“It used to be called illegitimacy. Now it is the new normal.”
The New York Times has an article on the large increase in illegitimate births to women under 30 (via Newsalert):
LORAIN, Ohio — It used to be called illegitimacy. Now it is the new normal. After steadily rising for five decades, the share of children born to unmarried women has crossed a threshold: more than half of births to American women under 30 occur outside marriage. …
Among mothers of all ages, a majority — 59 percent in 2009 — are married when they have children. But the surge of births outside marriage among younger women — nearly two-thirds of children in the United States are born to mothers under 30 — is both a symbol of the transforming family and a hint of coming generational change.
The article has an interview with one woman who said that her pregnancies were “unplanned and a byproduct of relationships lacking commitment.” The article mentions that men are “worth less” since their earnings are not as good as they used to be and women are earning more. I wonder how this will play out in the courts? Will more men, especially poor ones end up in jail as a result of not being able to support these kids or will women simply pick up the slack?
This post goes well with another post I read this morning where a woman (girl?) is wishing she lived in a society like the Mosuo tribe in China where they have a matriarchal system and “Walking Marriages” where the women sleep with partners when they want and with whoever they want..
The woman muses, “What would society think if a woman just slept with different partners all her life so that she could feel in love all the time?” That’s what it’s all about, I suppose, a woman feeling like she’s in love all the time.
She apparently fails to see the Mosuo advantages for men. Men never live with their sex partners and get to have as many as they want also. Biological fathers have no responsibility for the children, no child support, etc. Men don’t get married, hence, don’t lose anything in divorce. No nagging wife, so screaming babies, no costly divorces, lots of sex partners, sounds pretty good to me.
Fascinating article on that matriarchal tribe in China:
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=130332&page=1#.T0BqT22a-So
I imagine there are many reasons why they’re a primitive tribe and we’re a civilization. Stable families and the ability to postpone gratification are probably among them.
I’m glad you posted this. I saw the article in this morning’s Raleigh News & Observer – heavily edited to fit available space. The full NYT article is even more disturbing – on many levels.
To address your question, I note that one woman in the article was quoted, “Women used to rely on men, but we don’t need to anymore,” said Teresa Fragoso, 25, a single mother in Lorain. “We support ourselves. We support our kids.”
Do you suppose that quote would hold up in court?
It is clear that I live in a different world than the NYT authors, who wrote,
“college graduates, who overwhelmingly marry before having children. That is turning family structure into a new class divide, with the economic and social rewards of marriage increasingly reserved for people with the most education.”
Morons. The rewards are not ‘reserved’ for those with the most education. The rewards accrue to those who have the wisdom, discipline and character to make a marriage work. College education does not confer those traits, although it may be a marker for them. Reynolds’ Law comes to mind here.
They also write, “Money helps explain why well-educated Americans still marry at high rates: they can offer each other more financial support, and hire others to do chores that prompt conflict.”
Did any of your single-parent acquaintances ever say to you, “We would have gotten married, but we just couldn’t afford a housekeeper.”
Another troubling issue is that women can in fact have children (and in theory always could) without getting married OR acting immorally, via insemination. This sort of modern “virgin birth” avoids the usual religious issues, but it still means there is no father in the house, with the accompanying problems, as per Ann COulter’s “Guilty”.
Also, perhaps women could be less shallow, and not worry about who makes more money? What happened to the dignity of labor, anyway?
(None of this is personal. I live in a completely different culture.)
Two words: Humanae Vitae.
Pay close attention to the first sentence of Section 12.
If you need further explication of why artificial insemination of human beings is considered immoral by one of the world’s largest religious bodies, here’s a book that puts it all in simple terms.
History, my history, is my starting place on the map of a lifetime. That map may be the most accurate, detailed map (intelligence, pleasant personality, good looks, etc.), but it doesn’t matter where I want to end up on that pretty map of opportunities/goals if I don’t know my starting place on that map (who I am as a person, man or woman, who I am as a citizen, who I am as an eternal soul, what my personal responsibilities are to others around me, etc.). The map is WORTHLESS if I haven’t a clue where I am on that map. All of things my family IS locates me, orients me to where I am on the map, which then allows me to find a place to go to, and a route to get there.
Breaking up families, as well as all of the life orientation received thereby (including the moral grounding which defines my relationship to Creator and thus to my fellow man)is an important step in the overthrow of democracy, as those who don’t know who they are or where they come from are most easily directed by tyranny. The loss of a distinct social culture and its universal mores and values is the loss of that country/civilization. The nuclear family is the initial foundation upon which ALL countries/civilizations are built, and without that nuclear family foundation ALL cultures fall. NO EXCEPTIONS.
More men will end up in jail for having been raised without the moral underpinnings and visible positive examples that place them on a map that has a beginning and an ending, and sense of personal responsibility in their society. No personal responsibility, direction, or family loyalty equals anti-social behavior and jail or death early…and subsequent actions toward fellow citizens are all byproducts of dissociation from society in lack of a sense of personal responsibility. The more widespread this trend becomes the more a growing tyranny must FORCE behavior by legislation and harsher punishments, and greater limitation of freedoms.
What is the cost to society (i.e., those who actually pay taxes) for the new normal? It’s the horrible conundrum. Do we condemn the children who are “unplanned and a byproduct of relationships lacking commitment” to a life of deprivation by withholding social services, or do the taxpayers subsidize/reward the women who get pregnant by making it easier for them to avoid the consequences of not planning?
@: ” The article mentions that men are “worth less” since their earnings are not as good as they used to be and women are earning more.”
__________
I think this is revealing. First, when men make more than women there are cries of oppression, yet when women make more than men there are complaints that men don’t make more. Either way, they are damned.
Second, and more importantly, it implies that the only real value in fathers is the economic support they can provide to mothers. This is utterly and completely false, as children without involved fathers grow up to be lousy adults and even criminals at rates that far exceed a child who gets what a father provides.
A society whose “most enlightened” people are such appallingly ignorant is in trouble.
Oh, yes. Oh, yes. The only reason the man needs to make a lot of money is if the woman plans to stay home with the kids. Otherwise, what difference does it make?
Reminds me of Kathy S.’s (?) column about men who have jobs with a nametag. Why is serving someone hamburgers making less of a contribution to society than being some sort of executive? This brainwashing of half the population into the necessity of a career hurts in more than one way.
(None of this is personal. I am a proffession programmer, and live in a different culture.)
Back when nobody could accurately assess the parentage of a baby, the law had no choice but to assign all rights and responsibility of raising the child to the mother. That has changed.
Today, with inexpensive DNA tests, one can be be certain beyond all reasonable doubt who the biological father is. So the question remains: now that we know who the fathers are with good certainty, what assumptions were based upon the former situation?
Going further, we used to have marriages to keep these situations from getting out of hand. A marriage was for procreation and raising children. It was a matter of rights to those children who were considered an asset and useful (for working on a farm).
Today the children are a liability and since we know precisely who the parents are (even if the biological mother did not bear the child), the question becomes what is marriage? We have split the atom of a nuclear family to such an extent that parents routinely shuffle their kids back and forth and trade responsibilities in a legal manner as if the kids are hot potatoes.
So now we look back fondly at family structures and we have to wonder where such liberalism has taken us. The problem is that we can’t go back. We have let the genie out of the bottle. Sex outside of marriage is routine. What have we committed to?
What is a marriage for any more?
Well, history is nto a straight line. There are societies, even in the US, where thigns are still pretty much on a 1950′s basis. We will see what develops. But the short term looks scary.
P.S. In Israel where I live, the norm is that they live together and stay together, then get married before have children. (I am not referring to religious people; Judaism prohibits ANY physical contact before marriage, yes, even holdign hands.) The illegitamacy rate is only about 5%, and we are one of the few Western countries that is growing naturally, even without the Arabs.
A couple of differences – I believe that if you live together you are treated as married for most purposes, and the rabbinate (no secular marriage/divorce) does not make it very easy to get divorced, especially if there are children. (There is still a lot of divorce, though.)
Men should refuse to pay for children they are not living with. The women are just using children as a scam to enslave men these days. Today’s women do not deserve support.
Men should offer to take the children and raise them if the mothers cannot afford to. If they are instead told the mother keeps the child, the home, and its furnishing if they exist and the man just gets the bills and supervised visits if it can be proven he isn’t a child molester, men should refuse and become prisoners of conscience. The pols will quickly be faced with having to choose between filling prisons with “deadbeat dads” or violent criminals and get stuck with the bill for an army of single women looking for party and dope money and to feed their live in boyfriend.
Forcing the system to failure is the only way to save men from this oppression. If enough men refuse to play and pay, it will collapse.
sorry, buddy, this already happens. and with horrible consequence to the children…
you have to remember that these are your children, who you would live, fight and die for. It is sad, that they can use that protection to force you to do some things, but are you willing to allow them to change your basic nature just to prove a point already lost on them? My children are becoming adults, and they have acknowledged full well the stuff their mother pulled. To me that’s worth something.
And? when the younger leaves the house, her mother will be 50 and has long since not worked a career oriented job. At that point she will be SOL. Doesn’t seem to have dawned on her yet.
Sorry, Old Guy is correct. The learn the racket at an early age, and serial donors/supporter is very much the norm. Men’s rights are ignored, they are only good for one thing: $$$.$$ per month per child. The kids always lose.
D -
Well said! I’ve been there, done that, and my kids bring their kids to visit me, not her.
It’s very interesting how things have shifted. My mother is a “dyed in the wool Democrat,” and would just die if I described her as a conservative. But she would never have accepted me having a child out of wedlock or even long term cohabiting. In fact, when I got engaged a couple years ago at 20, my mother’s friends were shocked and scolded her for allowing it. My mother would protest, “Well she met a wonderful man. What are they supposed to do–live together without being married?”
It took several explanations on my part that yes, that is what “they” expected, before she believed me. I think my mother doesn’t realize how much things have changed in America.
Men can now sue for custody and alimony?
In one society (Polynesian, IIRC) some long ago course covered, the women had sex with any and all they wanted. As a result, no man never knew which children in the next generation was his (if any), including the children of his wife leaving the men no reason to support the children of their wives.
The only children in the next generation that a man KNEW shared some of his genes were the children of his sister(s). Interstingly, the social norm was that a man had to provide for the children of his sister(s) and NOT the children of his wife. In fact, a man who failed to adequately support the children of his sister(s) was poorly regarded and might get no sex partners at all!
Those sisters and brothers must have the same mother, not the same nominal father. That arrangement is true in most societies which are matrilocal, meaning that the husband & wife live with/near the wife’s family. In those societies, “marriage” basically means guaranteed sexual access to a woman of breeding age.
Does that qualify as “too much information”?
Are you referring to Margaret Mead’s Somoan study? It’s accuracy has been disputed.
I was not referring to M. Mead.
The relationships I described are one variation of a matri-lineal system. For example, see the last paragraph of 3.1.4 here:
http://www.dol.govt.nz/research/migration/pdfs/FamilyStructures.pdf
From a man and a woman come children. Every child is a miracle, for where there once was not a life, there now is; and there is more than the flesh and blood of the combined cells, for there is also the inexplicable animation and awareness of life, and not all clones of one another either but individual and irreplacible – unique, and the eyes are windows to a soul in each. These parents and children live together and love one another in a way that can only be learned through bonds of absolute attachment and dependance, a family bond. The children grow and themselves marry, thus uniting their family with other families as allies at least, if not loving friends. New miracles are born into the family as the parents become grandparents, and they take on their new duties ,not as seeing to the daily care and needs of the children but providing the extra love in quiet moments, in passing on wisdom and history and in looking to the future and the security of the greater family. Several families living in one place are a village, and several or many villages bound by marriages and kinship are a tribe, and a great and successful tribe becomes a nation. If the bonds of family are destroyed and the individuals become atomized, what will become of the nation and the survival of its people? We who use sex for nothing more than recreation and marriage for nothing more than to legitimate perverse desire, who think that a woman with children does not need a man, and that a man can be a father as long as he drops in once in a while and gives her a little money, or that a nation can be strong without strong families, and are all preoccupied with who pays alimony and who gets the children on weekends, and what hollywood man as just married what other Hollywood man, or donkey or whatever, and what now-famous child of some perverse lifestyle has just ended her personal miracle with an overdose of heroine or a bullet to the brain, and whose myriad little children see nothing wrong with those besotted and lost lifestyles and so every day are giving birth to their own soon-to-be-tragic miracles – we are like Wiley Coyote who has run off a cliff and just for a moment is suspended above a distant canyon floor.
I completely agree with you. The phrase “the new normal” could be used for anything, good or bad. “Normal” is not an adjective of praise. It’s just whatever slop happens to be going around.
I’ll say one thing for sure, from a lifetime of 65 years: Boys need and want fathers. If they are raised by “single moms,” they will go find a father-surrogate for sure, and hate their “single moms” into the bargain.
This is not the “new normal,” it’s the “new abnormal.”
Will more men end up in jail for essentially a “civil offense” instead of a real crime? Not likely in California where the jails are over flowing and now expecting more bodies from their state prisons after the 9th circuit court ruled their prison health care quality is unconstitutional. Oh, and California can’t afford to jail the current baby rapers much less the future dead beat males still living at home when not out mindlessly doing the bunga bunga with those smart ladies.
Calling this alarming rise in illegitimate births “the new normal” is just shockingly superficial.
Hear it now: Everybody has rights, nobody has responsibilities.
If many of us could just watch all of this from a distance without any of the ramifications affecting us or those we have ourselves raised, it would be a hoot. Dumbing down sure has worked.
One of the things I like best about Dr. Helen’s posts is the way they stand up for men — in an era, unfortunately, where not many writers do that. I don’t have anything to add on this topic because Dr. Helen always says it better than I could, but I would like to comment on a related subject.
A recently published academic study concludes increased access to contraceptives has unintended negative consequences, including increases in teen pregnancy and other behaviors that can become sexual habits — the authors call it “persistence in sexual activity.” I’m confident this won’t be the last word on the subject but it could contribute to why more single women under 30 are having children.
Now THAT is funny in a sad way. There’s this Dead White Guy who said exactly the same thing 44 years ago, and everyone made fun of him. Many still do.
“17. Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.”
I don’t know. There’s enough of them that shame has gone out the window.
We lived in an apartment complex when we first had children. There were three single mothers living nearby when we left. There was one- we were friends. Then she made friends with the other ones that moved in. They would make fun of me for being a big “baby” for staying home- I was taking care of our sons- two little boys under the age of two, nursing on demand, etc etc etc. I’d take them to museums, parks, zoos, public attractions, things in the city, every last single day of the week- church on sunday, choir on wednesday. Yes, my husband worked for pay- I worked to keep our children alive, healthy, enriched, and loved beyond measure.
They also made fun of me- they were getting ready for dates on Friday night, while I was at home making dinner for the kids. My husband would be late- he was working 18 hour days at a tech firm. I said ” Hey, he loves us- he wouldn’t work like this, at this place, if he didn’t love us above all others.” They teased me for being a stick in the mud, for not dating, for not cheating on him….
Personally, I am really okay with starving single mothers. They tried to take apart our family.
I was so happy when we were able to move to a neighborhood with houses. The houses were filled with married couples with children, who were involved in school, kids activities, and church. I could breathe again. My kids could have friends where there were dads at the house.
With the rise in antibiotic-resistant Gonorrhea, when 51% of people are infected, will this be the new normal, as well?
Many of the young men have decided not to be successful. They have realized that they can provide for their minimal needs with part-time work. They have figured out that the game is rigged against them and so aren’t playing. They have watched their fathers slave away for a woman that spurned them or put in debtor’s prison for the crime of marriage, and will have nothing to do with it. The system of divorce and child support, transferring billions monthly from the fathers to the mothers, cannot take from someone who has nothing to begin with, so these young men have nothing.
Congratulations, women. You’ve won. Get to work.
I know a bunch of single moms. “To address your question, I note that one woman in the article was quoted, “Women used to rely on men, but we don’t need to anymore,” said Teresa Fragoso, 25, a single mother in Lorain. “We support ourselves. We support our kids.””
Not one of the single moms I know, not one, is supporting their kids. In every case, the taxpayer is, which means me. So, in addition to supporting my wife and children, I get to support someone else’s children and lifestyle.
I’m a Boy Scout leader. There a re a few kids with single moms in the troop. They spend a lot of time on trips trying to get the attention of myself and the other adult leaders present on those trips. I skipped Cub Scouts for my youngest male child; the local pack is overwhelmed with single moms trying to get an adult male authority figure into their children’s lives. And, they are notoriouslt unreliable in event planning- filing to show up for meetings or special events. I hear the complaints from the pack leaders all the time. I fully appreciate them for the task they undertook that I wouldn’t.
I found out recently that in NY, the “needy” who need a car can get a grant for a used car from the state (or perhaps county or local) government. One of the single moms I work with got a $4000 used car grant when her old car quit on her. No public transport, she needs one to get to work. So do I. When mine quit recently, I got a loan for a new one that I’m paying back. And, I’m paying for hers. As are you. Yep, I love the welfare state. BTW, this particular single mom is caucasian. Pregnant for 3rd time, with third father. She has been married twice- she’s all of 23. Chooses badly, apparently.
We could cure single motherhood within a year. Get rid of WIC, AFDC, subsidized child care, and all other direct transfer programs. Cold turkey is the only way to do it. Within months, out of wedlock births would drop like the proverbial rock, albeit with a short term miniature explosion in abortions. Within a year, you’d see a whole lot more young woman picking the marriage route of life before having kids. A married partner is a lot more reliable then a child support check.
“Not one of the single moms I know, not one, is supporting their kids.”
When I read the story, I assumed that’s how these women are “supporting” their kids as well. As long as they don’t have to ask the baby daddy for anything, it’s all good, right?
Amber Strader, of Lorain, Ohio, described her pregnancies as largely unplanned, a byproduct of relationships lacking commitment.
====
There used to be a name for that kind of woman. It was not nice and it was well deserved.
Somehow, despite the fall in morals of both men and women, it always seems to be men who face the consequences or go to jail or anything of that sort. Ultimately, if this continues, the day is not far off when muslims invade and sharia becomes the norm since men will lose interest in defending anything american or western and the whole of society is just a society of instant gratification with no regards for the consequences and no focus to achieve anything in life. At least, sharia provides for punishment for females as well and not like current western society where the only people who are punished are men no matter what.
This is the culmination of everything the feminists wanted: to push the father out of the family entirely, reducing him to a wallet from which they can demand alimony and “child support” (not really child support; just using the children as pawns to extract more money from the husband.)
If you’re worried about him not supporting the children, let him have the children, or better yet, stay married to him.
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