Fathers disappear from households across America-article

[justamouse]

In our law practice we see primarily young people having children and when the reality, the crushing weight of responsbility comes upon them, their parents bail their sorry behinds out and raise their grandchildren. It is a sad state of affairs. That having been said when you have educated, responsible people becoming parents it is a great joy to behold and many of those families are in different circumstances than one might contemplate. In essence, kids ought not have kids. Period. However if they do it is one matter to have guilt over poor choices and a lack of responsible sexual behaviour it is entirely another to feel shame which is in my humble estimation not productive. Guilt is the sense that one has done something wrong and one should try to make right the worng. Shame is I am the sin or wrong, that is the totality of my identity. With shame there is little productive change. If you see yourself as only a wrong, a sin, an abomination then what is the point of trying to redeem one's identity at that point?

 

You are right and I should have said that society tries to correct itself with guilt.

[Scarlett]

Sounds like typical church talk. Fits right in with what i was recently advised, "Better to stay in an abusive marriage than risk teaching your children to be quitters." Because surely as a single mom I'd be doing a great injustice to my kids, 2 parents are just that much better. I'm quickly becoming cynical about the church!

 

 

Is the person telling you this a leader? Or just some old busy body? I am part of a very conservative religion and I was NEVER, not ONE time told I should stay. Marriage is important, but God is aware of what goes on behind closed doors and God and you are the only two who know how much is too much to endure.

[justamouse]

I got pregnant when I was 19, the April of my senior year in HS.

 

I was on the pill. Hey, I was just trying to be 'responsible'.

 

I refused to marry the father. He was a ton of fun, we had a great time together, but he wasn't father material, he was toys and trips material. He still can't pay a bill on time. He still doesn't have a significant other.

 

Am I happy I had my son? Yes, I love him. Of course. Am I happy I brought him into a highly unstable life, not knowing where my next job was going to be, not having been able to go to college, or having a father who didn't really want to know him until later and then who was emotionally vacant and emotionally abusive? No. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. He has suffered for my mistake far more than a person should have to and he has born that injustice with much forgiveness toward me.

 

So, then I am faced with my own self, and my own decision of having premarital sex. And the fact is that I shouldn't have. I brought a child into this world without thinking of HIM and what kind of life he would have. It was completely selfish of me.

 

Might I have had financial problems and an unstable house even if married? Sure it could happen, but at least we'd be two parents who could fight the good fight together, make up for eachother's shortcomings and love the child together. You know, like real married life.

 

Does carp happen? Yes. People divorce, lose jobs, have health problems. Would that we all have perfect marriages and kids. But the fact still remains that the family unit is the pillar and stability of society, and no amount of wishing and relativism will make that go away. A marriage is the most safe and stable way of raising children. It's backed up scientifically, over and over again.

 

Just because that is truth doesn't make single moms less than. Even moreso it should make us, as a society, support and uphold them because it is in our own best interest to make sure her, and her children have a support system.

 

But the truth is still the truth.

[Kaleidoscope]

Is the person telling you this a leader? Or just some old busy body? I am part of a very conservative religion and I was NEVER, not ONE time told I should stay. Marriage is important, but God is aware of what goes on behind closed doors and God and you are the only two who know how much is too much to endure.

 

A leader.

[Scuff]

Society used to value marriage and parenthood and children. We don't seem to much anymore. Yes, things were rough then for those who chose differently or made mistakes, and that needed to chaange. But we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater. I don't know the solution, besides an individual choosing to value family and making their own choices differently. It does make me sad for the children.

[Scarlett]

Society used to value marriage and parenthood and children. We don't seem to much anymore. Yes, things were rough then for those who chose differently or made mistakes, and that needed to chaange. But we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater. I don't know the solution, besides an individual choosing to value family and making their own choices differently. It does make me sad for the children.

 

This is what I came to say. I don't think we need to glamorize out of wedlock pregnancies---but at the same time a woman who has a baby is still a woman with a baby---they both need love and support and the baby especially needs to grow up feeling wanted and valuable and NOT a burden to anyone. I can see it is a fine line to walk....

[gardenmom5]

I feel the same way about my kids. My mom felt like that poster does. Our relationship was permenantly damaged as a result. She loves my kids very much but to this day she wishes I didn't have them the way I did. That was hurtful enough but then to watch her fawn all over my sister for doing things the "right" way. nope I have never forgiven her for it. Our relationship wasn't stellar to begin with but that became a big nail in the coffin so to speak. I won't be telling my kids I can't wait to be a gramma, they know I want them to wait. But I also believe every pregnancy is a gift to be celebtrated, not only when it is done "right" Because honestly 1 persons right is another persons wrong, and why should that child be any less celebrated?

my grandmother was the complete opposite. she fawned all over my sister and her kids. sissie had had two abortions and a miscarriage as a teen, married because she didn't want a *third* abortion (miscarried the next day and was stupid enough to sit at grandmama's while her now dh moved their stuff to new digs. grandmamma insisted she act the blushing bride to her friends. Kudos to them, they have stayed married and become more stable over the years). I, otoh, waited until I married a stable guy who put his family first and didn't use drugs and had my first child nine months and four days after the wedding and, horror of horrors, what would people say!?! she was never very interested in my kids.

 

says alot about her, but not about you.

 

I know a couple women (and I knew them as teens) who had babies as teens that were the wake-up call they needed to be responsible and their lives have been positive and productive becasue they had that wake-up call. (I know plenty of the other too.)

 

Is the person telling you this a leader? Or just some old busy? I am part of a very conservative religion and I was NEVER, not ONE time told I should stay. Marriage is important, but God is aware of what goes on behind closed doors and God and you are the only two who know how much is too much to endure.

I'm also from a very conservative religion that does NOT condone abuse, and I've known some women who were being absued who were encouraged to leave/kick-them-out and recevied needed support. becasue sadly, even some okay guys turn into jerks. (sometimes it's women who turn into jerks.)

 

that said - I have heard from some who formerly belonged to denominations/sects (seems to also have a geographical element) that support women staying at all costs (think the "pearls" of hit a baby with plumbing hose fame.).

[gardenmom5]

sometimes those young women (or young men) are the siblings. My hairdresser has frequently expressed irritation that when she was a teen (13?) with a younger sibling - people would assume she was the mom. a few others have also expressed simliar experiences.

 

I have much older kids - only one of whom is legitimately old enough to be dudeling's mom. (she was a sr in college the year he was born. and I was a mom at that age.), but all of them have at times had strangers make comments on them being the parent. none of the comments were rude though.

 

the rudest comments I have received have been as I got older, or had more kids. (even though techinically, I was a teen mom because I married young. the only snotty comments I had with 1dd were from my grandmother - but I'm pretty sure she had a personality disorder.)

 

I have a friend who adopted cousins who were six weeks apart. all three of the sisters they came from were teen moms. the oldest often pawned the baby onto the middle to take care of. when the middle got pregnant - she knew what was invovled with caring for a child and immediately went for adoption. (she now has some education and lives a decent life.) she really encouraged the youngest (who was 13) to also put her child up for adoption, and she finally did.

[SKL]

...Would that we all have perfect marriages and kids. But the fact still remains that the family unit is the pillar and stability of society, and no amount of wishing and relativism will make that go away. A marriage is the most safe and stable way of raising children. It's backed up scientifically, over and over again.

 

Just because that is truth doesn't make single moms less than. Even moreso it should make us, as a society, support and uphold them because it is in our own best interest to make sure her, and her children have a support system.

 

But the truth is still the truth.

 

Probably true, statistically, on average.

 

I agree from the perspective of advising a young person who has big life choices to make.

 

However, for a mature, stable adult, I think a different formula applies. I think at that some point the pros of a responsible woman parenting a child can override the cons of not having a present father in the picture.

 

I'm talking from the perspective of a single adoptive mom. I am very confident in my decision to parent singly, but it would be nice to not have my children grow up hearing that this decision is somehow immoral or puts them at a disadvantage. If only the tone in which people say "their mom is single" "oh [knowing/pitying look]" could be a little less pathetic.

 

My kids' classmates with married parents have all kinds of things that they deal with, that my kids don't. Honestly, I think my kids have the better deal in a lot of ways. They've never had to worry about whether an ugly domestic argument is going to lead to family breakdown, for example. They get all of my personal time. They watch their female role model decide her own path and shrink from no challenge. I think these are OK things. We never talk as if kids of married parents are "missing out" on anything because of their family structure, even though, if you think about it, they are. Society just accepts that as the norm, so stigma falls on those who are outside that norm.

[LMD]

 

 

Wow..I hope my mom never felt this way. Having my oldest at age 18 was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. It saved me years of being lost.

 

This post struck me too, sorry to pick on the pp but my mother never could deal with me living my own choices as opposed to ' what she dreamed for me'. It strained our relationship, over something that was only ever entirely in her head. :(

[Lisbeth]

My (likely unpopular) opinion is that when society is paying to bail out those who have been irresponsible, they have a right to disapprove, and expect some degree of regret in the one who made bad choices. Dropping the stigma and -yes, judgement - has resulted in more kids being born to suffer. Not.cool.

I will always be uncool and old fashioned and advocate NO sex before marriage (how quaint! How backward in society's eyes!) and planning ahead, responsibility, and hanging with a moral crowd with academics and morals as priorities. I've seen the other way, and it isn't pretty. I have family members who did the opposite who now complain that life isn't fair, money is scarce, and they have kids they can't support.

It is very frustrating! It is especially frustrating because the kids in those situations don't deserve it.

 

 

[Joshin]

I've always wondered if single parenthood is really that new. Looking back at my own family tree a few generations, and many were raised by single father and mothers. Not because of divorce, but because of death or abandonment. One of my great-grandfathers was widower with young children, the other great-grandmother was widowed young (one died in childbirth, the other from polio). My husband's grandfather was abandoned by his father when he was 13. Dad left five kids and a wife, telling grandpa that he was now old enough to take care of them. His grandmother was raised in an orphanage. War, accidents, disease, birth -- these killed a lot more people in the past. From anecdotal evidence when reading history, being orphaned seemed a lot more common, too. Then we had a golden age of sorts in the middle of the last century with better working conditions, medical care and less childbirth problems so there was a spike in the nuclear family unit. Now it may be on the decline again.

 

So not a new issue. Just the same old issue but with different causes.