It's up to parents to provide an example for their kids, and instill the values that are necessary for success (hard work, determination, commitment, etc).

Monkeyboy wrote:

Werthless wrote:These are the graphs that most troubling... it's poor, uneducated women and men who are having kids out of wedlock, when a stable marriage is a positive predictor of your future success. The parenting gap explains 40%(!) of the cognitive gap between children at age 4. Link to Atlantic article

Education policy, which is one avenue through which the cycle of poverty can be broken, is only 1 piece of the puzzle. It's up to parents to provide an example for their kids, and instill the values that are necessary for success (hard work, determination, commitment, etc).

It's funny because we talk about these issues a good bit in my environmental science class because they affect the environment so much. To get down birth rate, which would certainly help these issues, you use contraception, reduce poverty, reduce child mortality, and provide education and equal rights to women. It hasn't been the magic bullet in Africa due to a host of other factors (colonialism, corruption, war, outside exploitation by huge corporations, etc) , but it's worked pretty much everywhere else. So, more money for family planning, education (especially for women), and a real attack on poverty rather than what's been done so far, would be the way I'd go.

Werthless wrote:These are the graphs that most troubling... it's poor, uneducated women and men who are having kids out of wedlock, when a stable marriage is a positive predictor of your future success. The parenting gap explains 40%(!) of the cognitive gap between children at age 4. Link to Atlantic article

Education policy, which is one avenue through which the cycle of poverty can be broken, is only 1 piece of the puzzle. It's up to parents to provide an example for their kids, and instill the values that are necessary for success (hard work, determination, commitment, etc).

Again, it's pretty clear to me that the increase in out of wedlock births has a lot to do with the decline of labor unions and various Republican policies based on the idea that women who have sex out of wedlock ought to be punished, especially if they're poor.

But days after the fall of House Speaker Gordon Fox amid a dramatic raid of his State House office by state and federal investigators, Rhode Island is awash in unbridled speculation about what the longtime lawmaker might have done.Fox’s political tumble was startlingly swift. With no public warning Friday, agents from the Rhode Island State Police, US attorney’s office, FBI, and the criminal investigation division of the Internal Revenue Service swarmed the speaker’s office, told employees to step outside, and then hauled away boxes of potential evidence. Agents also visited Fox’s home in Providence. The investigators executed two federal search warrants, said Jim Martin, a spokesman for Peter F. Neronha, the US attorney for Rhode Island.

Fox announced Saturday he would resign the speakership he has held for four years and will not run again for the House seat he first won in 1992. He has not directly addressed the substance of the investigation.
Fox, a groundbreaker as the state’s first openly gay House speaker, oversaw a number of major initiatives as speaker, including pension overhaul, legalization of same-sex marriage rights, adoption of a new education funding formula, and a voter identification law, said political scientist Maureen Moakley of the University of Rhode Island. She is concerned that his abrupt departure in the middle of a legislative session, and the “thrust and parry of who will be the next speaker,” could disrupt the work of the Legislature as it enters its busy spring season.

For Rhode Islanders eager for the economically distressed state to outgrow its reputation for ham-handed political scandals and outright corruption, the raid on Fox’s office — and the Democratic lawmaker’s quick surrender of his post — is a disheartening setback.

“This General Assembly of ours needs a good enema,” Ted Collins, a retired Providence police officer who owns several rental properties in the city, said in an interview Monday. “But the reality of this situation is, it’s not going to happen.”

TenuredVulture wrote:
Correlation<>causation

Again, it's pretty clear to me that the increase in out of wedlock births has a lot to do with the decline of labor unions and various Republican policies based on the idea that women who have sex out of wedlock ought to be punished, especially if they're poor.

pacino wrote:

Again, it's pretty clear to me that the increase in out of wedlock births has a lot to do with the decline of labor unions and various Republican policies based on the idea that women who have sex out of wedlock ought to be punished, especially if they're poor.

It is pretty clear that the decline in purchasing power and the attempt to limit women's control over their own situations and bodies has created the 'problem' of single mothers (i dont think millions of women would call themselves a problem, nor would their families). the solutions are there and being worked on, but when one side disagrees on the very ideas of the solutions it becomes a losing battle.

swishnicholson wrote:

It's up to parents to provide an example for their kids, and instill the values that are necessary for success (hard work, determination, commitment, etc).

Edit: I should put up something other than a snarky picture, I guess, since I generally agree. But the question is then, what you do about it. Saying "tough tuchus" to the kids who happen to be born to the wrong parents isn't enough, certainly not for the kids, and also not for society that has bear the burden as well. As monkeyboy mentioned, the question then comes to be what you do via policy and law to attempt to establish or recreate this environment for the unfortunate many. It's not easy to work this out, and it always fall somewhere short, but Lord knows it's worth the effort and that personal responsibility canards don't get you anywhere.

Werthless wrote:

swishnicholson wrote:

It's up to parents to provide an example for their kids, and instill the values that are necessary for success (hard work, determination, commitment, etc).

Edit: I should put up something other than a snarky picture, I guess, since I generally agree. But the question is then, what you do about it. Saying "tough tuchus" to the kids who happen to be born to the wrong parents isn't enough, certainly not for the kids, and also not for society that has bear the burden as well. As monkeyboy mentioned, the question then comes to be what you do via policy and law to attempt to establish or recreate this environment for the unfortunate many. It's not easy to work this out, and it always fall somewhere short, but Lord knows it's worth the effort and that personal responsibility canards don't get you anywhere.

I favor education. More choice so poor kids aren't forced to go to bad schools, longer school days (8-5) so parents have the ability to work a normal day, and expansion of early learning programs funding (pre-K) for the poor. The Atlantic article mentioned that there are programs that actually teach parents how to be better parents, but I imagine that will be derided here.

pacino wrote:i said they are being worked on, such as offering birth control with insurance so women have control of their cycles, their bodies and lives. paid sick leave, equal pay discrimination laws, and so on. things that will actually help people's daily lives and put them in a place to be able to get more money and be able to educate their children. but, birth control appears to be some big issue now after it used to be a settled matter. people don't appear to get that it isn't aborting anything. paid sick leave has somehow been spun into a burden on business owners when they would have less turnover if they had it. equal pay only makes sense.

pacino wrote:

Werthless wrote:

swishnicholson wrote:

It's up to parents to provide an example for their kids, and instill the values that are necessary for success (hard work, determination, commitment, etc).

Edit: I should put up something other than a snarky picture, I guess, since I generally agree. But the question is then, what you do about it. Saying "tough tuchus" to the kids who happen to be born to the wrong parents isn't enough, certainly not for the kids, and also not for society that has bear the burden as well. As monkeyboy mentioned, the question then comes to be what you do via policy and law to attempt to establish or recreate this environment for the unfortunate many. It's not easy to work this out, and it always fall somewhere short, but Lord knows it's worth the effort and that personal responsibility canards don't get you anywhere.

I favor education. More choice so poor kids aren't forced to go to bad schools, longer school days (8-5) so parents have the ability to work a normal day, and expansion of early learning programs funding (pre-K) for the poor. The Atlantic article mentioned that there are programs that actually teach parents how to be better parents, but I imagine that will be derided here.

i disagree with the entire conccept of 'bad schools' and i don't think choice is a real choice. i don't see a bad thing out of any of the others, though, and not sure why you would think people would deride those. many community organizations already hold such classes, and they benefit many young parents.

Werthless wrote:

pacino wrote:

Werthless wrote:

swishnicholson wrote:

It's up to parents to provide an example for their kids, and instill the values that are necessary for success (hard work, determination, commitment, etc).

Edit: I should put up something other than a snarky picture, I guess, since I generally agree. But the question is then, what you do about it. Saying "tough tuchus" to the kids who happen to be born to the wrong parents isn't enough, certainly not for the kids, and also not for society that has bear the burden as well. As monkeyboy mentioned, the question then comes to be what you do via policy and law to attempt to establish or recreate this environment for the unfortunate many. It's not easy to work this out, and it always fall somewhere short, but Lord knows it's worth the effort and that personal responsibility canards don't get you anywhere.

I favor education. More choice so poor kids aren't forced to go to bad schools, longer school days (8-5) so parents have the ability to work a normal day, and expansion of early learning programs funding (pre-K) for the poor. The Atlantic article mentioned that there are programs that actually teach parents how to be better parents, but I imagine that will be derided here.

i disagree with the entire conccept of 'bad schools' and i don't think choice is a real choice. i don't see a bad thing out of any of the others, though, and not sure why you would think people would deride those. many community organizations already hold such classes, and they benefit many young parents.

I figured that suggesting many low income parents are poor parents, or don't know how to be good parents, would be perceived as overly paternalistic and condescending.

With a voter-approved ban against same-sex nuptials out of the way for about 24 hours, couples rushed to tie the knot in four Michigan counties where clerks held special weekend hours to issue marriage licenses.

But an appeals court put a stop to the immediate wedding planning, issuing a temporary stay of U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman's Friday ruling that called the Michigan Marriage Act unconstitutional.

Friedman issued a decision that rejected all of the state's arguments that voters made a rational decision in approving the law in 2004, and went as far as praising the plaintiffs for seeking to "ensure that the state may no longer impair the rights of their children and the thousands of others now being raised by same-sex couples."

April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse of Hazel Park sued the state because they can't jointly adopt their three kids in Michigan. They feared that if one parent were to die, the other may not get custody of all three children without a legal marriage.

The state immediately after the late Friday afternoon court decision filed notice of appeal and an emergency motion for a stay of Friedman's ruling.

The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the plaintiffs to file a response by Tuesday and put the gay marriage ban back in effect through Wednesday, "to allow a more reasoned consideration of the motion."

But hundreds of couples managed to legally get hitched Saturday before the late afternoon halt.

Werthless wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:
Correlation<>causation

Again, it's pretty clear to me that the increase in out of wedlock births has a lot to do with the decline of labor unions and various Republican policies based on the idea that women who have sex out of wedlock ought to be punished, especially if they're poor.

These 2 sentences, as your entire post, make me happy.

I don't know what history you're reading if you think in the last 50 years the surge in out of wedlock children is caused by the increase in punishment of these situations. In reality, policy shifts have made it more feasible for a single woman to raise a child -- or not, as her preference may be. Between the tendency of family court to side with the mother in custody battles, the birth control options available both pre and post conception, the monetary support of our federal government for low income parents, the equal pay act of 1963 and subsequent enforcement... I'd love to understand how the system has gotten worse for women in the last 50 years. These are all examples of government increasing the autonomy of women, and for better or worse, it has resulted in an increase in poor and uneducated women choosing to raise kids alone.

Werthless wrote:I don't know what history you're reading if you think in the last 50 years the surge in out of wedlock children is caused by the increase in punishment of these situations. In reality, policy shifts have made it more feasible for a single woman to raise a child -- or not, as her preference may be. Between the tendency of family court to side with the mother in custody battles, the birth control options available both pre and post conception, the monetary support of our federal government for low income parents, the equal pay act of 1963 and subsequent enforcement... I'd love to understand how the system has gotten worse for women in the last 50 years. These are all examples of government increasing the autonomy of women, and for better or worse, it has resulted in an increase in poor and uneducated women choosing to raise kids alone.