Births outside marriage - a real cause for concern

**FlaGator** · 09-29-2008, 10:27 PM

In an article entitled 'Births outside marriage: the real story', Professor John Ermisch from the Institute for Social and Economic Research, assesses the evidence and concludes that "the rise in births outside marriage is a real cause for concern".

Using 17 years of detailed longitudinal data from the BHPS, Professor Ermisch has been able to follow the stories of hundreds of real babies and calculate how much time they have spent living with just one parent.

This matters because there is powerful evidence that children growing-up without two parents have worse outcomes as young adults. Professor Ermisch refers to the "long-term negative consequences" of a child spending significant parts of their childhood in families with only one parent.

Read the whole article

**PoliCon** · 09-29-2008, 10:44 PM

The blessings of the Great Society.

**Bubba Dawg** · 09-29-2008, 11:40 PM

FG, I agree with you. But I am unsure of what to do.

I don't favor abortion. (I also oppose capital punishment, but that is another issue.)

To put it bluntly, I don't know how to keep teens from screwing. Pregnancy is one of the natural results.

Sex Ed. Abstinence. Yeah. I know.

But, what does society do with these kids? Also, what does the Church do with these kids?

I want them in Sunday School. I want to be good to them. I want them to feel loved. I want to help them. So they feel loved. So that they are loved. Truly.

They aren't illegitimate.

They're here. What are we to do with them?

The Church.

I never met a bastard child I didn't love. I'll bet my tractor and the rent money you feel the same way.

What the study says is true. But what are we to do?

**PoliCon** · 09-29-2008, 11:44 PM

stand up for what is right, even if you have to stand alone. And then you teach kids to: stand up for what is right, even if you have to stand alone.

Eyelids · 09-30-2008, 12:05 AM

Sex feels good, people want to do it. They're probably going to have sex whether you want them to or not, and its naive to just pretend there's no such thing as contraceptives.

**lurkalot** · 09-30-2008, 12:55 AM

I had the little bug at work for a few hours one day. She was in the hallway visiting with a gathering of "grandma's" some of whom don't remember her from day to day or even hour to hour although she has grown up around them. As I sat nearby doing paperwork I heard this conversation:
"where's your mama?"
"she works here"
"well where is your daddy"
(I stopped writing and froze at that point)
"My mom and daddy are divorced and he lives in Georgia"
"oh" said one lady "thats just not right, a little girl needs a mommy and a daddy both"
I was ready to get up and redirect the conversation to prevent my little one from being hurt although unintentional...when she loudly said:
"thats ok, it's just us and my Mom can handle it..she can handle anything"

I sat back down and went back to work and the conversation changed.

Maybe we need to not look at the circumstances of the child's birth but rather on whats going on as a whole here that these babies are born before their parents can handle it? And its not just sex drive, birth control is readily accessible and out there, there are other reasons for this population boom.

JMHO

**Constitutionally Speaking** · 09-30-2008, 07:40 AM

Originally Posted by Bubba Dawg

FG, I agree with you. But I am unsure of what to do.

I don't favor abortion. (I also oppose capital punishment, but that is another issue.)

To put it bluntly, I don't know how to keep teens from screwing. Pregnancy is one of the natural results.

Sex Ed. Abstinence. Yeah. I know.

But, what does society do with these kids? Also, what does the Church do with these kids?

I want them in Sunday School. I want to be good to them. I want them to feel loved. I want to help them. So they feel loved. So that they are loved. Truly.

They aren't illegitimate.

They're here. What are we to do with them?

The Church.

I never met a bastard child I didn't love. I'll bet my tractor and the rent money you feel the same way.

What the study says is true. But what are we to do?

To start, we need to stop minimizing the role religion can play. Secondly, we need to re-introduce the stigma that was once associated with unwed pregnancy - it plays an important role in discouraging this. Sounds harsh but it did help curb the problem. Stopping abortion would help also.

noonwitch · 09-30-2008, 09:33 AM

Originally Posted by Bubba Dawg

FG, I agree with you. But I am unsure of what to do.

I don't favor abortion. (I also oppose capital punishment, but that is another issue.)

To put it bluntly, I don't know how to keep teens from screwing. Pregnancy is one of the natural results.

Sex Ed. Abstinence. Yeah. I know.

But, what does society do with these kids? Also, what does the Church do with these kids?

I want them in Sunday School. I want to be good to them. I want them to feel loved. I want to help them. So they feel loved. So that they are loved. Truly.

They aren't illegitimate.

They're here. What are we to do with them?

The Church.

I never met a bastard child I didn't love. I'll bet my tractor and the rent money you feel the same way.

What the study says is true. But what are we to do?

Big Brothers and Sisters. You can volunteer, get a little brother and take him to do guy stuff. Odds are, the kid has no father in his life. They are desperate for male volunteers, they can never find enough. Take him to church, if it's okay with his mom.

**FlaGator** · 09-30-2008, 12:07 PM

Originally Posted by Constitutionally Speaking

To start, we need to stop minimizing the role religion can play. Secondly, we need to re-introduce the stigma that was once associated with unwed pregnancy - it plays an important role in discouraging this. Sounds harsh but it did help curb the problem. Stopping abortion would help also.

The less the role of faith becomes in people's lives the more we see single parent families, abortion, crime, drug abuse, spousal abuse, child abuse, selfishness and poor decision making. Trace the statistics since WWII and as real devoted faith declines, societal ills increase.

**FlaGator** · 09-30-2008, 12:16 PM

Originally Posted by Eyelids

Sex feels good, people want to do it. They're probably going to have sex whether you want them to or not, and its naive to just pretend there's no such thing as contraceptives.

Completely irrelevant to the topic. Sex has always felt good. This isn't a new invention or someting. A lowing of moral standards and greater tolerance of aberrant behavior are at fault. How do you explain the fact that single parent families were much rarer 50 years ago when sex felt just as good and their was no sexual education in schools?