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Make marriage matter more
Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | August 31, 2003 | Jim Wooten

Posted on 08/30/2003 4:17:23 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife

While the black family disintegrates, with two-thirds of children born to single women and only a third of adults married, the state of Georgia struggles desperately and often ineffectively with the consequences.

The child welfare system is again under assault following the deaths of two children. Inquiry is, of course, essential. But in all these tragedies, the failing comes down to a caseworker who should have been wiser, smarter or more attentive.

But with 14,494 children in state custody as of June, we are asking state employees to be omniscient who are, under the best of circumstances, poor substitutes for parents and only occasional intervenors into the children's lives. They're also asked to be appropriately respectful of parental rights.

Even when such a system is designed, staffed and managed to perfection, it will succeed only in keeping alive children who have been abused by the manner of their birth.

Not all children in the state's custody are the sad victims of never-formed families, but there is a correlation between the fate of children and decisions by adults not to marry.

Blacks are disproportionately represented in prisons, in children who fall into state custody and in academic unpreparedness, as demonstrated last week by Georgia's 183-point difference between scores of black and white students on the SAT. In each instance, it is possible to blame discrimination -- and that is customarily done.

But while discrimination may or may not be a contributing cause, the never-formed two-parent family disproportionately damages black children.

Georgia's population is 28.7 percent black, 65.1 percent white. Its prison population is 63.6 percent black, 35.9 percent white. About half the prison population was convicted of sex and other violent crimes. About half were raised in homes without fathers.

Another study released last week by the Justice Policy Institute, a left-of-center advocacy organization for prison alternatives, found something intuitively obvious: A strong relationship exists between school dropouts and imprisonment. By the time they were in their early 30s, the institute reported, 13 percent of white male dropouts had prison records, but an astonishing 52 percent of black males did.

And there is the child welfare system. Of the 14,494 children in state custody, 54.8 percent are black and 46.1 percent white. 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 never-formed family, then, is a grave national problem, pushing children into an education and social service system that will remain woefully inadequate to deal with the broken lives. When the teacher is expected to perform both as the absent parent teaching values and as the front-line education professional while supervising a class that also includes special education and second-language students, well, it simply can't be done to the public's needs.

What to do? Change the non-marriage culture, obviously. Government has a role. Every public policy, every tax incentive and bully pulpit should be employed to encourage heterosexual marriage and to discourage efforts to make it just another acceptable lifestyle choice. It should, too, aggressively pursue fathers and hold them at least financially responsible.

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.

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.

And of course, all of us have a role. Every conversation needs one person who volunteers that it's not OK to make babies for sport, one person who encourages marriage.

The public systems now are trying to repair the broken lives. And they're overwhelmed. They can't do it.

Jim Wooten is associate editorial page editor. His column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: blackfamily; education; family; marriage; racism
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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. ***

1 posted on 08/30/2003 4:17:24 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Wow! How un-PC. Thank you for posting this. I have some nieces I'd like to share it with!
2 posted on 08/30/2003 4:54:23 AM PDT by netmilsmom (Hand me my smelling salts.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
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.
3 posted on 08/30/2003 4:57:41 AM PDT by friendly ((Badges?, we don gots to show no stinkin' badges!))
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To: netmilsmom
Bump!
4 posted on 08/30/2003 4:58:56 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: friendly
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.

5 posted on 08/30/2003 5:02:13 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
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.


6 posted on 08/30/2003 5:02:23 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The everyday blessings of God are great--they just don't make "good copy.")
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
This is why a major cash industry in socialist Cuba is prostitution.
7 posted on 08/30/2003 5:18:07 AM PDT by friendly ((Badges?, we don gots to show no stinkin' badges!))
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
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!

8 posted on 08/30/2003 5:28:16 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
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.

9 posted on 08/30/2003 5:32:09 AM PDT by Tax-chick (Pray for Terri Schiavo!)
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To: friendly
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)

10 posted on 08/30/2003 5:34:40 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Tax-chick
I guess that would make the mother (enabler) the second most dangerous.
11 posted on 08/30/2003 5:35:37 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Re post 10: The hand on the drum has one finger too many elevated.
12 posted on 08/30/2003 5:44:05 AM PDT by friendly ((Badges?, we don gots to show no stinkin' badges!))
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To: friendly
Ha! Great observation.
13 posted on 08/30/2003 6:09:22 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
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.

14 posted on 08/30/2003 6:18:12 AM PDT by Gabz (anti-smokers - personification of everything wrong in this country.)
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To: Gabz
And those huge numbers are just one state.
15 posted on 08/30/2003 7:02:15 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
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!!!
16 posted on 08/30/2003 9:45:29 AM PDT by Gabz (anti-smokers - personification of everything wrong in this country.)
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To: Gabz
Florida has a HUGE case load. Hope the shopping went well.
17 posted on 08/30/2003 4:35:35 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
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.
18 posted on 08/30/2003 6:41:32 PM PDT by madprof98
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To: madprof98
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.
19 posted on 08/31/2003 2:37:18 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
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.
20 posted on 09/04/2003 3:44:25 PM PDT by ptcmama
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