A Culture of Brokenness

[Chowder Head]

I far believe economic standing contributes more likelyhood to crime than does single parenthood. BInteresting side note some states use 4th grade standardized test scores to predict future prison space...

[margiebargie]

Then there's the fuckwits like this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/0 ... 16834.html

For those who don't want to click, it's basically a rundown on a senator from West Bend,WI, who wants to criminalize single motherhood. If you have the time, google him and listen to some of his rants about how women are "trained" to produce out of wedlock children. He is also against birth control for teens, social support for the poor, and of course, wants abortion 100% illegal. He also came out in support of the school board when it denied a GSA club, where a school board member was quoted as saying, "if there are gay students that need a GSA club, they should see my psychologist to BECOME STRAIGHT. . He's really good." (The school board finally buckled, not through decency, but through the fact that FEDERAL FUCKING LAW would have gotten the district sued into bankruptcy)

Also, it may be worth noting ( I am SO not kidding about this) he is single and STILL LIVES WITH HIS MOTHER.

Perhaps he should work on outlawing absentee fatherhood. I actually have a lot of admiration for single parents (moms, dads, grandmoms, grandads, etc.) - truly single, not the ones who are classified that way because they don't have an official slip of paper. It's a very, very difficult job. Our society should be thanking them and figuring out ways to help them.

AND his mother, presumably not single, didn't do such a great job with him.

[julie paradox]

Statistics used in the US equate single with unmarried. For instance, this site that uses US Census data gives the definition of single-parent family as: "In this definition, single-parent families may include cohabiting couples and do not include children living with married stepparents"

http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/ac ... px?ind=107

Really? wow. Guess I'm just too used to the DSS's "we use the word partner to mean someone you are married to or someone you live with as if you are married to them" ;-)

[QAF_Rocks]

Statistics used in the US equate single with unmarried. For instance, this site that uses US Census data gives the definition of single-parent family as: "In this definition, single-parent families may include cohabiting couples and do not include children living with married stepparents"

http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/ac ... px?ind=107

Interesting! I see my brother and I must have been classified on the Census as coming from a single-parent family, even though we always lived with both parents.

This sort of classification doesn't seem useful. If you're trying to track family stability and its effect on success later in life, then counting children who have always lived in two-parent homes as "single parent" makes just as little sense as excluding children who have experienced death/divorce and remarriage.

[FlorenceHamilton]

What about the daughters of Michael Pearl? IIRC, they are not legally married. They were joined by their father in a non-legally binding ceremony. They say they are in a covenent marriage, but they are really not married legally at all. Are their kids the children of a single mom? They certainly are poor.