[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]dmaddox wrote:
I heard a statistic the other day on a news radio station here in Houston. I did not verify it, but thought oh my Lord. This is from 20 years ago, and with the increase of unwed mothers increasing it is probably a higher percentage today. 80% of inmates come from single mother families.
.[/quote]
I’ve seen an expanded version of a similar study. Fatherless kids dominate basically all non-white collar criminal activity.
It is BRUTAL. The arson numbers were off the charts if I remember correctly. [/quote]
The family is the basic unit of society. When it falls apart, society will pay a price.
Related - Boys need male role models, but so do little girls. I read a statistic once about how men often feel like they are less important in raising daughters, so if there is a divorce, the father is less likely to stay involved. The girl has her mom to be a role model, and he perceives that isn’t needed as much as if there is a son so he’s less likely to stay involved.
This is not true. IMO, a father’s affection and love protects a young girl from seeking that elsewhere. Part of the young single mother problem. Maybe. And how will she know what a good man looks like, if she hasn’t seen how one treats her mother? An involved dad teaches her what to look for when they are trying to find a good man. I credit my relationship with my dad for helping me steer clear of a lot of the pitfalls in terms of relationships with men.
There aren’t easy answers to this, but some of these things have been circling in my head for awhile.
Quite a few of you have mentioned the negatives that have come out of the feminist movement. I’ll agree in part.
BUT - a lot of this stems also from the break down of the traditional family. Women are in many ways given a very confusing message. Imagine that you have a daughter. You know that she may not marry, maybe that opportunity won’t come so she’ll need to support herself through out her lifespan. If she marries and has children, she may end up divorced. Her husband could become disabled or die.
She NEEDS to be educated and be able to take care of herself EVEN if she would ideally like to marry and be at home raising kids. Maybe she’d like to be home raising children for 20 years of her life. It’s a very risky thing to do, to give up your career and earning potential for all of those years when your husband could leave you for a younger woman, after you’ve been home letting your resume collect dust. As Orion likes to point out, her sexual market value isn’t what it used to be. SO - What advice do you give your young daughter? And are we surprised that more women aren’t choosing a traditional role? Some of this could be better if there were less divorce, and less single motherhood.
AND there’s a very mixed message. Traditional women’s roles are not valued in our society. Women who decide to be primarily wives and homemakers describe themselves as “just a mom”. There is an underlying message that intelligent women would do more. That you are somehow not living up to your potential and “being all you can be” if you choose to stay home raising kids. - That this is a collection of menial tasks which we can pay a illiterate non-English speaker to do.
Sorry if this is a tangent, but I think it relates.
Raising kids in this country is changing. More of it is being outsourced to nannys, schools, daycares, etc…