The faces of Poverty (and Politically Incorrect)

[question everything]

Too many of the poorest of the poor are single mothers. Many have never married; many have more than one child, often from different fathers. They have to work long hours thanks to the "welfare reform" and most are stuck in the "female ghetto" of lowe wages.

How much easier it would have been for them not to have children at that particular time of their life. Perhaps they could have finished school, perhaps they could learn a skill..

No, the answer is not the hypocritical "abstinence only" - for any woman. How easy it is for old men (especially before Viagra) and women, with reduced libido, to pontificate to the young that they should abstain from sex. Sex is a basic drive of all creatures and young women used to get married and become mothers at their teens. Just because we define teenagers as "kids" does not suppress the full development of their physiological and anatomical systems.

How much help could we provide by active sexual education, by providing birth control pills - that some pharmacists refuse to sell - and condoms. And, yes, once a woman becomes pregnant, actively offer alternatives, from abortion to adoption.

In 1992 Bill Clinton surged ahead of Bush and Perot by emphasizing personal responsibility. One of the reasons, I think, why McGovern lost big in 1972 was that at that time the Democrats were perceived as the party that embraced the ones with no personal responsibility. I don't know whether this was true, that young girls would get pregnant so that they could get their own apartments, but this was the buzz. Many voters, who believed in the working hard and being rewarded did not take kindly, still do not, to tolerating the slackers, to giving them tax money.

We certainly should not punish the single poor women who do choose to raise their children on their own. But wouldn't we do better by actively educating them of the consequences of unplanned pregnancies? No, let's not pontificate about sex and love. This is an invention of the monotheistic religions (I don't know: do Eastern religion say the same?)

As I mentioned above, sexual drive is as basic as breathing for all creatures. But we can emphasize the hardship of being a single mother, the consequence that would plague that young woman, that girl, for the rest of her life. We can offer her alternatives to building self-esteem than being a mother when she will not be able to support herself and her child.

What a difference we could make, by actively working to reduce single motherhood and the poverty associated with it by education, not by pontification and hypocrisy.

OK, start flaming.

[rfranklin]

1. You'll get better flaming over at FreeRepublic.com....

I don't see anything flammable in your post.

[Warpy]

2. I've always been perplexed by the use of "mother" and "lazy"

in the same sentence. "Irresponsible" fits in there, too. These epithets were hurled at single mothers by men who didn't have a clue that caring for infants and children is backbreaking WORK, that irresponsiblity would have been to birth the kid and throw it into a dumpster, not break one's back trying to raise it to adulthood.

The problem here is that male sense of entitlement to the unpaid labor of women. Because they don't generally do it, and if they do, they don't have to do it, they don't consider it labor. They certainly don't consider it worthy of financial reward or even of basic support unless the child carries their DNA, and often not even then.

Yes, sweeping Ronnie into office was a reaction against Carter's inattention to what inflation had been doing to middle class tax burdens along with a rection against all the social reform of the 60s. However, the basic problem goes a lot deeper than that.

[question everything]

7. In an ideal world, men would be required to share the responsibility

of parenting a child.

But the reality is that women are the ones with the wombs, they are the one who lactate and thus carry more of the responsibility; all of it if the man just disappears.

There is nothing lazy about motherhood, only hard, cold facts. Women still earn less than men, have less opportunities to earn what they are worth because employers still view their first "loyalty" to the kids. If a parent has to stay home with a sick kid, it is often the mother.

[question everything]

8. Self delete, duplicate post

[bluerum]

3. Institutionalized slavery. Thats all it is.

When CEO's can make hundreds and thousands of times more than the workers whose backs they stand on, we have to ask ourselves who is worth that much money? What is the value that is added by this person? Is their understanding of the business world that great?

On another note - what makes the CEO's offspring worthy of a life of entitlement? Why do we pay their way through ivy league schools? Are they more deserving because they have been born into wealth?

It is false to say that in America everyone is equal. It is the urban myth. The popular lie that we are told and expected to believe so that we can plausibly deny reality.

[Union Thug]

4. Poverty can not be boiled down to 'responsibility' or lack thereof...

There is SO much more to the story, including psychological, social and economic factors that must be addressed before even pretending to understand why people end up in a given place in society.

You'll get no flame from me. However, I wouldn't limit the discussion to women or narrow the discussion to reproductive education. I know men of my own generation (40-50 years old) that have worked their asses off, but continue to bounce slightly above to slightly below the poverty line.

[Greyhound]

5. Another example of the shamelessness of what has become amerika.

Sometimes I swear that if I hear/read one more post from the Clinton cult about how great he was and how wonderful the Senator is, I'm going to fucking go off.

AAAAAARRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!

[cornermouse]

6. Something that I've always wondered about single mothers

and the public in general.

If people don't know them personally, how do they differentiate between the single mother who had them out of wedlock, the single mother whose husband abandoned them in an attempt to avoid paying child support, and the single mother who is actually a widow?

The answer, of course, is that people usually leap to conclusions and start judging some people as being less worthy of help than others. What keeps getting lost in all that sorting, shuffling, and judgemental-ing is the fact that the child is the important part of the equation and that punishing the child in order to punish the mother is misplaced and wrong.

[sandnsea]

9. Motherhood as self-esteem

When they've got nothing else to live for, they have children as a sort of validation of their worth and adulthood. Provide free college to everybody and real economic opportunity, you reduce teen pregnancy. When people have real hope of a prosperous and successful life, postponing pregnancy becomes the logical thing to do.

[question everything]

10. Agree. Perhaps not everyone should go to college but certainly

provide vocational and professional courses to that everyone - men and women - can earn a decent living.

The major changes in the middle class happened when we switched from a manufacturing economy to a service one. For young men - mostly - doing with high school education and join parents and uncles in working the factories, joining the union, holding jobs with decent pay, benefits and secure retirement was something that they knew was in the future.

[sandnsea]

11. Man as provider

Is essential in my estimation. People can argue that it's archaic, sexist, whatever, and that's all fine. It still doesn't change the fact that if a young male can't support a family, he has no worth in today's world. When we took all those good jobs away from young men who don't have the ability to go to college, we turned the whole social system upside down. We either need to tell young people the truth about their economic future so they can adjust their expectations, or change the economy so that anybody who works can truly have the American Dream, or at least a piece of it. But to keep promising young people something that isn't going to happen for half the population, we're building a powder keg the likes of which we haven't seen since the revolution.

[Solon]

12. I really hate when people state Bullshit as fact.

Look here:

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-welfareblack.htm