40% of babies born to unmarried women !!!

[silicasandra]

Lightsway:

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlueEyedLady

I have to agree with EasterJoy. That attitude encourages abortion, not abstinence.

So I should be forced to pay for this child and the mother? What if any consequences should her actions take?

Here are the ideas I see you promoting:

Children born to unmarried women are punishments and not blessings.

People who sin should not receive charity regardless of their level of need.

Neither of these ideas square with Catholic teaching in the slightest. I sincerely hope that there is a misunderstanding on my part and that you will be able to clarify further.

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[BlueEyedLady]

That rant was mostly about people deserving support for an irresponsible action.

Do I think there should be some shame? Yes, but I am old fashioned, by that I mean she should not be throwing a baby shower and getting all happy over it. Do I think we have to go to extremes where we brand her and the father as well. NO A little balance in life goes a long way in life.

(The thirty years was talking about the shift acceptance of supporting single mothers actions and also the welfare state that encourages this behavior. So my thirty years started in the 1970… Ok forty years. Getting old, losing decades)

If you can afford to have a child I have no problem with it, but you never deserve my support.

You do know that women don’t throw their own baby showers, right? That’s done by family and friends of the mom to be.

So let me get this straight. I’m unmarried. If I got pregnant tomorrow I should not get all happy about it, because as an unmarried woman my child is a mark of shame upon my life, not a new and wonderful addition to my family to be celebrated? My mom should not throw me a baby shower because how dare she get excited about a new grandchild to spoil and love? Yeesh, your view on children is warped. (And frankly, I would need a baby shower, I have absolutely nothing to start me on the road to motherhood. That’s what baby showers are for, to give the mom some essentials to help her on her way, because setting up for a baby and buying carseats, cribs, diapers, clothes, toys, etc is very expensive!)

I don’t know of any family, Catholic or otherwise, that would want to be told that the new baby joining their family, no matter what the circumstances, is something to be scorned, not celebrated.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

There is a serious logical fallacy being demonstrated by some here (the argument that abortions would go up if pregnancies outside of marriage were subject to more discouraging forces, such as lack of societal support). Once does not necessaily follow the other. Indeed abortion is still a widely chosen avenue to deal with an unwanted pregnancy despite the fact that there is little to no social opposition remaining (“shame”) and there are a host of perverse economic incentives to bear children out of wedlock, at least in the U.S.

I can assure you that if I got pregnant right now I would choose abortion for many reasons, but the absolute biggest one is finances. I cannot afford to have a baby right now, and even with our social safety net in place I still could not afford a child.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

So I should be forced to pay for this child and the mother? What if any consequences should her actions take?

I would certainly say that there are a of consequences to having a child when you can’t afford one. I mean, huge, difficult, life-altering consequences. You seem to think that the WIC program completely negates what a mother goes through.

By the way, you would do very well to read my signature and think about it long and hard.

 

[4Squarebaby]

I don’t know of any family, Catholic or otherwise, that would want to be told that the new baby joining their family, no matter what the circumstances, is something to be scorned, not celebrated.

When the rate was lower that is kind of what happened. Mom would leave town and return an aunt as her sister had the child. Or another couple would adopt. and if she did not leave home for the sake of family honor then the new grandparents, not just the mother bore the shame. It is the reason dad would pull out the shotgun and give the baby’s father the offer he could not refuse.

 

[Sarcelle]

Where did you get your stats please? Is this throughout the world or only in the US? So are you saying most criminals become so because they did not have a father around.?

You can Google prison population and fatherless households. There are several sources for this statistic. Most of the statistics deal only with the U.S. population so I am unsure about statistics around the world.

Children who grow up in fatherless households have the deck stacked against them. I have several friends who were initially born into two parent households but due to divorce grew up fatherless. They always tell me there’s a hole to be filled. Fathers, especially good ones, are important.

 

[Sarcelle]

When we make females the sole gatekeeps of sexuality morality, we’re denying males the chance to be responsible. It’s imperative that both males and females be held accountable for their sexual behavior. If they’re not, if females alone are responsible for the outcomes of sexual behavior, we not only infantilize men, we end up tacitly approving of sexual behavior we find abhorrent. Is that the kind of society we want to live in?

Luna

I agree with you. I remember hearing as a child that premarital sex was not a sin for men but a sin for women. I remember some time ago one of my male friends telling me this. So I asked if it was okay for men but a sin for women, with whom will the men have sex with?

I thought this further on my own, and this double standard needed the existence of good women (madonnas) and bad women (whores). So the men can have their cake and eat it too.

 

[The_Bucket]

40% of babies may be born to unmarried women, but more than 95% of people have had sex before they were married. The only difference then is that these women are now “caught.” The plausible deniability is gone.

Most of the folks that want to rant and rave about paying for these “leeches” on the taxpayer themselves had premarital relations. This is what Christ was talking about when he was blasting the scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites. We’re all sinners. Even those of us who waited before marriage, we still sinned. Most of us committed mortal sin. So why are you getting so bent out of shape just because there’s a baby now involved?

I concur that we should work to change the culture and reinforce the message that children need a two-parent and stable household in order to have the best opportunity to thrive. But busting out the shotgun and the shame cards are not going to help. Our message should be one that comes from Christian love. Christ saved the “severe condemnations” for the people who should have been spiritual leaders in the Hebrew community but instead were obsessed with calling out other people’s sins and passed on judging prostitutes and fraudsters.

 

[Walking_Home]

You can Google prison population and fatherless households. There are several sources for this statistic. Most of the statistics deal only with the U.S. population so I am unsure about statistics around the world.

Children who grow up in fatherless households have the deck stacked against them. I have several friends who were initially born into two parent households but due to divorce grew up fatherless. They always tell me there’s a hole to be filled. Fathers, especially good ones, are important.

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Maybe that’s because we are responsible for stacking the deck against them. What happens to a child – who keeps hearing —that he/she is going to end up failure – because of lack of a father.

 

[Sarcelle]

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Maybe that’s because we are responsible for stacking the deck against them. What happens to a child – who keeps hearing —that he/she is going to end up failure – because of lack of a father.

How does a boy learn what responsible men are like if it is not modeled for him? How does a girl learn how to recognize a good man if it is not modeled for her? How do both learn what a good marriage looks like?

I know that there are men who abuse their wives and children. I am not talking about them. I am talking about good men who are good husbands and fathers. They are important. Society need them just like it needs good women.

 

[Walking_Home]

How does a boy learn what responsible men are like if it is not modeled for him? How does a girl learn how to recognize a good man if it is not modeled for her? How do both learn what a good marriage looks like?

I know that there are men who abuse their wives and children. I am not talking about them. I am talking about good men who are good husbands and fathers. They are important. Society need them just like it needs good women.

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There is a way – for I have seen boys and girls from single mothers – grow up to be responsible men and women. Of course – I believe in this situations – no one went around telling them that their lack of father set them up on the road to failure.

 

[Sarcelle]

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There is a way – for I have seen boys and girls from single mothers – grow up to be responsible men and women. Of course – I believe in this situations – no one went around telling them that their lack of father set them up on the road to failure.

Yes there is a way. My nephew is currently being raised by a single mother and has a lot of good male role models in spite of a lack of a father. However this situation is far from ideal. The ideal is a child being raised in a stable and good two parent household. However we live in a flawed world and so situations, such as divorce and death can take place.

I was asked by a friend that as a single woman would I like one day to be a mother. Single women can be mothers nowadays. I thought about it but it’s one thing to be a single mother because of divorce or death but to willingly volunteer for it? I don’t think so.

 

[Walking_Home]

Yes there is a way. My nephew is currently being raised by a single mother and has a lot of good male role models in spite of a lack of a father. However this situation is far from ideal. The ideal is a child being raised in a stable and good two parent household. However we live in a flawed world and so situations, such as divorce and death can take place.

I was asked by a friend that as a single woman would I like one day to be a mother. Single women can be mothers nowadays. I thought about it but it’s one thing to be a single mother because of divorce or death but to willingly volunteer for it? I don’t think so.

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Yes – we live in a flawed world – but we should not be creating the environment – where a child that lacks a father – is led to feel – that he/she is a lost cause.

 

[Sarcelle]

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Yes – we live in a flawed world – but we should not be creating the environment – where a child that lacks a father – is led to feel – that he/she is a lost cause.

I agree.:yup:

 

[JimG]

I agree with you. I remember hearing as a child that premarital sex was not a sin for men but a sin for women. I remember some time ago one of my male friends telling me this. So I asked if it was okay for men but a sin for women, with whom will the men have sex with?

I thought this further on my own, and this double standard needed the existence of good women (madonnas) and bad women (whores). So the men can have their cake and eat it too.

Or better yet, it needs the existence of women who never agree to sex without marriage. It needs the existence of women who as a general population will not agree to sex without marriage. Does that make women the gatekeepers? Pretty much, but women have pretty much always been the gatekeepers. The widespread acceptance of contraception allowed them to toss aside that role of gatekeeper, but it didn’t work. It just enabled men to have sex without responsibility while making women poorer. A bad bargain.

 

[JimG]

I seem to keep mentioning Carle Zimmerman’s book “Family and Civilization,” in a lot of threads, but it is pertinent. He studied family structure over the course of several millenia. It changed from the tribal paternalistic extended family to the nuclear family to the atomized family in which family ties were broken down.

Family structures changed a lot over thousands of years but not as drastically as one might think. It is only when family structures reach the stage of atomization that civilization is threatened with collapse, and he found that occurring only three times in history, once in ancient Greece, and once in ancient Rome, following which the civilization did indeed collapse. The third instance he finds is our own time.

A 40% out of wedlock birth rate is a sign of an atomizing family structure; in some communities it is as high as 70%. Such families can no longer serve as the basis of any civilization and indeed, if the trend continues, our own civilization will no doubt collapse.

 

[Walking_Home]

Or better yet, it needs the existence of women who never agree to sex without marriage. It needs the existence of women who as a general population will not agree to sex without marriage.** Does that make women the gatekeepers? Pretty much, but women have pretty much always been the gatekeepers. **The widespread acceptance of contraception allowed them to toss aside that role of gatekeeper, but it didn’t work. It just enabled men to have sex without responsibility while making women poorer. A bad bargain.

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Well – that definitely needs to change. As was said prior – it takes two to tango. Men have to accept the fact – they are equally responsible-- and not shirk there own responsibility.

 

[Jala]

There are a couple of million families wanting to adopt, but they can’t find a baby/child because they have all been aborted

You have obviously never been to an orphanage. The ones here are full to overflowing.

Jala

 

[JimG]

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Well – that definitely needs to change. As was said prior – it takes two to tango. Men have to accept the fact – they are equally responsible.

Yes, and who can make them accept that fact but women saying ‘no’?

 

[Walking_Home]

Walking_Home:

Well – that definitely needs to change. As was said prior – it takes two to tango. Men have to accept the fact – they are equally responsible.

**Yes, and who can make then accept that fact **but women saying ‘no’?

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The men themselves – taking responsibility-- and not using women as scapegoats.