Seems like when there is little real legitimate debate left in politics, we can always count on some folks from the right bringing up that single mothers are what’s wrong with our society. Presidential contender Jeb Bush had to recently defend remarks he made in 1995 that single mothers and fathers should face public shaming for having children out of wedlock.
A fatherless society (what loaded drivel), meant a society of children with limited possibilities and huge issues, he wrote 20 years ago. The problem for this argument to me has always been how I see others and myself as a product of single mothers. I recognize that not everyone is going to have the same experience I had, but I’ve known many other children of single mothers who grew up in satisfying and happy environments, and went on to contribute to society. Every morning I watched my mother get up with the sun to head to work—a nurse anesthesia career she loved. It was that career that took us all over the world and helped pay for my education.
It actually started at St. Mary’s Hospital and the full scholarship my mother received to go to nursing school after she graduated from Tucson High. Probably why I love nurses. Love them. Our home life wasn’t perfect, but neither were the households of kids I grew up with who had both parents. I didn’t meet my father until I was in my 20s, and I certainly wish I had had him in my life as a kid.
However, nope, my mother was an amazing example and continues be in her retirement life as she gracefully ages. And like her, I get up every morning to go to work, a work I love. I’m lucky to have a son who graces my life and I really look forward to a day when we can bury away these ideas that people need to be shamed in order to do what others feel is the right thing. Shame and blame get us nowhere. I know what works, because I saw it growing up—hard work, love, inspiration, creative space and a path to be an independent and free thinker. Let’s go there. It’s a great place to be.
—Mari Herreras
This article appears in Jun 18-24, 2015.
Ms. Herreras,
Want real debate? Stop the cheap shots at Conservatives and read some history.
LBJ’s Aid to Dependent Children (ADC) ruined the black family.
US census research shows in 1950, female-headed households were 18 percent of the black population. Today female-headed households are close to 70% of the black population and young urban black males commit 53% of all US Homicides, according to Holder’s DOJ. Read the FBI Crime statistics and discover how about about 6% of the population (young black males) have engaged in a virtual crime wave for the last few generations. Coincidence? ADC began in 1965.
Now consider the past: One study of 19th-century slave families found that in up to three-fourths of the families, all of the children lived with the biological mother and father. In 1925 New York City, 85 percent of black households were two-parent households. Herbert Gutman, author of “The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925,” states, “Five in six children under the age of six lived with both parents.”
Also, both during slavery and as late as 1920, a teenage girl raising a child without a man present was rare among blacks. A study of 1880 family structure in Philadelphia found that three-quarters of black families were nuclear families (composed of two parents and children). What happened?
FDR and LBJ happened. ADC happened. Welfare happened. Liberals brag about “social safety nets” that made everything better after slavery and discrimination decimated the black family structure.
But reality is a bitch. Read actual statistics.
The facts: 70 years ago there were only slight differences in family structure among American racial groups. Black illegitimacy rate in 1940 was about 14 percent. Black illegitimacy today is over 70 percent; in some cities over 80 percent of black babies are born without a father in the home.
Why was the black family far healthier in the late 1800s and 1900s? Was there less racial discrimination? Were there greater opportunities? Or did the “legacy of slavery” wait three generations to afflict blacks?
The US Census Bureau lists the current poverty rate among blacks at 28.1 percent. But in a significant Census statistic that Liberals like you ever seem to mention, the poverty rate among intact married black families is much less – in fact the poverty rate for black families with a mother and father present has been in single digits for more than two decades – currently it is at 8.4 percent.
Statist delusions of Liberals have harmed American blacks.
Old people have gotten fat and lazy and more depressed and are more of a burden on society ever since we started handing them free money in the form of Social Security checks that they receive.
And ever since we started welfare programs the entire world has gotten worse. Women don’t stay home like they should, gay people are everywhere now, the Twin Towers are gone, Archie and Edith are dead, Doris Day hasn’t had a hit song for awhile, rap music was invented. You get the picture.
Its all gotten bad since LBJ.
B Joe….So I assume you have no plans to age and get old or to collect social security.
What’s your alternative ?
Look at you Bazooka Joe. What’s up with that?
I look forward to reading Editor’s Note. Thanks, Editor, for sharing some of your history with TW readers. A nice tribute to both of your parents, especially your mom.
Hmm… So Conservatives are saying that Bristol Palin is a big part of what’s wrong with our Nation? I can actually agree with that…