Black Community Struggles with Unwed Mothers Rate
- Posted on November 7, 2010 at 9:36pm by
Meredith Jessup
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Dr. Natalie Carroll
HOUSTON (AP) — One recent day at Dr. Natalie Carroll’s OB-GYN practice, located inside a low-income apartment complex tucked between a gas station and a freeway, 12 pregnant black women come for consultations. Some bring their children or their mothers. Only one brings a husband.
Things move slowly here. Women sit shoulder-to-shoulder in the narrow waiting room, sometimes for more than an hour. Carroll does not rush her mothers in and out. She wants her babies born as healthy as possible, so Carroll spends time talking to the mothers about how they should care for themselves, what she expects them to do – and why they need to get married.
Seventy-two percent of black babies are born to unmarried mothers today, according to government statistics. This number is inseparable from the work of Carroll, an obstetrician who has dedicated her 40-year career to helping black women.
“The girls don’t think they have to get married. I tell them children deserve a mama and a daddy. They really do,” Carroll says from behind the desk of her office, which has cushioned pink-and-green armchairs, bars on the windows, and a wooden “LOVE” carving between two African figurines. Diamonds circle Carroll’s ring finger.
As the issue of black unwed parenthood inches into public discourse, Carroll is among the few speaking boldly about it. And as a black woman who has brought thousands of babies into the world, who has sacrificed income to serve Houston’s poor, Carroll is among the few whom black women will actually listen to.
“A mama can’t give it all. And neither can a daddy, not by themselves,” Carroll says. “Part of the reason is because you can only give that which you have. A mother cannot give all that a man can give. A truly involved father figure offers more fullness to a child’s life.”
Statistics show just what that fullness means. Children of unmarried mothers of any race are more likely to perform poorly in school, go to prison, use drugs, be poor as adults, and have their own children out of wedlock.
The black community’s 72 percent rate eclipses that of most other groups: 17 percent of Asians, 29 percent of whites, 53 percent of Hispanics and 66 percent of Native Americans were born to unwed mothers in 2008, the most recent year for which government figures are available. The rate for the overall U.S. population was 41 percent.
This issue entered the public consciousness in 1965, when a now famous government report by future senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan described a “tangle of pathology” among blacks that fed a 24 percent black “illegitimacy” rate. The white rate then was 4 percent.
Many accused Moynihan, who was white, of “blaming the victim:” of saying that black behavior, not racism, was the main cause of black problems. That dynamic persists. Most talk about the 72 percent has come from conservative circles; when influential blacks like Bill Cosby have spoken out about it, they have been all but shouted down by liberals saying that a lack of equal education and opportunity are the true root of the problem.
Even in black churches, “nobody talks about it,” Carroll says. “It’s like some big secret.” But there are signs of change, of discussion and debate within and outside the black community on how to address the growing problem.
Research has increased into links between behavior and poverty, scholars say. Historically black Hampton University recently launched a National Center on African American Marriages and Parenting. There is a Marry Your Baby Daddy Day, founded by a black woman who was left at the altar, and a Black Marriage Day, which aims “to make healthy marriages the norm rather than the exception.”
In September, Princeton University and the liberal Brookings Institution released a collection of “Fragile Families” reports on unwed parents. And an online movement called “No Wedding No Womb” ignited a fierce debate that included strong opposition from many black women.
“There are a lot of sides to this,” Carroll says. “Part of our community has lost its way.”
—
There are simple arguments for why so many black women have children without marriage.
The legacy of segregation, the logic goes, means blacks are more likely to attend inferior schools. This creates a high proportion of blacks unprepared to compete for jobs in today’s economy, where middle-class industrial work for unskilled laborers has largely disappeared.
The drug epidemic sent disproportionate numbers of black men to prison, and crushed the job opportunities for those who served their time. Women don‘t want to marry men who can’t provide for their families, and welfare laws created a financial incentive for poor mothers to stay single.
If you remove these inequalities, some say, the 72 percent will decrease.
“It’s all connected. The question should be, how has the black family survived at all?” says Maria Kefalas, co-author of “Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage.”
The book is based on interviews with 162 low-income single mothers. One of its conclusions is that these women see motherhood as one of life’s most fulfilling roles – a rare opportunity for love and joy, husband or no husband.
Sitting in Carroll’s waiting room, Sherhonda Mouton watches all the babies with the tender expression of a first-time mother, even though she’s about to have her fourth child. Inside her purse is a datebook containing a handwritten ode to her children, titled “One and Only.” It concludes:
“You make the hardest tasks seem light with everything you do.
“How blessed I am, how thankful for my one and only you.”
Mouton, 30, works full time as a fast-food manager on the 3 p.m. to 1 a.m. shift. She’s starting classes to become a food inspector.
“My children are what keep me going, every day,” she says. “They give me a lot of hope and encouragement.” Her plans for them? “College, college, college.”
On Mouton’s right shoulder, the name of her oldest child, Zanevia, is tattooed around a series of scars. When Zanevia was an infant, Mouton’s drug-addled fiance came home one night and started shooting. Mouton was hit with six bullets; Zanevia took three and survived.
“This man was the love of my life,” Mouton says. He’s serving a 60-year sentence. Another man fathered her second and third children; Mouton doesn’t have good things to say about him. The father of her unborn child? “He’s around. He helps with all the kids.”
She does not see marriage in her future.
“It‘s another obligation that I don’t need,” Mouton says. “A good man is hard to find nowadays.”
Mouton thinks it’s a good idea to encourage black women to wait for marriage to have children. However, “what’s good for you might not be good for me.,” Yes, some women might need the extra help of a husband. “I might do a little better, but I’m doing fine now. I’m very happy because of my children.”
“I woke up today at six o’clock,” she says. “My son was rubbing my stomach, and my daughter was on the other side. They’re my angels.”
—
Christelyn Karazin has four angels of her own. She had the first with her boyfriend while she was in college; they never married. Her last three came after she married another man and became a writer and homemaker in an affluent Southern California suburb.
In September, Karazin, who is black, marshaled 100 other writers and activists for the online movement No Wedding No Womb, which she calls “a very simplified reduction of a very complicated issue.”
“I just want better for us,” Karazin says. “I have four kids to raise in this world. It’s about what kind of world do we want.”
“We’ve spent the last 40 years discussing the issues of how we got here. How much more discussion, how many more children have to be sacrificed while we still discuss?”
The reaction was swift and ferocious. She had many supporters, but hundreds of others attacked NWNW online as shallow, anti-feminist, lacking solutions, or a conservative tool. Something else about Karazin touched a nerve: She’s married to a white man and has a book about mixed-race relationships coming out.
Blogger Tracy Clayton, who posted a vicious parody of NWNW’s theme song, said the movement focuses on the symptom instead of the cause.
“It’s trying to kill a tree by pulling leaves off the limbs. And it carries a message of shame,” said Clayton, a black woman born to a single mother. “I came out fine. My brother is married with children. (NWNW) makes it seem like there’s something immoral about you, like you’re contributing to the ultimate downfall of the black race. My mom worked hard to raise me, so I do take it personally.”
Demetria Lucas, relationships editor at Essence, the magazine for black women, declined an invitation for her award-winning personal blog to endorse NWNW. Lucas, author of the forthcoming book “A Belle in Brooklyn: Advice for Living Your Single Life & Enjoying Mr. Right Now,” says plenty of black women want to be married but have a hard time finding suitable black husbands.
Lucas says 42 percent of all black women and 70 percent of professional black women are unmarried. “If you can’t get a husband, who am I to tell you no, you can’t be a mom?” she asks. “A lot of women resent the idea that you’re telling me my chances of being married are like 1 in 2, it’s a crapshoot right now, but whether I can have a family of my own is based on whether a guy asks me to marry him or not.”
Much has been made of the lack of marriageable black men, Lucas says, which has created the message that “there’s no real chance of me being married, but because some black men can’t get their stuff together I got to let my whole world fall apart. That’s what the logic is for some women.”
That logic rings false to Amy Wax, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, whose book “Race, Wrongs and Remedies: Group Justice in the 21st Century” argues that even though discrimination caused blacks’ present problems, only black action can cure them.
“The black community has fallen into this horribly dysfunctional equilibrium” with unwed mothers, Wax says in an interview. “It just doesn’t work.”
“Blacks as a group will never be equal while they have this situation going on, where the vast majority of children do not have fathers in the home married to their mother, involved in their lives, investing in them, investing in the next generation.”
“The 21st century for the black community is about building human capital,” says Wax, who is white. “That is the undone business. That is the unmet need. That is the completion of the civil rights mission.”
—
All the patients are gone now from Carroll’s office – the prison guard, the young married couple, the 24-year-old with a 10-year-old daughter and the father of her unborn child in jail. The final patient, an 18-year-old who dropped out of college to have her first child, departs by taxi, alone.
“I can’t tell you that I feel deep sadness, because I don’t,” says Carroll, who has two grown children of her own. “And not because I‘m not fully aware of what’s happening to them. It’s because I do all that I can to help them help themselves.”
Carroll is on her second generation of patients now, delivering the babies of her babies. She does not intend to stop anytime soon. Her father, a general practitioner in Houston, worked right up until he died.
Each time she brings a child into this world, she thinks about what kind of life it will have.
“I tell the mothers, if you decide to have a baby, you decide to have a different kind of life because you owe them something. You owe them something better than you got.”
“I ask them, what are you doing for your children? Do you want them to have a better life than you have? And if so, what are you going to do about it?”
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Comments (111)
New-American-Saviors
Posted on November 8, 2010 at 12:28amBlame it on the Socialized programs that Paid handsomely for each baby as well as health care and food. The More babies,the Larger the Check. Forgot to include free or almost free housing. How is this any different from any third world Country ? The pay is better. Live with yourselves.
Report Post »rhymer
Posted on November 8, 2010 at 12:25amBack in the 1980′s I taught middle school in a small school district in east Texas. The town itself was segregated, actually all white! Adjoining the town was an all-black community … in existence for many decades. Years earlier it had its own school system but was now integrated with the public school system of the little town. About 25% of the school was black and very poor. Most of their parents worked on the small farms or lived off welfare. I was teaching 7th and 8th grade students … and was flabbergasted at how many of my “girl students” were mothers. About a dozen had kids … KIDS HAVING KIDS! And of this group, 3 or 4 had more than one child! These girls were 13, 14 and 15 years old … and most had mothers who had yet to reach 30 years of age. I began asking questions to the young mothers and found out that “this” was a way of life … and an income generating opportunity! At the time, if I remember correctly, each mother received several hundred $ in welfare payments … as well as immunizations and food stamps for their “family!” And not a soul in the school system or the community ever batted an eye!
Washington … we have a problem!!!! Worse than any cancer or blight on society … the U.S. government has created a MONSTER that is out of control! Every large city in the country and many impoverished small communities in the land have become breeding grounds of ignorance and incest and disease and poverty … and simple ENVIRONMENTAL RETARDATION. The Jesse Jacksons and Al Thugly Sharptons of the black community have raped and pillaged their communities … and created voting blocks that cause every bleeding heart liberal socialist democrat to jump through their “hoops of social justice” … in the name of EQUALITY. We pass out condoms and CHIPS and GOVERNMENT FREEBIES to play the game of WHITE GUILT and contrived racism. And somehow the MEDIA and the LEFTIES have perpetuated this mess for far too long … by perverting the lie. Oh, the lie … “it is the white man’s fault.” In fact, it is the fault of an elitist media and evil concoctions of the liberal socialist democrat COMMIES! And, yes, most are white. But you’d never know that they infiltrate the media and the democrat party! Would ya??????????????????
Report Post »red penny
Posted on November 8, 2010 at 2:16amSo correct and so well put.I live near a small town in S.C. which has a high percentage of blacks in it’s populace.Go into town to shop and you’ll always see very young black women with one or more young childern with many heavy with yet another child.Social engineering has created an under class much to the determent of these individuals and to society in general.I’ve often wondered how my parents,grand parents and so on managed to survive without all of the freebies that we,the taxpayers,are now forced to support.
Report Post »chattycathy
Posted on November 8, 2010 at 7:09amMy Dad used to say that (in the 1940/50′s), the black men that he worked with were just like him – hardworking men with wives at home and just trying to raise good children. However, he said that the change was dramatic after the 1960′s welfare state started. He said that the younger black men had a whole different attitude – didn’t marry the women they were having children with, were very irresponsible when it came to their jobs, etc.
The interesting thing about this article is that there is never any consideration (before getting pregnant) about how to support these children. I think that this has been one of the unspoken goals of the Progressive left – destroy the black family and keep them under the thumb of the Democrat Party. However, they have failed to recognize this to their own demise. WAKE UP AND TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELF. Stop having children that YOU can’t support.
Report Post »angelcat
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 11:57pmThe welfare system started this. As the strong black family declined, church attendance did also and, with the help of the media and celebrities, unwed motherhood became more and more attractive, glamorous, and accepted and morality and criticism of unwed motherhood is now “politiclly incorrect” and becoming more and more common among people of all races. That’s what happens when what is shown as “cool” TV and in the movies and accepted by celebrities who have the morals of alley cats is adopted by more and young people who don’t see the down side, are not familiar with self-control, and are doing “what everyone else is doing, so it must be ok.”
Report Post »Sunnyr
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 11:52pmYou can thank the DemocRAT Party for destroying the family unit of Blacks, just to keep them indebted and dependent on the DemocRATS for their survival. These children all have 3 strikes against them on the day they come into this world. Many will end up on drugs, in prison or in gangs or dead. It is not fair and is a stain on the Black community. Why do these stupid women think they don’t need a father for their children? These kids will most likely perpetuate the illegitimacy rate when they come of age. It is an unspeakable disgrace and the kids are the ones who suffer. This goes for the White, Hispanic or any group who bring these innocent children into the world just to live on welfare and eventually on the streets as drug sellers, gang members, hookers or worse.
Report Post »BetterDays
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 11:45pmApparently we haven’t been doing our own homework. There is a maltitude of factors at work here, the welfare systen being but a part of it. The main culprit is the purveyors of Clowerd and Piven, and the radical socialists that pushed this evil upon the unwitting (and largely unknowing) black community at large during the seventies and eighties. The purpose was to “overload the system,” They have suceeded for the most part, and have left our country in a seate of near bankruptcy.
Report Post »I feel for these folks, because the only right thing to do is to shut off the tap, because there won’t be anything either way. Specifically, we either rid ourselves of welfare or welfare will rid ourselves from our nation. We can expect unrest, riots, murders, buildings burning, and every other uncivilized response to our doing what we must do, but we must not waiver from our course.
We have much to do to restore our nation, welfare reform (REMOVAL) not the least of it, nor the most imparitive. By prority, I feel we need to address the budget first, and in doing so welfare, education, Housing and urban development, the Federal reserve, the IRS, and every other unintended Federal government that has like a fetrid cancer grown through the decades of progressive agenda’s and our (conservitive) lack of focus.
To expect that this congress shall make broad headway towards this goal would be foolishness, as the democratsic socialists and their “world governance fellows” shall endeavor to stymie every effort put forth. There is much the house can be rightly expected to do during the next two years. Such as de-funding every program that is “socialism” in design ( done buy committie chairs), and by writing laws that repeal and/or remove the federal government from doint things they were never intended to do. Our job as conservitives is to keep their feet to the fire by being an ever present reminder in phone, emails, and personal vitits that we expect this house to FOLLOW through, and that we will accept nothing less than this.
bullcrapbuster
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 11:41pmThe reason universal health care workes for now in Canada and scandinavia is because they do not have the horrible ghetto problems that the USofA does. That problem alone will bankrupt any hc or welfare system that is instituted. It is basically the dems that preside over the problem and have over the years exploited the unfortunates to gain votes by convincing them that anyone that wants to help them become self-sufficient is a racist hater. Thus keeping them weak and helpless. Tough times ahead. Then watch the cities burn.
Report Post »thestimulusmonkey
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 11:29pmI would like to see some conservatives on here say that corporate welfare, which far outweighs personal entitelments in cost, has made our private sector less competitive and helped destroy this economy. I don‘t think welfare is the answer but I also don’t think babies of unwed mothers should be allowed to starve if the mother has no way providing for it.
Report Post »Chriztina
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 11:24pmThis maks me sick, having kids to get money.
Report Post »dotherightthing4
Posted on November 9, 2010 at 10:37amHoney, It’s gone on for generations. I am 57 years old. When I was 8 years old I remember my grandmother’s cleaning lady having her 12th child…unmarried…and my family saying she needed to increase her welfare check. She just kept cranking them out!
Report Post »Bunnie
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 11:16pmWelfare slavery is not freedom…Never has been…..never will be….End the welfare slavery and that will end of the problem!
Report Post »starman70
Posted on November 8, 2010 at 7:08pmBunnie, you are soooooo right. Only one problem remains, the Democrats WANT to keep thousands of poor people in Welfare Slavery. Why the very threat of removing welfare payments, food stamps, rent subsidies and other “Assistance” programs send the slaves scurrying to the polls to
cast their votes for the Democrats.
America was the greatest country in the world until one group of politicians decided to use the misery of the poor for political gain. None of these idiots care about those poor people in the inner cities or in Appalachia and other distressed areas, all they want is their votes. Those votes GUARANTEE that they will remain in power in order to run over the rest of the populace with THEIR agenda.
Report Post »Bunnie
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 11:14pmWelfare slavery is not freedom…Never has been…..never will be….End the welfare slavery and that will end the problem!
Report Post »jose wasabi
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 11:13pmResponsibility for your own actions. And these are Obama’s biggest supporters.
Report Post »General K
Posted on November 8, 2010 at 1:53amMost Dumbacrats seem to figure out how to get a government check.
Report Post »CatB
Posted on November 8, 2010 at 4:25amIsn’t that the truth …they seem to know all the programs and how to play them .. most of us would never even think that someone should “pay our rent .. or not have to worry about how going to put gas in our car“ Obama people just think it is his ”stash” they have no concept ot PAYING TAXES like the rest of us!
Report Post »weopine.com
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 11:03pmWe need to make it unacceptable to society once again to have children out of wedlock or else this problem will not go away. Yes, there will still be children borne out of wedlock but romanticizing illegitimacy and unwed motherhood in movies and in the media must be stopped. I don’t care what an “angel” or a “support” the child with an absent father may be to the single mother. Intentional single motherhood is selfishness pure and simple – get your heads on straight. It shouldn’t be about your “right” to have a child – it’s not all about you.
Report Post »drattastic
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 10:49pmPersonal responsibility is what it boils down to and these people black , white or brown have none. Daddy government (we)will take care of them . It sickens me.
Report Post »Silat
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 10:40pmWell, should we tell them? You know, that all of our great grandfathers were democrats and their slave owners? Should we tell them that the Republicans fought a war to free them? Hell no! We will just keep aborting their children and keep them on welfare. Hell, we can control them! They don’t have a clue. Remember to send checks to Jesse, Sharpton and all of the other foremen. They have done a great job of keeping them down. We should always reward the house *@&$P$~! -Democrat Operative- out!
Report Post »General K
Posted on November 8, 2010 at 1:51amRemember JC Watts description? Race hustling poverty pimps.
Report Post »dontbotherme
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 10:37pmWhat to say? The doctor is right. Children need 2 parents. Little boys need a good, godly father to help them know what it is to be a real man who will be honorable & take care of his family – who will lead them toward God. As a woman, this is hard for me to say, but we (women) cannot be that example. Without a good husband/father, a boy, statistically speaking, will have a strong probability of becoming one of those statics in jail. Once women of all races & economical & educational standing get off their holier than though attitude & accept this fact, there will be good, worthy men to choose for a lifetime. The first step is that we women must turn to God & accept His loving teaching (& yes, His loving rules) & get some self respect, instead of being bitter & angry, & say no to self centered needs & yes to the needs of a child for a father (or a father figure who will be in their life for a very, very long time). We need God’s hand in our lives again.
Report Post »poverty.sucks
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 10:36pm52% of U.S. Children are born (all races) without both mother and father in the same home. This has an economic consequence costing federal goverment more than $112 billion annually in social programs.
Much care and resources are delegated to illegal immigrants and their newborn circumstances. Could we better care for newborn African Americans if we enforce our immigration laws?
Report Post »starman70
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 10:10pmThis is a very sad situation. It will only lead to increased gang membership and drug sales and involvement. The few who do rise up out of the inner cities become productive and shining examples of what can be accomplished when one has the will to succeed.
There was a black business owner on TV several years ago who blamed much of the problems of the inner cities on of all things integration. He said that when full integration became law, the business men (Butchers, Bakers, Shoe repairmen, Clothing store owners, plumbers, electricians & etc) left the city for the suburbs, leaving no one for the youth to emulate. Furthermore, when they left, they removed the main source of jobs for inner city youths, not to mention deteriorating schools. Now you had groups of unemployed and poorly educated youngsters who had no one to look up to, that is till the adults started selling drugs. Soon, all the youths became enamored with the high lifestyle of the drug dealers, fancy clothes, fancy cars, rolls of bills and fast living women.
The morals of the communities declined because there were no successful adults to show the youngsters how to live productive lives and to teach good morality. No dads to enforce disclipine. Moms with many children cannot, in most circumstances, bring them up and keep them from going astray. Now 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation welfare receiptients pass the welfare model to daughters who soon have children and become welfare cases themselves, having children of their own.
The inner city residents, black, hispanic, asian and every other ethnic group MUST pull together to solve the problem. Government can’t do it, it can only make the situation worse. There is no simple answer but the answer must come from within.
Report Post »13thGenerationAmerican
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 10:00pmThey should hand out more condoms on Halloween
Report Post »barthom
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 10:27pmMore often than not, handing a condom to a young child gives the message that premarital sex is accepted and expected.
Report Post »dontbotherme
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 10:46pmSigh… very funny… :)
Report Post »mintyfresh
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 11:24pmI was hoping someone would bring this up. The only way to truly combat this is education. Including thorough sex education. Which includes condoms. And it is a falsehood to think distribution increases sexual activity.
Report Post »conservativeme
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 9:58pmUntil we return to the concept of the sanctity of marriage, this will not get any better. Christ said, in Matthew 19:5-6, “. . .For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” Amen!
Report Post »WhiteFang
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 9:57pmLets focus on the good for nothing fathers who think it sport to spread their genes all over the country with no consequences demanded from them! Shameful.
Report Post »NHABE64
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 9:52pmSomething MUST be done to take away the motivation of having baby after baby with absentee Dads. In China, if a woman has more than the allowed number (perhaps 1 or 2) the government will STOP all benefits. This could work here, but to go on indefinitely providing welfare, food stamps, WIC, and public housing to these Moms who show no regard or responsibility is not forever sustainable. This is one of the things wrong with America, the country where people preferred to work for a living, not simply a life long moocher. Hopefully, as the GOP continues to take power there will be laws enacted to put people on welfare either back to work or off free benefits.
Report Post »Midwest Belle
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 10:04pmI agree with you – cut the welfare, it will reduce the number of unwed mothers giving birth after birth.
The thing is, if welfare IS cut, the mothers will find a way to save [support] their children – it’s been done and seen before. I don’t remember if it was Stossell or Geraldo that showed a “welfare mom” from California – spending all day at the beach while her kids were in day care. When her benefits were cut/eliminated, she found a job.
Cutting benefits is what is truly needed.
Report Post »barthom
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 10:25pmI heard a suggestion by Alan Keyes, a brillian black thinker. You see, what happens, is the high school girls will tell each other that if you get pregnant and don’t get married, the gov will pay for you to have an apartment and food stamps and medical. The young girls see it as a way to get out from under their strict-mother’s authority. So they get pregnant on purpose to win independence. Mr. Keyes said that the solution to this is to give the welfare and food stamps benefits of a young unwed mother to her mother. He said, choose the person in the girl’s family who tends to be more responsible. If that remedy becomes known, the high school girls will not get pregnant on purpose just to get out of the house. If the girls will have to listen to their own mothers, if the government will stop undermining them, the number of teenage, unwed mothers will decline.
Report Post »dotherightthing4
Posted on November 9, 2010 at 10:29amAgree totally. If minors get pregnant, then their parents should be responsible and cover the costs. Generational welfare is sucking this country dry. I agree with Michael Savage..Norplant after the first child and on public assistance AND require something from them. Work for welfare $$. Continuing to pay for medical, housing, food an educational costs for someone else‘s child is encroaching on hard working American’s liberties. We had 2 children..I felt like that is what I could nurture, educate and provide for while working full time. You need to consider the quality of life. What quality of life are these “welfare” children having. Just watch the movie Precious…these kids live lives no child should have to endure..drugs, hunger, apts too cold, not enough food, etc. These women have no RIGHT to continue to reproduce when they are expecting other people to pay for them.
Report Post »Sledgehammer
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 9:52pmThis can be corrected, by telling these girls that they are the one in control, Their mothers and families are the only ones who can do this. They must know that we, their fellow Americans, (not the gov. who caused it) stand with them.
Report Post »Blacktooth
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 9:51pmIt is a sad situation for these young girls. How often they make such bad decisions in their young life. it affects their future forever. Gone is any hope of a normal married life with a healthy, succesful family.
Report Post »WhiteFang
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 10:04pmEvery bad decision has corresponding consequences. This is the Law of Cause and Effect.
Report Post »CatB
Posted on November 8, 2010 at 4:20amIf we stopped paying them for their bad decisions …they would soon learn that they are responsible for their actions.
Report Post »TruthTalker
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 9:49pmU.S. society as a whole is struggling with this, not just blacks. They might have a higher rate, but it is a poverty for any child not to have a mother and a father to raise them.
Report Post »barthom
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 10:17pmWe could blame unwed mothers on Hollywood’s input and the kind of entertainment people choose.
Report Post »CatB
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 11:59pmHow about Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson… when Bill Cosby tried to address this he was pummled from the likes of them. Remember it is never anyone’s fault .. they can’t help themselves …blah blah blah .
Here are two “men” who together have fathered (that we know of) 37 children by 27 different women …— who do think pays for all this insemtination?…
http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2009/04/thomas_frazier_father_of_14_ch.html
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/09/man_who_fathered_23_children_w.html
Report Post »DAG
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 9:48pmWelfare caused this. I saw this happening in the 1970s. Unwed women, not just black women, were having children just to get more welfare. They didn’t care if the insemenator slept all over town. Now their offspring are living the same life. Because of that we have generations of out-of-control adults who think they are owed something and can do no wrong. Momma’s going to take care of them and let them do whatever they like. These generations needed a firm hand to raise them right, that firm hand has historically been their father.
Report Post »OneRepublic4us
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 9:55pmHey! I blame it on the men that lie and can’t control themselves. I got pregnant in the 70‘s and I’m white. My daughter knows her dad is a jerkoff because she met him and figured it out herself. I never went on welfare it was never an option after all I am a republican!
Report Post »lbsm
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 10:03pmWoot for ONEREPUBLIC
Report Post »TruthTalker
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 10:11pm@ OneRepublic4us…right.. you had no responsibility in the matter. Blame it on the guy. He did it to you from afar, without your consent. Get over it and take responsibility for your actions. Glad to hear you didn’t go on the take. I wish your child the best.
Report Post »WhiteFang
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 10:13pmOneRepublic4us, Lets talk straight, and you got pregnant because you controlled yourself? It is not just lying men who cant control themselves, it‘s a two way street isn’t it?.
Report Post »OneRepublic4us
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 10:28pmTruthTalker I was young and he was “older”. Heck, she’s 36 now and ex Air Force. She’s the best. He’s a dope smoking teamster…. Like I said, she figured it out without me telling her.
Report Post »missbosslady
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 10:28pmDag, you’re half right. Welfare did start this ball rolling, the gist of the system back then was increased benefits were given to single mothers, which then had the unintended consequence of encouraging more fathers to leave the household in order for the mother to qualify for the additional enetitlement. I do not know if this is still the case now.
Adding to the problem each additional child born would bring an increase, so at the end of the day fatherless households that kept producing more children received ever increasing benefits.
That’s what bleeding heart liberalism gets you, a sad state of affairs that has passed from one generation to the next, and is trumpeted by the left as beneficence. It is the left hand that is firmly pushing down on the black community, and the black community keeps electing their oppresors.
Things will not change until blacks decide that they cannot live this way any longer, until that realization comes to pass little will change.
Report Post »OneRepublic4us
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 10:32pmWhiteFang
Report Post »I was young and naive.
OneRepublic4us
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 10:34pmThe comment was made because you blame unwed mothers. My point is there are a heck of a lot of fathers out there not taking responsibility.
Report Post »RobertCA
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 10:34pmThe father figure is very important in a family , these kids are growing up without a real father & 70% of them will end up in jail or pregnant or fathering another innocent child with no jobs & it goes on & on & on ……
Report Post »missbosslady
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 10:40pmOnerepublic, please give me a break!
I am a single mother too, however I participated in the conception of my child as opposed to your alien abduction and subsequent insemination. I too married badly, but again as opposed to your forced coupling I married my husband of my own free will, so MY poor choice.
Additionally, It was never in my child’s best interest to feel that his father was a jerk off. Instead I covered for my ex-husbands short-comings and never dwelled on them. I am self-aware and able to admit to and take responsibility for my poor decisions, and concerned enough about my child not to saddle him with any of the resulting baggage.
Report Post »RobertCA
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 10:43pm@ ONEREPUBLIC4US
Report Post »I don’t blame you @ all a jerk is a jerk , you did a great a job by raising that child .
TruthTalker
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 10:52pmbosslady has some pretty good thoughts on the subject.
Report Post »oldoldtimer
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 11:06pmSolution: Make the woaman say who the father is before she gets a dime. Do DNA test then go after the father for child support. This needs to be done by the state not the individual. Stop paying any additional after the 3rd child. Why must I work hard and pay for some one elses pleasure? I would like to stop welfare completely. Feed a man a meal so he can work. Feed him a second and he has no need to work. Welfare breeds more welfare.
Report Post »walkwithme1966
Posted on November 7, 2010 at 11:20pmWhy is this issue being brought up — this is an old, old issue – is this just to cause further problems between blacks and whites? Actually I am not surprised – same old TeaParty BS –
Report Post »http://maboulette.wordpress.com
Paul G
Posted on November 8, 2010 at 12:04amJeeesh…Dag had it right on the first post. 100 yrs ago you had a kid …you took care of it or gave it up or had relatives take it or ‘killed’ it. Not my fault not your fault…sad? yeah. but just because were more ‘civilized’ now? it’s more better or wronger? It is what it is. All you people ‘against’ abortion…when was the last time you ‘visited’ a foster home? hmmm? Let me ask again…WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU VISITED A KID IN A FOSTER HOME? Yea, that’s what I thought. You REALLY think that kid is alot better off? If you EVER go to a foster home with 10 or 20 unadoptable kids…ask them. I have. You might want to hope you‘d hear a ’feel’ good answer…but you won’t. I’m to the right of Rush, but this is a subject that I know about. People on the ‘right’ can say how much they‘re for the ’unborn’ but…what have we(you) done for them? We(you) make fun of the left driving stupid little cars…and ‘showing ’ how ‘green’ the are. But we(us) on the right can scream all ‘we’ want about abortion and SOUND high and mighty but….REALLY? 7 out of 10 are gonna wind up f***ed up. Is it too bad? Yep. But as we sit here in a house/condo/apt…these ‘kids’ have nothing. But yet YOU people once every couple months can think/say to yourself…”I’m against abortion“ ”I’m a better person” …whew…”that’s over with, and I didn’t even have to wear a stupid ribbon to show that I care” Yea…that’s better. could/would I click my heels and have it not be? YEA! ummmm NO!!!!
Report Post »Is anyone ‘for’ abortion…NO …But if Glenn REALLY wants to talk history…this and other things went on in ‘Our’ founders history …Good? …nope. But….Just sayin
I want to hear from a do gooder…. and how ‘wrong’ I am…am I ‘wrong’? yep..I’ll be the first to admit it..But am I ‘wrong’? nope
LUDWIKA BRONISLAWA
Posted on November 8, 2010 at 12:29amPaul, why are you so hostile? High and mighty much? You have no clue about ANYONE here so go on you holier than thou tyrade somewhere else. Yes, that makes YOU the hypocrite. As for this article, I am glad people are finally standing up and having HONEST discussions about a very complicated issue. A vicious circle has been spinning out of control way too long.
Report Post »Paul G
Posted on November 8, 2010 at 12:44amHostile? High and mighty? are you kidding? or are you high? I’m speaking truth. Not what everyone wants to hear. Slippery slope works on both sides of the hill. Is there right and wrong? yep. But just like my dad said to me 40 yrs ago…you can be ‘dead’ wrong. If somebody is driving on the wrong side of the road…you can either stay your course…cuz hes ‘wrong’ side of the road and you’re right…or you can ‘veer’ off and not get killed.
Report Post »Paul G
Posted on November 8, 2010 at 1:11amLudwika…”You’re glad people are finally standing up and having HONEST discussions about a very complicated issue”. You bet. I am. I WANT a HONEST discussion. Not a “I‘m more ’holier than you” discussion. How do you feel about smoking cigarettes? Prohibit it? Okay…fine. The same amount of people are dead from swallowing scissors than ate/eat carrots….WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Live and let live? or fine people and/or maybe jail people if you don’t like/go along with it?
Report Post »Drinking? legal. You might not like it though. Prohibit it again? Is it good for anybody? I’ll say no…is it up to you to say I can’t…ummmmm….NO! Is there right and wrong? You betcha. But your right and wrong MIGHT be different than your neighbors, relatives, OR MY ‘right and wrong’. Slippery slope.
THAT‘S why I’m a Libertarian. Live and let live.
CatB
Posted on November 8, 2010 at 4:26amThis has become a “career path” for most of the urban community children. Paying children to have children .. generation now after generation.
Report Post »fatpatriot
Posted on November 8, 2010 at 5:21am@walkwithme1966
Report Post »As usual you’re making ridiculous unsubstantiated claims about the Tea Partiers. “further cause problems between black and white?” Really?Her’s some information you may find useful.
http://www.tysknews.com/Depts/pcism/sad_history.htm
ru12
Posted on November 8, 2010 at 5:25amMISSBOSSLADY
Report Post »I have 2 male employees who live with, but can’t [won't] marry their “girlfriend” because the entitlments will dry up. They have to “disappear” for the day when HUD comes for the inspection appointment. I have 3 female employees that are living the same lie. Of my 17 employees only 4 are single and without kids, 2 are married with kids, and 6 are gay and lesbian. What is with the woman in this story who had 4 kids so SHE could feel LOVED?. That aspect of this story sickened me…having children should be about how much love and viability you can offer another human being….which should first pass a test of “can I raise this child to have pride, self reliance, self worth and respect for others?” How can you answer yes to these questions if you raise your child in the welfare system? And I do not think having more money makes for better families. Poor is just fine! No stigma in that! One should, however, have enough to take care of any being one brings into this world.
mrlogan3
Posted on November 8, 2010 at 11:09amYeah, don’t blame welfare, it‘s fathers that don’t stay.
Report Post »Disabledvet
Posted on November 8, 2010 at 11:41amI think it is the poor choice on the womens side, if you sleep with a loser, you get what is coming to you, why would you sleep with someone that has a bad work ethic, a bad support system, maybe even treats you bad, and you still sleep with him, I threatened my now son in law, when my daughter and he started dating, if they had sex, and she got preganant he would marry her, keep a job, support them or I would kill him, that easy. To this day that boy is still deathly scared to do anything stupid. Parents need more involvement I don’t care how old your kids are, be thier support sytem.
Report Post »watchmany2k
Posted on November 9, 2010 at 7:41amYou folks do realize the discussion is moot, or very soon to be, regarding welfare.
The US is beyond bankrupt.
We will be like india, with these children begging in the streets for food.
Thousands if not more will die.
The gap between have and have not will only widen under progressive plans.
It was their intention all along.
When they throw the switch, the remaining children will be scooped up and
indoctrinated into the civil corps, and/or exploited like we have never seen before.
I have high praise for the Dr. in the article, but there is not enough like her in our communities.
With everything else going on, the children will be very low priority. Just look to the 3rd world for your examples. The progressive Evil is hell bent on making us just like it.
It is coming and VERY soon.
Report Post »you will witness unspeakable evil, doubtful any of us will have much power to change it.
We can only pray.