Fatherless children summed up in three syllables

[mudesi]

Say it with me now, boys and girls:

PO-VER-TY

Let's stop scapegoating race, or culture, or "morals". (Out of "wedlock"? What year is this, 2008 or 1808?)

Children born by teenaged mothers or children growing up without fathers or children of drug addicts or children of criminals are generally not children with a trust fund, and if they are, they're not who the racists (Yes, racists) are constantly complaining about.


It's so typical that you can say the words before they come out of their ignorant mouths. (Try to guess at the theme: It starts with an "M", ends with an "E", and has no letters in between!)

"Why can't they take responsibility for their actions?"

"When I was that age, I knew not to have sex!"

"Why should my tax dollars pay for their addictions?"

All said while sitting in front of the big screen watching the football game with a beer in one hand and a bowl of nachos on the coffee table while the Hummer idles in the driveway.


Poverty. These people are living in poverty. You can give a moving speech about it, you can preach at the church, you can get Bill Cosby to knock on the door, you can grab them by the lapels and shake them senseless and shriek that they must stop having children (!) and take responsibility (!!) and guess what?

They'll still have to figure out how they're going to eat today. They'll still be working 3 jobs in order to pay the ever increasing rent. They'll still have no way to pay any medical bills, if they indeed bothered to see a doctor the last time they were sick. They'll still be exploited by military recruiters, by corporations, by the government, by the fearful, ignorant, suburban upper class that takes and takes and takes and complains and complains and complains.

I'm reminded of that scene in Bowling for Columbine where Michael Moore attempts to interview Dick Clark about the 6 year old child who brought a gun to school and killed a classmate.

How about we take a look at the real elephant in the room?

[LeftyMom]

1. Charleton Heston.

Not Dick Clark.

[Beaverhausen]

8. There was a Dick Clark encounter as well

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. Not that I disagree with you...

but I think society puts way too much emphasis on nuclear families over other sorts to begin with.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

4. I'm Hispanic and my family consisted of my mother, my grandmother, my cousin and myself.

Briefly my uncle lived with us as well. It's very common in our culture for multiple families to live together and that's what we did. Yet, I remember the neighbors making comments about how we were trash because there were five of us living in a three bedroom home. The idea of multiple families living together was just not going to fly with them.

It always annoyed me that people assumed something was wrong with us because I didn't have a father. But I grew up perfectly happy with lots and lots of love.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. Basically, mainstream society complains about anything different.

No doubt if African American fathers were more likely to stay at home than white fathers, white society would find something else to complain about.

[styersc]

21. It is certainly racist to call this trend out specific to minorities

but the fact remains that single parent births or "out of wedlock births" (archaic term) causes for mor pverty and social and personal tragedy then does the opposite.

No doubt about it, Obama had a mini-Sister Soulja moment but the lesson should be heeded by all, not just his immeidate audience and demographic.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

3. Check out Mohammed Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank.

He invented the microloan concept. His bank in Bangladesh has 27,000 employees, who talk to the debtors. 97% of his clients are women, who use microloans to buy supplies to make goods to sell, to lift themselves out of poverty. Then the children go to college on scholarships which his bank gives out, and break the cycle of poverty.

The establishment bankers said it would never work. Trusting people to pay back their loans without collateral??? No way. 98% of their loans are repaid.


They also started a cellphone business to help these women make money selling cellphone service in Bangladesh.

It all started with a loan to a woman of $27.00.

Twenty seven dollars.

He got the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.

Microloans were also encouraged by Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas, and there are microloan foundations in the US.

[eridani]

5. A great idea, but $27 goes much farther in Bangladesh than here n/t

[KittyWampus]

7. Yes, poverty is a big part- but humans aren't dogs. We've the capacity to CONTROL THEIR SEXUALITY

It seems to me the REAL elephant in the room are older men who prey upon younger women and get them pregnant, younger women who should just get a pet rather than get laid and a sick culture that shove sex down our gullets constantly.

And this transcends race. And economics.

It'd be nice to see someone who is conversant with Black Feminists comment.

[wvbygod]

9. How about making the right choice

Regardless of race or income a father is better served at home. I can hear the conversation
between parents now..."Oh Janet, if we had more money I would stay with you and the kids. Sorry."

When WE stop blaming others for OUR lack of responsibility and unwillingness to stay and father
our children then the problem will be much smaller.

[blogslut]

10. I prefer the term ABSENT FATHERS

Regardless, there exists a huge problem when we have a society that imprisons more black males than white, while wasting dollars on a pointless war and corporate welfare.

Yes, men abandon their children. However, you are correct. When a father is white, he is given more privileges than when he is brown. Add onto that, the fact that the welfare/medicaid system punishes intact familes. This isn't just about teenage pregnancy. This is about a societal prejudice towards black males and single mothers.

[Bluerthanblue]

11. Thank you for this very

well spoken post.

You seem to understand what many people don't.
:hi:
peace~

[RayOfHope]

12. Must it be fathers, though? How about the absence of some kind of good

support system. Having someone there you can count on every day in all sorts of circumstances-- male, female, immediate family or not--seems to me like the key factor here.

[Heather MC]

13. I know a guy who makes 200K a year, and only pays $288 every two weeks

and still complains about it!

I think these are the men Obama is trying to reach. He works out of the country now, but when he was in he country he never makes any time to see his son. He tried to put his son and his mother out on the street. I was in the room when he told her she had to leave that week, right after confirming she would take their son. Now that's a deadbeat dad.

But when ever the mother drops the idea about allowing her current husband to adopt the little boy, he screams "That's my son" but when he is in the states he never tells the mother. And most of the time the mother doesn't know he was stateside until weeks after he left. And no she is not a yelling screaming kind of woman, she has always done her part o keep the lines of communication open.

His son has forgotten his name, and decided his dad doesn't like him. Fortunately God blessed him with another Daddy the best dad in the world, and he doesn't need that dead beat sperm donor, but the little boy is an awesome kid, he and his mother lived with for a Year. So I know what his sperm donor is missing out on.

[silverojo]

14. Yes, poverty is a problem

A problem that only gets worse when you have kids indiscriminately.

If you can't feed your own mouth, how can you feed two, or three, or four?

And BTW, single moms in poverty can get welfare...while sensible single people (who know the meaning of birth control) in poverty aren't eligible for jack shit, thanks to Bill Clinton.

Oh, and neither are the handicapped in poverty...they have to live on nothing, while the Social Security system keeps creating new and more inventive excuses to deny disability to those who need and deserve it.

And don't get me started on the mere pittance that the system allows for older folks on SSI. :mad:

Sorry, but I have more sympathy for people who CAN'T HELP being in poverty.

[GoldieAZ49]

15. Those children live in poverty because they are fatherless

regardless of race, fatherless households keep poverty alive and well.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

17. Which is why the divorce rate is 0 in rich neighborhoods.

:eyes:

[crankychatter]

16. some of these "democrats" sound like richard nixon, daughters of the american revolution...

ronald reagan - the john birch society

oh... and Milt Friedman, economic Darwinists

you know, lynyrd.... if you provide medical care to these undeserving poor... their children will grow up and make MORE children that can't afford health care

I really find it hard to believe I'm on "democratic underground," whatever THAT fuckin means

[My Good Babushka]

22. You tell them, crankychatter!

Anyone can be in poverty, anyday. It just takes a little misfortune, one illness or job loss.
It makes me foam at the mouth when people get on after single mothers. Everyone will tell you what an important, difficult job mothers do, yada yada yada, until it's time to pass out the subsidies. I'd like to see a stipend for mothers with children 0-5. Why should mothers be forced to work a crummy job for a pittance and then get subsidized, and sometimes shoddy, childcare? Why not allow the mother (or father) to stay with and bond with the children? Even on a democratic forum, there seems to be the need to beat up on a segment of the population that can be safely labelled the "Moral Inferior"- but it is beating up on women and children, the most vulnerable in society, all the same.

[crankychatter]

24. These righteous folk are two loan denials from public transportation and homelessness

they're like that southern racist spoken of in that Bob Dylan song....

"Only a pawn, in their game."

divide and conquer bullshit

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

27. I gotta wonder how many times they've been divorced.

[chimpymustgo]

31. I tried to say something like that on a thread that got locked. Fall in line - this is the message

du jour. Bootstraps, dammit!!!

[theboss]

18. And porvery is not improved by adding more children to an impoverished home

It's really a Catch-22 situation. Poverty leads to fatherless children, but fatherless children guarantee a furthering of the cycle of poverty.

[crankychatter]

19. fucking eugenicists - next these "democrats" will be calling for sterilization before food stamps NT

[crankychatter]

20. poverty as a moral issue

it is IMMORAL to assert that people are poor because they don't have YOUR MORAL highground

If moral posturing were moral "highground" ya'all would Mother fucking Theresas

[Teaser]

23. poverty is one factor, yes

.

[hedgehog]

25. I think Obama is a both/and candidate: poverty is both a private

and a public matter. He was clear in his speech yesterday that a lot of problems come from historical sources but he also emphasized a need to take responsibility to improve your lot. We need both government action and personal responsibility.For example, there needs to be jobs that pay decent wages and people willing and able to work.


It's not just about sex, either. You'll notice that he puts pressure on kids to do their school work, too!

[My Good Babushka]

26. It's always pressure on the poor to do better

but not on the wealthiest to do their duty to their fellow citizens, and pay their fair share. Corporations, though they have more rights than citizens, are never called on to do better, of course not, a corporation exists to make a profit. It's not even permitted, to discuss what corporations owe the citizens of this country.

[Hippo_Tron]

28. Deadbeat dads, the war on drugs, and poverty are all problems

Many on the left like to claim it's just poverty and the war on drugs and many on the right like to claim it's just deadbeat dads. It's a combination of both and all of it needs to be addressed.

So here's what I think. I have no problem with Obama telling fathers that they need to take responsibility for their children. But when he is President, he'd better get serious about poverty and sentencing reform.

Also, we need to end abstinence only sex education. That will solve a good bit of the problem right there.

[Rosemary2205]

29. Asswipe had a Dad and look what it did for him.

I'm just sayin.

[niceypoo]

30. BULLSHIT arguement

The third world is full of Po-ver-ty and two parent families, REAL poverty, ABJECT poverty, 2$ a day poverty. Fathering babies isn't a game.

I dont buy the arguement that their decision to not be there for their kid is someone elses fault. They need to step up, stop making excuses, and start taking responsibility for their own actions.

[emilyg]

32. Hear. Hear!!!