Almost half of all babies born in the U.S. are born to unmarried mothers. That's not good for children, says progressive economist Melissa Kearney in her new book, The Two-Parent Privilege.
"Almost half of all babies born in the U.S. were born to unmarried women in 2019, a dramatic increase since 1960, when only 5% of births were to unmarried mothers.
...data shows that the odds of graduating from high school, getting a college degree and having high earnings in adulthood are substantially lower for children who grow up in single-mother homes.
Kearney is especially worried about boys falling behind and no role models around them."
Kearney says she wants to grab the attention of both conservatives who say they care about children's well-being and progressives reluctant to talk about family structures, because the link between single parenting, inequality and mobility in America is too strong to deny.
This last paragraph is the most important.
This is basically the GOPs fault. 40+ years of trickle down economy. No money for schools, healthcare and other important things.
I think "progressive" ideals have certainly created this. In the drive toward equality for women, many people have devalued the traditional family. In the drive for equity for African Americans, many have demonized the traditional family.
Don't forget that the conservatives in our country want to legally force single motherhood on women. They will restrict contraceptives next if allowed to stay in power and also continue to ignore male moral and fiscal responsibility for impregnations.
If you read the article, it's more to the point of lower income range women looking across the dating table at men from the same social circles and saying, "no thanks"!
It's far less about left v right and far more about economic status. I'm a Dem and have been married for almost 28 years. Everyone in my social circle is the same in that regard. I teach in a pretty low income, Trumpy area. Lots of single mom Make America Great types around here just like there are lots of single mom "welfare queens" as one of our former presidents referred to them living in black areas.
You know what the stable families around here tend to have in common? Income stability. Stable families tend to produce kids who graduate high school and pursue post secondary education (not just college, could be skilled trades). Unstable families tend not to do so well. I've been seeing this with my own eyes for the past 25 years.
So what are the percentages when controlling for socioeconomic status?
I think people like to ignore that a lot of this is a symptom of poverty. But its more fun to blame things like pop music and 'culture'.
I will say though as a son of a single mother I do believe that feminism, particularity coming out of the 70's pushed a lot of mothers into believing a father is a unnecessary component of a complete family. For my mom, this was also very much brought on by therapy.
Don't forget that the conservatives in our country want to legally force single motherhood on women. They will restrict contraceptives next if allowed to stay in power and also continue to ignore male moral and fiscal responsibility for impregnations.
Out of wedlock birth rates were far lower before Roe and before widespread availability of contraceptives. Back then, there was community pressure to get married if a woman became pregnant (now we are confused about what a woman is), people had fewer sexual partners and there was a stigma surrounding being born out of wedlock. The current out of wedlock birth rate has huge economic repercussions and will continue to fuel the divide between the haves and the have nots. Republicans didn’t create this crisis. Democrats did with their free love, free drugs, imagine there’s no heaven or religion philosophies and policies.
I'm a man with two young kids who had to make the difficult decision to file for divorce. I wish the author had dug into this idea and expanded on it a bit more, particularly the aspects of mistreatment and shared household responsibilities:
Kearney says she's not advocating that children live in a household filled with marital tension or where parents are unhappy or mistreating each other. As an economist, she sees marriage as a long-term contract between two individuals to pool their resources and share household responsibilities, including raising children. Two is greater than one. The genders of the parents are irrelevant.
I tell myself the kids will be better growing up in a stable environment at my house instead of living in a home filled with tension where the parents are modeling unhealthy relationship dynamics; however, I also struggle with the knowledge that they'll be financially disadvantaged, at least in the short term, until I can dig us out of the hole that we've been put in. I'm going to hang my hat on the fact that the kids seem to be adjusting as well as can be expected, but there are still times I wonder if this is the right thing and what the long-term effects on my son and daughter will be.
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