No More Poverty

This article was published, in a local newspaper, several years ago and has been updated for this blog. 

I just love the Heritage Foundation. They do great work. When I die, I think I’ll leave them all my money. The whole $650.

This organization, a think tank in Washington, published a report regarding illegitimacy and welfare and the relationship between the two. This report was from years back but still pertains today. Lo and Behold, Heritage found that young people only need to do three things to avoid poverty: finish high school, get a job (even a low wage job) and have children only within marriage. Real Rocket science, huh?

Few would argue that the availability of welfare has increased the rate of illegitimacy.  When my own two daughters were going through their teens, they might have made different choices if they had been aware of the alternatives available. When they didn’t want to abide by the rules of our home and thought they knew more than their parents, they may have chosen an alternative path. If they had known that if they bore a child, they could have their own place and a check each month with nobody telling them what to do, they might have been tempted. To a rebellious teenager, that might sound enticing.

The National Center for Health Statistics released figures showing that out-of-wedlock births had reached 32.7% but the black out of wedlock birth rate is  77.3%. Staggering!  That figure was 20% in 1960.

Children need and deserve two parents.  The family is responsible for the socialization of children, and when families break down or are never formed, children are severely affected.

This is well documented, but a few facts will put it into perspective.

White girls growing up fatherless are 2 1/2 times more likely to have a child out of wedlock. For a fatherless white child, the chances of finishing high school drop by 40 percent; for a fatherless black child, they drop 70 percent.

Children raised without fathers are at a higher risk in many categories. They are likelier to go to prison, smoke, suffer from drug and alcohol abuse, have psychological problems and commit suicide.

The best predictor for infant mortality is not poverty or improper medical care, but fatherlessness.  Former HHS Secretary, Louis Sullivan, said, “The mortality rate of infants born to college educated but unmarried women is higher than for infants born to married high school dropouts.” This surprised me.

Now I have known many single mothers who have done a wonderful job raising children, most of them turned out very well. There is no denying, however, that the most dedicated single mother cannot replace the need for a father in a young child’s life.

We hear that it’s naive to think that young people will abstain from sex until marriage. For centuries, abstinence was the norm for unmarried individuals in western society. How were they able to accomplish this?

In a healthy society, individuals motivated by their hope for the future rather than instant gratification, must lead the way.