MARILYN PENN: BACK TO THE FIFTIES…STOP GLORIFYING SINGLE MOTHERHOOD
By Marilyn Penn (bio)
http://politicalmavens.com/
The most alarming predictor for the future educational state of American children is the newly released statistic that almost 40% of all births in the U.S. were to unmarried women. 80% of all single parent families are headed by women as are the majority of all families living in poverty. Children raised in these conditions are three times as likely to drop out of high school and be chronically unemployed, prone to psychological disturbance, learning disabilities and criminality. No amount of money spent on improving curricula or diminishing class size can make up for the deficit of a caring father for an economically disadvantaged child. In fact, lack of a father in the home outweighs all other factors as a consistent prognosticator of failure in school.
These sad conclusions have been known to educators, social workers, feminists and policy wonks for a long time, yet the rate of illegitimacy in our country continues to grow and we continue to ignore its implications. Instead of spending millions of dollars publicizing environmental bugaboos that may take centuries to play out, why aren’t we spending our money to alert young women to the cycle of despair that results from single parenthood? With all the marathons for disasters and ribbons for diseases, shouldn’t there be one campaign to support marriage as the best safeguard for educating our children? Isn’t this the sine qua non for good citizenship and stability in life?
Of course marriage is not a guaranteed solution either since more than half now end in divorce. But an epidemiologist, trying to minimize the spread of an epidemic, would hone in on the most salient risk factors that could be controlled. If vaccines were available, they would be prescribed. Marriage is a type of vaccine for child-rearing; if effective, it lessens the likelihood of school failure and gives children the best shot at a secure economic and psychological grounding. Perversely, feminists have heralded single women and single mothers as if most of them enjoyed the same privileges as Hollywood celebrities. Michelle Obama should know that childhood obesity is most prevalent in poor families, the same ones most prone to having no father and no educational success. It might be effective if she would urge young women to get their priorities straight: get educated, get married, get pregnant, then serve veggies.
We succeeded in getting people to pooper scoop their dogs, to stop smoking, to become more tolerant of homosexuals, to elect a black president. It is possible to alter social behavior in dramatic ways. We need to stop glorifying single motherhood in the movies and media, to stop idolizing promiscuous athletes, to start promoting the return to the traditional mores of respecting marriage. In South Korea, the incidence of births to single women was 1.6%, and of that number, 70% of the children were put up for adoption. This is a tribute to their cultural imperatives. The Bush administration instituted “no child left behind,†a slogan that can never succeed without a more fundamental one taking precedence. Perhaps the Obama administration will have the courage to revert to the temper of the Eisenhower days and start calling for the essential bedrock for eradication of the underclass via success in school. Let’s hear it: “Two married parents for every child.â€
Comments are closed.
