.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

18,000 riddled by firing squads. Half a million incarcerated. 50,000 drowned or ripped apart by sharks in the Florida Straits. Thousands more slaughtered in Africa for Moscow. Two million exiled. And we wind up with a nation that in 1959 had a higher living standard than Belgium or Italy, had a lower infant mortality rate than France, had net immigration, as child prostitution capital of the world. Yankee Doodle Castro

Check this out. Another "victimized" youth group reaching out to a commie.

Daniel Yang, a delegate of the Native American Movement, performs during an religious ceremony at a news conference at the International Press Center on Friday August 29, 2003, in Havana Cuba. Yang, the leader of the youth movement visiting the island, honored Cuban President Fidel Castro with an 'eagle feather', the highest Native American distinction. (AP Photo/Cristobal Herrera)

[Cincinatus' Wife]

I guess that would make the mother (enabler) the second most dangerous.

[friendly]

Re post 10: The hand on the drum has one finger too many elevated.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Ha! Great observation.

[Gabz]

WOW.

Powerful commentary.

As I started reading it , it immediately reminded of me of several people that firmly believe that my daughter should be removed from my custody because her father and I are unfit parents. And then I saw this:

Hollywood has a role. If it's irresponsible to show adults smoking, then surely people of judgment would recognize the worse harm caused by depicting children as toys for adults.

Yes, that it why these people believe it is far better for her to be in state custody - her parents smoke.

My husband has a good job, we have a roof over our heads, food on the table, we are not alcoholics or drug addicts, we are not abusive and we are married and were married before we chose to become parents.

Any thinking person who looks at the numbers in this article will think twice about the removal of children from married two-parent families for frivolous reasons. The "state" has a pretty poor track record for being parents.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

And those huge numbers are just one state.

[Gabz]

And not all that large a state at that - can you imagine the numbers from say CA or NY????????

Oh well, off to finish school shopping for the 5 year old who starts kindergarten on Tuesday. You know the child I'm talking about, the one some people feel would be better off in state custody because her married parents are unfit!!!

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Florida has a HUGE case load. Hope the shopping went well.

[madprof98]

Sadly, Wooten's is (as always in the AJC) the far-right minority position. He will be written off as a racist for bringing up all those nasty statistics. Unless and until some charismatic African-American preacher starts pedaling this line, both the black masses and their white liberal apologist/masters will dispute it or (more often) just ignore it.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Some of the LINKS I added give additional voices to the growing chorus. Cynthia Tucker of the "Constitution-Journal" is taking this position more and more.

[ptcmama]

I sure haven't seen anything from Cynthia calling for more personal responsibility. Mostly she is into calling people racists who bring things like this up.
Wait a minute - she did just allow as how little Kyshawn's mama should bear some responsibility - but I kept waiting for her to turn that into an anti-military tirade, since the mama is in the Army. Jim Wooten is the only voice of sanity at the AJC - I'm amazed he still has his job.