A fine reflection on the importance of fathers by Kyle Pruett.
One of the great tragedies of the leviathan state is that in America it has replaced the father for many families. Single parenthood (almost always female) is always a struggle, and has become an epidemic. For black kids, 80% are born out of wedlock. For whites, it's 30% and growing.
Sometimes single moms succeed, but that is despite the absence of a father, which always weighs heavily on kids (and moms).
We need to protect the poor without driving men out of families. There are no easy answers, but those on the left who genuinely want to help struggling families need to realize that government largesse too often replaces, rather than supplements, the father. They should also come to grips and admit the incalculable damage that the welfare state has already done to millions of children.
Growing up without a father is usually a very bad thing for all concerned. It breeds generations of sorrow and anger.
One of the great tragedies of the leviathan state is that in America it has replaced the father for many families. Single parenthood (almost always female) is always a struggle, and has become an epidemic. For black kids, 80% are born out of wedlock. For whites, it's 30% and growing.
Sometimes single moms succeed, but that is despite the absence of a father, which always weighs heavily on kids (and moms).
We need to protect the poor without driving men out of families. There are no easy answers, but those on the left who genuinely want to help struggling families need to realize that government largesse too often replaces, rather than supplements, the father. They should also come to grips and admit the incalculable damage that the welfare state has already done to millions of children.
Growing up without a father is usually a very bad thing for all concerned. It breeds generations of sorrow and anger.
A happy father's day to you, Mike. Hope you have a fun, full, and safe day with the family, mate. Same goes to all the dad's, step dad's, foster dads, and granddads out there!
ReplyDeleteI agree that this is a huge problem. The question is how do you deal with it?
ReplyDeleteThe decisions of the single moms themselves are responsible for the entire situation. The vast majority of single moms get pregnant and have the baby knowing full well they are destined for single motherhood. The attitude almost seems to be one of baby entitlement. I’ve actually her single moms say the wanted a kid so they would feel important, and have someone who would love them no matter what. Knowing that the State will guarantee that the kids are housed and fed certainly contributes to their decisions. I don’t think any reasonable person could conclude otherwise.
Should the State say no more assistance money for having kids? Perhaps no additional assistance money for children after your first? Should the state allow more children to go to bed or school hungry or live on the street?
What about other factors like harsh sentencing laws that lock away huge numbers of men, and can ruin their prospects of ever being good potential mates in the future? Or perhaps employment programs and a decent minimum wage that would allow low skilled works to do more than barley keep themselves housed and fed? Or an emphasis on education in order to increase the earning potential of would-be parents?
Conservatives, ironically, advocate a Darwinian approach that leverages hunger and exposure and child suffering to change peoples breeding habits. There is much that can and should be done to change this situation, but it’s going to be complicated and hard unless all you want to do is let children suffer.
Happy Father's Day
-KW
The details of the actual policies needed to improve things can be debated. The large cut-back in welfare in the 1990's was very effective and did not harm children-- if anything, it seemed to make their lives better, despite the hysterical warnings from the Left.
DeleteThe basic problem with destruction of poor families has been the replacement of the father with the government. We can debate methods, but we all know what the problem is, and we all know who caused it.
Full employment, with lowering taxes, especially on business, getting rid of the minimum wage so low skill people could still find jobs (and perhaps supplementing working people's salary to help make ends meet), and restricting illegal immigration which takes jobs from low-skilled Americans are places to start.
DeleteThe welfare state has incentivized the destruction of the family.
ReplyDeleteFor example: What is a single parent with three children eligible to receive from the state and federal governments in a given year, working a part time job at minimum wage living in Florida (a relatively benefit-frugal state)?
"Free and subsidized benefits include: housing, welfare, utilities, telephone, school breakfast and lunches, child care, medical care, food stamps, commissary food, prescription and non-prescription medications, education, education testing, and refundable tax credits.
"All of these benefits are in excess of $47,000 per year, exceeding the poverty level in Florida by 200 percent." Source
Among the multigenerational underclass in America, the government has quite deliberately replaced fathers. In fact, in an echo of bigamy laws, you can't invite the government in until the man is gone.
ReplyDeleteSince 1965, when Lyndon Johnson undertook the largest vote-buying program in the history of the planet, aka the "War on Poverty", we have spent almost ten trillion dollars. And the problem is worse now, much worse, than it was then.
This is a Progressive failure on a cataclysmic scale. And one of the problems with Progressives is their denial of obvious reality. Whether it's Goebbel Warming, poverty, or the "recovery", Progressives cling to their dreams of Redemption...
As someone famous once said, "It's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to stimulus spending or gun control or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-Christian sentiment or anti-capitalist sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
Bitter clingers is what they are.
And they have destroyed the family in the lowest economic quintile and now they are hard at work on destroying it in the other four.