I like Clint Eastwood but... - Page 4

If unwed mother rates went up during the time Reagan was president, it is not his doing. The social moralty stigma connected to sexual activity that was rejected and resulted in out of wedlock pregnancies, can not be borne on the shoulders of a political party. That is nonsense.

The point is that Prager wants to blame unwed mothers on welfare and food stamps but during Reagan's years social programs faced budget cuts but instead of reducing unwed births they went way up.

With that said, during those years you also had the intensification of the drug war, the CIA looking the other way when it came to drug dealers bringing drugs into the cities (I believe the Kerry report verified that), and disproportionate drug crime sentencing.

Those factors, combined with the cuts in social programs, created more poverty and poverty is ultimately the reason for the negative issues associated with unwed mothers we see in the inner cities.

There was a period in time when the idea of multiple daddy births was being exploited and crowed as a kind of pride and for qualifying for child benefits that resulted in a steady govt check.

Still, these pregnancies and births by multiple partners who wouldn't remain to parent were not and can not be politicized. It was simply how the system of benefits was understood by those most likely to use them and how that was used to their best advantage.

I support certain programs that seek to be a bridge to engage change and other services, involving participation of teen fathers who are parents, so I know there is support and hope for change.

It's a myth that poor black women were/are getting pregnant in order to get benefits. It's because of poverty and all of the social ills that go with it. It isn't benefits>dysfunctional culture>unwed mothers>poverty but poverty>dysfunctional culture>unwed mothers>benefits. The benefits addressed the problem, they didn't create it. And the poverty is linked to racism.

This feminist slogan may sound 'old fashioned' on 2016... but "the personal IS political". There is no way one should dismiss 'fashions' in whatever happens in human relations - like the 'baby daddy' thing - as divorced from the politics with a small 'p' of human society. And they ARE the politics of all human society. The sort of expansion in single mothers v. availability of welfare benefits did not just happen in the US, it has been paralelled in the UK and other places - all different circumstances, different Governments, of different colours, but it still occurs.

So, unwed teenagers managing to get themselves pregnant were really just thinking about politics!

 LMAO

https://singlemotherguide.com/single-mother-statistics/

 

Certainly, the one's who understand the welfare system the best, are the one's who use it. I couldn't begin to tell you about specific entitlements, but I know certain relationship by marriage, low-lifes that got that system, down pat. They couldn't give a whoop about politics.

OK children born out of wedlock are just as well off as children born to married parents.
SMH.
And beetree yes "They couldn't give a whoop about politics." yet they vote and how do they vote? >mostly Democratic. That is the point.

Looks to me, if single mother households are the new norm, even for those living in poverty, it isn't racism but sexism that is the culprit. Check out the statistics on the single mom link and you will find the pay disparity is between the sexes, first.

@Prager- Dems are actually for all people, they just don't promote strict conservativism or strict gender roles in traditional families.  Not sure where you got that they weren't for families or all people.  The disparate incarceration rates for minorities, the policies of older presidencies to force minorities into projects and inner cities where there are a serious lack of education and opportunities caused much of what is going on today.  Tell me if you have NO other options to feed you family, you wouldn't resort to crime.

@Beetree, as a single mother, I can see the difference in treatment of single mothers vs. family men.  Thank goodness for unions.  I saw single mothers who had to take time off for sick children treated entirely different than fathers who had to take time off for sick children.  Single mothers, and me, were told to find a nice man and stay home to take care of the children, men were told good job, glad your kids are important.

The reason birth rates went up in the Regean years was the absolutely stupid policy of teaching abstinance only and not teaching about reproductive health and birth control.  If schools mention anything other than abstinance, they lose funding.  Talk about religion dictating what is thought of as comprehensive education.  I have no problem with religion in schools as long as all religions and the choice to not believe are respected and the sciences are taught not that goofy intelligence design or creationism which is pure religion without any science backing. 

 

The problem with trying to make a connection between welfare benefits and unwed mothers is that it ignores thousands of years of human history as well as what is going on globally today. Families have had more children than they can afford probably since the beginning of humanity. Poor people have always out bred wealthier people. How many of us have seen footage from somewhere in Africa where there is a famine and wondered why people would continue to make babies knowing that they are going to starve to death. This holds true for any poor place on earth.

Some young woman who has multiple children and is on welfare would probably have made the same poor decisions regardless. It isn't that an existence based on entitlements is a choice that is the problem; it's that there are people who will end up "choosing" it based on their poor judgment and lack of alternatives be they perceived or real.

People can criticize the democrats for supporting entitlements that only serve to maintain a status quo of a permanent underclass, it was an underclass before welfare came into the picture, but what's the alternative that the republicans offer? Start cutting people off so their children go hungry? It's not like all of these people on welfare, of whatever race, will suddenly find that they have in demand job skills and educations to get decent jobs with a livable wage. It's not like some of them will suddenly become people who have a sense of accountability and will have proper parenting skills. A good number of these people are lost causes and will never be productive members of society and will never be competent parents. Screwing their kids over is not the answer. It will take an actual investment in order to set things right but if the republicans have a problem with spending what we spend now on the poor then I doubt they will spend more in order to get a lot of poor people off the welfare cycle. If they don't believe that the government owes a good number of poor people the effort, and money, it will take to increase the possibility that their children, at least, will not be doomed to a life of poverty then what should we expect to change? And the government does owe them because the ghettos and trailer parks didn't create themselves. Poor whites and blacks have been victims of the government for years.

Even today they are victims as the image of the welfare mom or welfare queen is a black woman. There are more whites on welfare but they are invisible. It's portrayed as a race issue instead of a colorblind poverty issue. So blacks get all of the backlash for being on welfare and those poor whites are ignored by the government and politicians when it comes to the "evils" of welfare. But, those same poor whites are used by the politicians who make them view poor blacks as somehow being different from them. Politicians have encouraged hatred between poor blacks and whites to the detriment of both.