Didn't I tell you about this? Once Again I am correct.

[GIThruster]

While generally those parents that are "married" tend to be more committed to both each other and their children this is FAR from universal.

Yeah, but you're arguing with a statistical analysis without looking at the statistics. You're admitting what is "generally" the case and then disputing a graph based on the general sense or statistical value. No one has made a case that unwed parents always make poor parents. I can't imagine what you think you're arguing about.

[Diogenes]

Diogenes,

I normally don't bother with the General forum but you put up an interesting graph and I find the need to demonstrate exactly how incredibly biased it is.

First the title.

Why are are children born out of wedlock or to future divorced parents rejected?

The chart was the quickest one I could get my hands on when I was looking for supporting evidence for the point I was trying to make. (That the bad behavior of other people is only exclusively their business when it doesn't affect others negatively. i.e. Forcing them to pay for it. )

The chart was produced by the Alan Guttmacher (Anyone here read Fred Saberhagen's Beserker books? "Good life" is the term used by the Beserker machines for people who help the Beserkers kill. References to the GuttMacher (good maker) seem appropriate when discussing the "respectable" arm of the Planned Parenthood killing machine.)

My own nephew was born out of wedlock and is absolutely adored by his parents and his extended family. More and more people are deciding to forego a paper marriage certificate. But I ask you if it looks like a duck and quacks like one isn't it still a duck? There are many relationships that ARE marriages except without a piece of paper in a courthouse somewhere. Do children of these relationships belong in the 'Out of Wedlock' group?

Your nephew's circumstance is becoming all to common nowadays, and I foresee the institution of marriage as very likely to continue it's decline. As I have mentioned before when this topic is brought up, Marriage was at one time, the only reasonable way for a majority of men to attain access to regular sex. The women had a sellers market, and the men had to meet their price to get what they wanted. The system only worked as long as women didn't destroy the monopoly which they all (mostly) worked to maintain.

World War II created cracks in the united front by making men scarcer among the population of women. This required a stepped up competition among the ladies if they were to snag themselves a man, and that meant giving it up. Still, it was a risky business because Pregnancy was a possible consequence, and a deadly disease was another. Penicillin solved one of the problems and the "pill" solved the other.

The end result was the sexual revolution which was billed as "liberating" for women because they could be as sexually irresponsible as heretofore had been mostly a male affliction. In reality, women ended up being the long term losers because they changed the standards of behavior away from a condition which mostly benefited themselves.


As for whether or not this group of children belong in or out of the chart, it isn't all that relevant to the point I was trying to get across. I merely wanted people to be aware that there are real world consequences to other people when individuals do their thing. The Chart demonstrates a large increase of negatively affected people as a result of the societal changes in the 1950s and 1960s.

I also know many people whose parents are divorced and they are far from rejected. Plus MOST divorces happen after the children leave. In fact most divorces are triggered by the departure of the youngest child.

Are adult children rejected if their parent divorce?

Now how about the abortion group. I absolutely agree that Aborted children ARE rejected but I wonder if this chart accurate?

It is probably accurate to the extent necessary. Other information tends to reinforce the point of the chart, and over the years i've seen lots of corroborating evidence for what the chart is showing.

This chart suggests that abortions only started around 1970. I can only assume this means "Official" abortions after states started re-leagalising it culminating with Roe V Wade in '73. But what I find missing is the 'unofficial' abortion numbers. There is a fair amount of evidence that the relative number of women seeking abortions has NOT increased since the anti-abortion laws were passed. For instance in the years immediatly before Rove v Wade there were an estimated 1.2 million abortions in the US. Considering the total number of live births was about 3.5 million we find a ratio of ~0.34 which almost exactly matches the number we have today. (Tietze C, Henshaw SK. Induced Abortion: A World Review, 1986. New York: The Guttmacher Institute, 1986)

It is in the best interest of the Guttmacher Institute (Part of Planned Parenthood) to play up any evidence of abortions prior to 1970. "Estimate" means nothing when it has no corroborating evidence, and especially when it comes from a source which is an interested party.

This is actually a primary reason Roe v Wade ended up going to the supreme court. The number of abortions hasn't changed, just the number of people surviving abortions has changed.

I do not believe that at all. Abortions were occurring prior to 1970, but I find it nonsensical to contend that the numbers were anything like 1.2 million per year. From my perspective, this is just like the bogus Kinsey Report numbers that 1 out of 6 are Homosexual. Nonsense.

So what exactly are you trying to argue with the attached chart?

My primary purpose in initiating this thread was to not only demonstrate that I have a pretty good theoretical understanding of the interplay of various social dynamics but also to point out that the forces which are impacting society can have predictably unpleasant results.

That the chart got thrown into the discussion was the consequence of someone implying that people's bad behavior doesn't affect others. It often does, and that's the reason societies have developed various customs for dealing with such things. Social interaction works a lot like economics. Adam Smith postulated an "invisible hand" that appeared to enforce the rules of economics, and in the same manner, Social dynamics also has a sort of "invisible hand" that tends to enforce social rules.

Bad behavior gets punished (such as the AIDS epidemic) and good behavior gets rewarded. (Stable families become more prosperous.)

[Diogenes]

Just found this today.

From Ann Coulter's book. "Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America"

“Here is the lottery ticket that single mothers are handing their innocent children by choosing to raise them without fathers: Controlling for socioeconomic status, race, and place of residence, the strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison is that he was raised by a single parent. By 1996, 70 percent of inmates in state juvenile detention centers serving long-term sentences were raised by single mothers. Seventy-two percent of juvenile murderers and 60 percent of rapists come from single-mother homes. Seventy percent of teenage births, dropouts, suicides, runaways, juvenile delinquents, and child murderers involve children raised by single mothers. Girls raised without fathers are more sexually promiscuous and more likely to end up divorced. A 1990 study by the Progressive Policy Institute showed that after controlling for single motherhood, the difference between black and white crime rates disappeared.

Various studies have come up with slightly different numbers, but all the figures are grim. According to the Index of Leading Cultural Indicators, children from single-parent families account for 63 percent of all youth suicides, 70 percent of all teenage pregnancies, 71 percent of all adolescent chemical/substance abuse, 80 percent of all prison inmates, and 90 percent of all homeless and runaway children.

A study cited in the Village Voice produced similar numbers. It found that children brought up in single-mother homes ‘are five times more likely to commit suicide, nine times more likely to drop out of high school, 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances, 14 times more likely to commit rape (for the boys), 20 times more likely to end up in prison, and 32 times more likely to run away from home.’ Single motherhood is like a farm team for future criminals and social outcasts.

….Many of these studies, for example, are from the 1990s, when the percentage of teenagers raised by single parents was lower than it is today. In 1990, 28 percent of children under eighteen were being raised in one-parent homes (mother or father), and 71 percent were being raised in two-parent homes. By 2005, more than one-third of all babies born in the United States were illegitimate. That’s a lot of social problems coming.

…Imagine an America with 70 percent fewer juvenile delinquents, 70 percent fewer teenage births, 63 to 70 percent fewer teenage suicides, and 70 percent to 90 percent fewer runaways and you will appreciate what the sainted single mothers have accomplished.” — P.37-38

Simon will say it is the "war on drugs", don't cha know?

[ladajo]

A 1990 study by the Progressive Policy Institute showed that after controlling for single motherhood, the difference between black and white crime rates disappeared.

I am going to look for that study. I have not seen it. Sounds interesting.

[Diogenes]

While we're on the topic...


Report: Welfare government’s single largest budget item in FY 2011 at approx. $1.03 trillion

The government spent approximately $1.03 trillion on 83 means-tested federal welfare programs in fiscal year 2011 alone — a price tag that makes welfare that year the government’s largest expenditure, according to new data released by the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/18/repor ... z29gmD3SN6


Quite a lot more than a 25 Billion/year expenditure on the "War on Drugs."