What are her alternatives, really? Marry someone she doesn’t love just to provide a paycheck? Become the mythical “welfare queen” that some so like to cite? While it’s easy just to say she should never have gotten into that situation, she doesn’t have a time machine available to undo what has already been done, and we don’t really know how the situation came about in the first place. One can state that it is better to earn $20/hr than $10/hr, but when you only get $10/hr and ask for advice and/or help, pointing out how much better it is to be rich than to be poor is nothing more than a slap in the face.
The op asks how one can make single parenthood work, but nowhere do I get the impression that even sven believes that it is superior to dual parenthood. The numerous cites pointing out that it is better at this point to have two parents does nothing at all to answer the question at hand, imho.
I don’t know her well enough to ask. My information came from a shared professor.
I do know her mother looks after the kids while she’s in class, though.
I don’t see where there’s only two choices. Lawyer or welfare queen?
Did she have to pick law school? Especially since the hiring of new lawyers is way down? There’s no other trade school program or college program that’s less demanding, expensive or just plain easier to make time available with?
I did this - had a small child, went to school and worked 40 hours a week. I was stressed and broke, but my daughter was bearing the brunt of my life choices. I couldn’t do that, so I left school and just worked. I met a great guy, we established a life, and now I get to do the things I want to do in terms of my career and life goals.
I think that a lot of people in this position forget that their priority is no longer themselves. You don’t get to have all of the expensive things and all of the career goals and all of that - your priority is what your kid needs. And this does not mean you’re broke - often, it just means middle class. But your kids get the things they need from you - love, attention and an unselfish parent.
This woman sees her kids, what - a few hours a day, if that? So she can complete her law school degree. I don’t know this woman, but based on the facts presented here, she sounds selfish. YMMV
I hadn’t really thought about it that way. But look, this is America. We celebrate people’s hard work regardless of its impact on families.
Yep. I think we should return to the relative income levels and tax rates of the 1950’s when it seemed to work well.
In what way exactly, does “society makes it make sense to raise children in single-parent situations”?
The fact that society is doing it doesn’t make it make sense, and by almost any measure it is a very bad deal for the majority of kids born in that circumstance.
I would add that society has adapted to these new realities. From schools to the social welfare system society has accepted the new reality.
Could there be some nominal improvements? Sure. But the fact is, the needs these kids will face is largely not “society’s” responsibility and the fixes are in the family, not in some program. IOW, if the kid is in a bad way it’s not because society (whatever that is…) let him/hre down, but because the kid’s parent had a kid they couldn’t or wouldn’t take care of properly.
If she has reason to believe that she will have a lucrative law career, two years of hell may well be worth it. I would have certainly taken two years of an absent mommy rather than 18 years of borderline poverty and 20 years of paying off student loans because she couldn’t help me through school. And I’d have given just about anything if my mother hadn’t have had to give up so many of her dreams and could have been a fulfilled person rather than living in that slight depression that thwarted hopes makes.
Kids are resilient, and there are a million ways to raise them. Some are better than others- it may be that raising kids in the country is better than the city, or that having two siblings is better than one sibling. None of us is in the 100% ideal situation. The goal is not to do a perfect job, but rather to do the best with what you have.
Only if they’re men.
This is especially true if there is an involved grandmother. My parents worked like dogs my entire life. I really thought a 50-60 hour work week was standard until I was 16. In many, many ways I wish my parents had been around more when I was a child, but it’s also undeniable that their hard work has given me tremendous advantages: I never had a penny of college debt, and even now the fact that I don’t have to worry about worst case situations really improves my life: if I got cancer and lost my job and my house burned down, my parents would take care of me. I never have to worry about being hungry or homeless or hopelessly over my head, and I can’t say that for most of my friends–their parents simply don’t have those kind of resources.
My parents didn’t work hard because they wanted to live it up. Their house costs less than they make in a year, they’ve never owned a car that wasn’t the cheapest available Ford, they’ve never gone on a vacation to a place where they couldn’t drive or had to pay for a hotel. My parents worked hard because they wanted their kids to always have a secure place to stand in the world, and while I can see other people making anther choice, it sure as hell was never selfish on their part.
People- even people who are not exactly like you- are not stupid. 99% of the time, they choose the option available to them that they perceive will lead to the best result. In every situation we’ve ever measured, people react strongly to incentives.
The other 1% are crazy. That’s what we call people who do not make choices based on rationality.
There is something, some reason, why people are raising their children alone. There must be something that is happening to make this seem like the best option. There are incentives at play. It’s not like the world suddenly went nuts and stopped acting on rational choice. What is going on makes sense to the people doing it. There are reasons behind it.
Anyway, I’d guess these incentives are tied up in the changing workforce, changing sexual roles, different marriage expectations, etc. I don’t see these things changing any time soon. I don’t think we are capable as a society of changing the incentives enough to make people go back to the way marriage and family used to be. There has just been too much change.
I’d be interested to see if there is a study comparing having materials means met versus having emotional needs met. I see it opposite of that - not that every mom/dad needs to be at home all the time, coptering around, but that they are available when they’re needed, not just to discuss big things, but to make the kids feel like they’re not just another time block on the schedule.
I see two things:
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Teenagers getting pregnant. Not a good thing, and often entered into voluntarily. Terrible idea for the kids and the parent involved.
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People not putting their needs after the needs of the kids. In most divorce situations, this results in people not putting forth the effort to communicate and compromise, leading to bad and failed marriages. I have seen many marriages break up after the parties refuse to put forth the hard work of working it out, and instead, just bitching or cheating or whatever. It’s hard to stay married, but most often, it’s worth it just to provide a stable home for the kids, emotionally and financially.
I know this is broad brush stuff, but I feel like the Boomers have changed much in terms of cultural marriage and child issues. The “Me Generation” and all that.
Grandmother.
The US teen pregnancy ratewas at its highest in the 1950s, and has fallen steadily since. Since the 1990s, in particular, it has undergone a dramatic decline. Of course, in the 1950s more teen pregnancies were in marriage or directly resulted in marriage. So it seems that a certain percent of teenagers are pretty much always going to get pregnant. The question is what happens next- and I don’t think we are ever going to return to a society where 17, 18 and 19 are considered reasonable ages to get married.
As for selfishness and divorce, I think that is a mixed bag. Certainly people do have a lot more freedom to say “Eh, I’m just not happy and I’m leaving.” But I think a lot of divorce is also the freedom to say “Eh, you are cheating repeatedly/beating me/engaging in sexual abuse/a drug addict or alcoholic/emotionally abusive and I’m leaving.” I don’t think we are going to see a return to the days when abused spouses just sucked it up and took it.
I’ve long thought that one minor shift could benefit a lot of people, including those who aren’t parents.
Extend the school day hours to mimic standard business hours. And run school year-round. I could see a week off between terms, but why do we have summers off?
Our school system schedules were designed when we were primarily a rural farming society – more people lived on farms than in cities once upon a time in this country (in most developed countries). We’re still on a farm day cycle: rise early, do chores, go to school, and be home in the middle of the afternoon to tend to the crops and the critters. Summers off for farmhand work; there was maybe a break in the fall for harvest. You mostly go to school at or after harvest and pretty much wrap up the year just about with the spring planting. (Depending on where you live and what the growing seasons are.)
In modern times, this schedule doesn’t really fit how most of us live.
•We could completely eliminate the need for after-school care. This saves parents a lot of money and eases the burden of having to look for childcare when there’s no school.
•People who don’t have children would have less slack to pick up in terms of fellow employees who are parents having to leave early to go pick up the sprog(s).
•The extra hours at school could be spent in whatever ways deemed most beneficial. We could give the kids art, music and recess back. We could use the extra time to drill for the standardized tests. We could use the time to give kids study halls or remedial tutoring. It’s the same time many kids use for playing sports (or practices) anyway. People complain about the schools anyway and how education is in the shitter in this country. So give 'em more time!
Wow, great answer, calling me a racist. And I wasn’t aware that Murphy Brown was black.
So, going to actually answer some day?
You seem unwilling or unable to get my point. One of the criticisms conservatives have of pure Communism (and I trust saying conservatives are people like you is not a reach) is that it is insanely Utopian. In real life the assumption that people will give according to their ability and take according to their need will not work. I said this criticism of Communism was correct, so unless you disagree with me about it being correct, I hardly understand why you are offended.
Then I went on to say that given that social conservatives rightly reject utopianism in this context, why do they depend on it in the context of sex outside of marriage? There are probably more successful examples of this pure socialism in the world than examples where groups of people abstain from messing around outside of marriage.
So, your solution to the single parent problem is about as useful as a solution to the crime problem of telling people to not commit any crimes.
Or we could just veer off into HijackLand and accuse each other of racism 'cause that’s sure to help single parents.
Answer what - the stuff you made up? No.
I’m not offended - the fact that you felt the need to make things up and assign them to me is usually a sign that my position as expressed is unassailable.
Look, I understand your problem - the conservative position that unwed motherhood is bad is pretty much beyond question. That’s why you are trying so hard to change what I said, which is pretty obviously true, to something else which isn’t.
And most of the rest is just throwing dust in my eyes and hoping. “Communism doesn’t work, therefore unwed parenthood is inescapable”?
Come on - you have to do better than that.
Regards,
Shodan
And therefore this crap about how unwed pregnancy is a basic fact of human nature is wrong.
A certain percent, sure - the same percent, no.
Therefore the issue is one that can be addressed. Not encouraged, as your suggestions on how to make it easier (at public expense) would do.
Needs to be said.
Regards,
Shodan