Changing Demographics… Mothers, children and multiple fathers.

[aaaaaa5a]

A new study from the University of Michigan concludes that for all black women with 2 or more children in this country, a whopping 59% of their kids have different fathers.

For all women in this country (black, white, hispanic etc.) with 2 or more kids, 28% of women had at least 2 fathers for their multiple children.

Full article here.

http://www.thegrio.com/news/multiple-baby-daddy-study-m…


This thread is a re-post with a better title in case there are other posters who wish to discuss the issue.

Obama '08

[ohheckyeah]

1. The only reply I have is

'so what'?

[RC]

2. But, but, but mommy gonna go to hell for having sex.

The party of pro-family says so.

[ohheckyeah]

4. yeah...

I wonder what the point of the study was? To cast 'asparagus' on black women? ;-)

[lunasun]

10. or the point of this post.................?????????

[Matariki]

5. Just what I was about to post...

big deal.

[alphafemale]

14. I can see a "so what"

If one of the kids had a "good dad." This dad paid child support and came on weekends to pick up the little guy or girl to go to the park and the zoo or whatever leaving the other two siblings waiting for loser dads.

Hopefully though, he'd also take along the kids he had no "legal" obligation to.

I

[MH1]

3. Does it have anything to do with high incarceration rates?

(by the way the link appears to be broken)

Young black men are incarcerated at much higher rates than young white men (the Drug War being a big factor), so that imposes additional challenges to maintaining a traditional family structure.

I'd like to see more focus on resolving that injustice, which is probably a big underlying cause of study results like those you cited, and less focus on the 'baby daddy' aspect. The latter seems too much like moralizing fodder. Although properly used it could perhaps be helpful (but I can't tell if I can't get to the link.)

[aaaaaa5a]

8. I'm sorry about the busted link.

I don't know what happened. I swear it was working fine before.

Here is the link again. Hopefully this will work okay.

http://www.thegrio.com/news/multiple-baby-daddy-study-may-give-black-women-bad-name.php#


Thanks for the "heads up!"

[defendandprotect]

15. Thanks -- working now --

[Sonoman]

6. To me, the strange thing is having a house full of kids with...

different surnames. I don't understand why the mothers don't simply give them all the same (mother's) surname.

But I am totally out of touch, since my town of 9,000 has only 33 black people and I know only one of them.

http://sonoma.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm

Sonoman

[GoCubsGo]

7. Our President and his sister have different fathers.

They both turned out okay.

[BillyJack]

9. Like white women don't do the same.....

Where's the study of how many white women have children by different fathers......which is a LOT.

oh, that's different. :eyes:

[aaaaaa5a]

11. It could be a LOT. And my bet is most reasonable people will think it is too high….

but clearly this is a bigger problem in the black community.

black women with more than one child have different fathers for their children 59% of the time. The National average (which includes the African American number) is 28%. So clearly this important issue is not affecting all demographic groups equally. I believe this is why the study focused on African Americans. I also believe this is yet another reason (fatherless homes) why incarceration rates, poverty rates, etc. etc. disproportionately hit black communities hardest.

[leftstreet]

12. "this important issue" - How is it important?

:shrug:

[defendandprotect]

16. So University of Michigan financed this "research" itself?

Certainly does look like there were some right wing influences behind this attempt

to legitimize "finger pointing" at African women.

First -- when women had control of reproduction -- that is when they had full access

to the plants which NATURE provided them which served as birth control and ways to

interrupt conception, and even to end fertility if they wished -- and full knowledge

of women's wisdom, seemingly they LIMITED childbirth, often to only one child.

Otoh, if you're going to have more than one child, it might be smarter to have it by

a different father? Nature loves diversity!

[MH1]

18. cart before the horse

it's the incarceration rate that creates the situation. A guy is around, then he's not, and the gal needs to have a guy around to help out, so baby daddy #2 comes along ... then he goes away ...

We KNOW that there have been race-based sentencing disparities, for example crack vs. powder cocaine. Also a black guy stopped and found with small amounts of drugs is a lot more likely to be arrested and charged than a white guy in the same situation, and of those arrested and charged is more likely to go to prison for the same offense.

Sure it's circular and what you say is true too, but the first step is to stop throwing black people in jail just for being born black.

[bettyellen]

22. why are you ignoring the single biggest reason the Dads are not there? You reposted this, and

have even replied to posts pointing the unfair rate of incariration to you, not a theory but a sild reason why so many young black men are taken from their children. I'm interested in why you are so interested in this topic, but have completeltly ignored the most informed responses in boith threads.

[BlueIris]

13. I was just going to post that--I don't understand why the 59% figure is significant.

It actually doesn't seem that high to me, in the age of multiple marriages.

[JoePhilly]

21. Bristol Palin will probably be picking up some of the slack.

[etherealtruth]

17. From the article at the link:

"Study coordinator Cassandra Dorius, a demographer, could not be reached Friday morning, but the university's press office did point out that the data show that the phenomenon of women having children with more than one man seems to be stretching across all walks of American life.

Dorius is quoted in a university press release as saying that "it is surprisingly common at all levels of income and education, and is frequently tied to marriage and divorce rather than just single parenthood."

[Revlon10]

19. SO.....

Elizabeth Taylor. had 3 baby daddies,

Kelsey Grammer has 4 Baby Mommas

Donald Trump has 3 Baby Mommas

Madonna has 3 baby daddies,

Pamela Anderson has 2 different fathers for her kids

John Edwards has 2 Baby Mommas ( not a good example)

Tom Brady has 2 Baby Mommas

Heidi Klum has 2 Baby Fathers

Melanie Griffith 2 Baby Fathers

Lance Armstrong has 2 Baby Mommas

Kevin Costner has 2 Baby Mommas

Christie Brinkley has 2 Baby Fathers

Michael Douglas has 2 and the list goes on and on, and life goes on, this does not make you a better or worse person. it just means you are living life.
In the past people just never talked about it.

[CatWoman]

20. well, I'm a black woman with one child

so where do I fall in this?

[Nikia]

23. What about men who father children with multiple women?

My dad did some volunteer work setting up a database for CASA in the 80's. I don't know if this is true now, but there seemed to be more men fathering with multiple mothers than the other way around. For men, though, spreading his seed is seen as natural.