America’s crime problem is a father problem. This is one of our country’s deepest and most denied family secrets. Everybody knows it, and everybody has known it for a very long time.Never mind anecdotes. Social science has confirmed as much at least since the fabled Moynihan Report of 1965, whose ignominious fate proves the rule that a document will be publicly reviled in exact proportion to the truths it tells. As the Minnesota Psychological Association lately summarized just a bit of the massive research on fatherless homes and crime: ‘Family structure and the lack of paternal involvement are predictive of juvenile delinquency.
The more opportunities a child has to interact with his or her biological father, the less likely he or she is to commit a crime or have contact with the juvenile justice system…Youths who never had a father living with them have the highest incarceration rates … while youths in father-only households display no difference in the rate of incarceration from that of children coming from two-parent households.’
To read the full article, follow this link.
If you have never read the 1965 Moynihan report or need a refresher follow this link.
I do not pretend to know how to fix this problem and it can not be fixed overnight. But, we could start by acknowledging that this is true. We can start by stopping the lionizing of the "single mom." Also, not all single moms should be lumped together. Widowed moms, divorced moms, and moms who had children born out of wedlock should not all be lumped into the same basket and called "single moms."
There should be a stigma attached to a single woman having children. I realize that this may result in more abortions and I am pro-life and do not know how to reconcile these conflicting values.
We should expect teachers to be good role models. If I were making policy, I would not permit single women who bear children to be public school teachers.
Public policy could help. The tax structure and public assistance policies should be tinkered with to encourage stable two-parent families. Welfare policies that reward women for having children born out of wedlock or make it more profitable to have an absent father than a father in the home should be changed.
Men who father children and are not married to the mother should be aggressively tracked down and forced to pay child support.
Churches and other society influencers should stigmatize the woman who has a child born out of wedlock and the man who gets a woman pregnant and does not marry her. While the person's sins should be forgiven and those who stumble should be helped, their sin should not be normalized. The old adage of "hate the sin but love the sinner" should apply.
Every year on New Years Day, local newspapers across the country feature the first baby born that year in that community. When the child is born to a single mom, instead of simply ignoring the father, the article should state the unfortunate child was born to an unwed woman or state the mother does not acknowledge a father. Having a child born out of wedlock, should not be a cause of celebration. I don't make an issue out of it, but I do not attend baby showers of babies born out of wedlock. Society's disapproval, as opposed to society's celebration of children born to single mothers, could help change attitudes.
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