Over the past 50 years, we have seen an explosion in single motherhood in America. According to the Brookings Institute, in 1965, 24 percent of black infants and 3.1 percent of white infants were born to single mothers. Those percentages have increased dramatically. Data from the CDC indicates that 40.7 percent of all 2012 births were out-of-wedlock, and there are vast differences among racial and ethnic groups. Among non-Hispanic blacks, the figure is highest, at 72.2 percent; for American Indians/Alaska Natives, it’s 66.9 percent; 53.5 percent for Hispanics; 29.4 percent for non-Hispanic whites; and a mere 17.1 percent for Asians/Pacific Islanders. In a study tracking the first wave of millennials to become parents, a team from Johns Hopkins University recently found that 64 percent of mothers gave birth at least once out of wedlock. Almost one-half had all of their children without ever exchanging vows. Single motherhood has tragically become the norm for the millennial generation.
The media has adjusted to this new reality and has sown the seeds of social acceptance for single motherhood. We have been shown in movies, TV shows, and commercials examples of single mothers being superheroes who simultaneously raise their children and advance their careers. The reaction to the 2014 film Boyhood is perhaps the best example of this. The reviewers fawned over the female lead Patricia Arquette’s portrayal of the divorced single mother who in the words of one reviewer is a “superhero,” who raises her children while getting an education and eventually a professional job.
When I watched the film, I did not see a superhero. What I saw was a selfish and impulsive woman who consistently put her own needs above her children, very much to their detriment. In the course of the film, we see her move her children from one place to another, marry and divorce two abusive alcoholics and consistently berate her children whenever they assert their own needs. Her daughter complained to her mother on two occasions in the film. The first time they moved after her mother decided to continue her education. She complained about leaving the neighborhood, her friends and her belongings. The second was when she was dropped off at school right after they left the house of one of the abusive alcoholics she married. She yelled at her mother for not allowing her to pack anything and leaving them temporarily homeless. Her mother’s response on both occasions was for her to “cut her horseshit attitude” and deal with it. Her mother’s needs always came before hers. This is actually a good portrayal of what many single mothers do in real life. In this post, I plan to demolish this image of the single mother and speak the truth about the damage they do to their children. I will also speak about how the welfare state and the Democrat party are destroying the nuclear family in our country.
To give you some context, I believe that the fundamental problem with single motherhood is that the costs and risks of being a single mother have decreased tremendously over the last 50 years. This is due to the welfare state that was put in place in 1965. The late Phyllis Schlafly said:
“The wrong-headed welfare system started in the 1960s with Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and his proclaimed war against poverty. The system should have been called the war against marriage. LBJ’s Great Society set up a grossly immoral system whereby millions of people were taught that they had an “entitlement” to pick the pockets of law-abiding, taxpaying families if they met two conditions: they didn’t work, and they were not married to someone who did work. This destroyed the work ethic and subsidized illegitimacy by giving single moms money and scores of benefits such as welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, housing, utilities, WIC, and commodities.”
Before the welfare state, the consequences for the family were very dire if one of its daughters got pregnant. Before abortion and birth control, the daughter would be sent away during her pregnancy and she would then give the child up for adoption after it was born. Everyone in the community would know what had happened, and the family would be humiliated in the process. As a result, their daughter’s marriageability would be significantly diminished. The other option was to have the father marry their daughter, which is also not ideal since he is not likely to be a quality man. As grandparents, you would also have to bear much of the cost of raising the child. Since these negative outcomes accrued to individuals instead of the collective, individuals got heavily involved in managing sexuality. This is why sex only after marriage became a social norm.
With the advent of the welfare state, birth control and abortions, the risk that female sexuality poses has severely diminished. Now, women can socialize the cost of having a child out of wedlock by receiving welfare benefits. The black community has suffered the most from this. As the economist Walter E. Williams once said, “The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery couldn’t do, what Jim Crow couldn’t do, what the harshest racism couldn’t do, and that is to destroy the black family.” The welfare state has given women free range to make bad decisions, which they must be held accountable for.
The single mothers who are on welfare are not victims who were put in a bad situation. They put themselves in a terrible situation when they chose to have a child and not marry the father. Legally, women have full control over sex and giving birth. They are the gatekeepers of sex, and must give consent in order for sexual intercourse to be legal. Women also have many more options for birth control than men do. The only option men have is condoms, and women can see if their partners are wearing one. If a woman gets pregnant, it is on her. The laws in this country also leave the decision over having an abortion entirely to the mother of the child. Planned Parenthood tells us that “politicians should not be involved in a woman’s personal medical decisions.” If it is a personal decision, then the woman should take personal responsibility if she chooses to have an abortion or not. If she chooses to give birth to the child, she is entirely responsible for that decision. Therefore, a single mother is the only person who is responsible for her lot in life because she made the decision to have unprotected sex and give birth to her child out of wedlock. To ameliorate the negative effects of these irresponsible decisions, single mothers have the option of giving their children up for adoption.
Single mothers who choose to keep their children are doing them a great disservice. In fact, having a child when you don’t have the means to provide for the child is abusive. Statistically, their children are worse off if they stay with them than if they are given up for adoption. Here are some statistics that show how single motherhood negatively affects children:
- 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (US Dept. Of Health/Census) – 5 times the average.
- 90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes – 32 times the average.
- 85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes – 20 times the average. (Center for Disease Control)
- 80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes –14 times the average. (Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26
- Fatherless boys and girls are: twice as likely to drop out of high school; twice as likely to end up in jail; four times more likely to need help for emotional or behavioral problems. [US D.H.H.S. news release, March 26, 1999]
- 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes – 9 times the average. (National Principals Association Report)
- 70% of juveniles in state operated institutions have no father. [US Department of Justice, Special Report, Sept. 1988]
- 85% of youths in prisons grew up in a fatherless home. [Fulton County Georgia jail populations, Texas Department of Corrections, 1992]
- 75% of adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes. [Rainbows for all God’s Children]
These statistics show that objectively, a child is better off with a married couple than in a fatherless home. A single woman who chooses to keep her child is making a narcissistic decision, much to the detriment of her child. She is deliberately making her child’s life worse by denying him or her the opportunity to grow up with a loving couple. Her child will never know what it means to have a loving father. If her child is a boy, he will not have a man to teach him how to be a man when he grows up. It is also likely that her children will be exposed to a succession of low quality men in their lives if their mother continues to date. No man of quality would want to take care of another man’s child.
This is why in the past, women would do everything they can to avoid becoming single mothers because she would not be able to provide for herself and her children. Today, the welfare state provides them with the resources that a man would give them. Single mothers effectively marry the state and depend on it for their sustenance. Phyllis Schlafly also said that “when husband-breadwinner is eliminated, single moms look to Big Brother Government as provider. Democrats are glad to claim credit for facilitating the taxpayer subsidies.” According to the Washington Post, in 2008, 74% of single mothers voted for Obama. He went on to win 75% of single mothers in 2012. Obama overperformed across all racial demographics of single mothers as well. Among white voters, Obama lost to Romney 59 percent to 39 percent. But among white single mothers, Obama bested Romney 56 percent to 43 percent. It seems that Schlafly was right when Democrats pander to single mothers through offering them welfare benefits. Schlafly mentioned that “the Democratic Congress repealed the essence of Republican welfare reform [in 2009] by providing bonuses to states that increase their spending on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Single moms make up 90% of TANF recipients.” The expansion of the welfare state is entirely dependent on the expansion of single motherhood.
If the Democrats really had compassion for women and children, they would not subsidize single mothers with our tax dollars. As I have already mentioned, having a child out of wedlock is the wrong thing to do, and subsidizing their irresponsibility will only make it more widespread. The only thing the Democrats care about is padding their voting base. Unfortunately, single mothers are a growing demographic. The Democrats want to see that trend continue. They do not believe in empowering women and making them independent. The Democrats want them to be barefoot and pregnant so that they can be dependent on the Democrat party. Their rewards for voting Democrat in each election cycle are tiny food pellets in the form of welfare that are just enough to get them to come back and vote again in the next election. Electorally, this is a very successful strategy. Only look at Milwaukee, which has been under uninterrupted Democratic control for the last 108 years. The out of wedlock birth rate among blacks in Milwaukee is 86%. Among whites in the city, it is 29%. How much more time does the Democrat party need to sort out the mess in Milwaukee? Another century? Perhaps they are not the ones who hold the interests of blacks and women at heart.
In conclusion, single mothers are doing a great deal of harm to their children and to the country through their irresponsible decisions. The media and hollywood have worked tirelessly to foster social acceptance for single mothers. The expansion and subsidization of single motherhood has expanded the dependent class in our country, to the benefit of the Democrat party and the detriment of blacks and women. I believe that the problems of crime, poverty, and excessive government spending can be solved if we choose to stop providing welfare to single mothers. I do not think that we should cut off those mothers who are already receiving benefits, but rather stop giving benefits to new single mothers in the future. If we were to do so, we would see a resurgence of the nuclear family, especially amongst blacks. Our government will also be able to save money but spending as much on welfare. Children will also be more productive as a result of being raised in two-parent households, decreasing the need for social welfare and other government programs targeted at the poor. Our country would be radically transformed if we were to make this small policy adjustment. Unfortunately, there is no political will on the part of either party to deny single mothers welfare benefits. I fear that the only solution to this problem will come when the government runs out of money. Women will no longer be able to rely on the government to provide for them when they have an illegitimate child. When that happens, women will be forced to become responsible in matters of sexuality and in choosing a suitable partner. I can only hope that our attitudes toward single motherhood will change before such a crisis befalls our country.