It is brutally unfair to the children involved, but there are almost 12 million one-parent families in the U.S.A. Single mothers run the majority of those families, and most of those mother are poor. According to the U.S. census, about 70 percent of all African-American babies are born out of wedlock, as opposed to 27 percent for whites. So do the math and face the result: Millions of American kids are getting hosed from day one.
And there is little any of us can do about it. We live in a free society. If irresponsible people have kids, there is nothing any American authority can do to stop it. In China they kill babies. In some Islamic coutnries they'll kill a woman who gets pregnant without a husband, or even has sex outside of marriage. These policies, of course, are barbaric and constitute major human rights violations because, believe it or not, women and babies are human beings too.
Here in the good old U.S.A. our Constitution gives careless, foolish citizens all the leeway in the world to bring children into the world and then not care for them. Millions of fathers abandon their kids -- and it is rare that any of them sees a day in jail. We all know people who are absolutely awful to their children, just as we all know heroic parents, single and otherwise, who raise successful, happy children despite heavy odds.
There is no question that our society has now embraced the casual approach when it comes to having children. Columnist Kathleen Parker nailed it. "Today having a baby is like swinging through McDonals's for a burger. One baby all the way, hold the dad."
And the damage is incalculable. Over the next two years, about 40 percent of American babies will be born out of wedlock. One million teenagers are likely to have a child this year, and only three in ten will be married. Half of all the mothers who have kids in their teens will be poor the rest of their lives. The government spits out these stats like baseball players spit out sunflower seed shells. The polliticians use these poor children as pawns in the never-ending game of government entitlements. Society recognizes the problem but can't solve it. Almost all of our social ills can be traced back to chaotic homes.
Luckily, most of us are born into a home with two parents. And thanks to Norman Rockwell and Walt Disney, there is an ideal embedded in many of our minds. Two loving parents, clean clothes, nice toys, a picket fence around the yard, and a dog named Barney.
