I´m beginning to think that this (not single motherhood, but the broader issue of immorality) is why Romney lost in 2012, and that it is evidence of the near-complete rot in the moral core of this country. See Paul Rahe´s exhaustive commentary on this over at Ricochet. I am not optimistic of a good outcome for America.

Thank LBJ and his war on poverty. The rules changed, and as long as the man sleeping in the house was not the baby daddy, it was OK.
Watch an episode or two of Maury Povich, where 13, 14, 15 year old girls with babies are there for DNA tests on some of the men they had sex with. And you will also see teenaged boys,, or those in their early twenties, with 10, 15, 20 children already!
And when the father is IDd with the DNA, the young mother often does a grotesque bump and grind routine. Not all of the participants are black, but most are.

Welfare brood mares with multiple daddies all paid for by us taxpayers. Ain´t diversity wonderful?

And yet the survey yesterday showed, sadly, that 10% of kids had a dad on the wish list.

Funny how the champions of gay marriage/adoption and single motherhood want to pretend these Himalayas of human nature don´t exist.

I resent being forced to pay for the illegitimate breedings of lowlifes. They contribute nothing to America. They are no different than ticks on a dog.

The collapse of the loving and stable male, female dynamic in this country is a huge cause of many of our problems..... oh and btw, it isn´t the men´s fault.

Poster No 1 is on to it. None of us who are steeped in a sinful behavior want to admit it and don´t want anyone else to point it out. Such defense is natural. There is only one cure.

The perfect low information Democrat voter.

It´s also the women´s fault. These guys were dirtbags when they met the women, the women knew it, yet they had sex with them anyway.

The biological father of one of my adopted daughters has fathered at least 15 kids from at least 5 women. My daughter knows only one birth sibling. She has never met the 15 or so others. He was more than willing to give up his parental rights when my daughter´s birth mom lost her rights. This guy was scum a long time ago, he was scum when he impregnated my daughter´s birth mom, and he´ll always be scum.

It´s not just blacks, it´s not just lowlifes. The devaluation of a strong male in the household has been going on for decades.

It started being reflected in the media a while back; sitcoms featured dads that were weak, kids that were smarter than they are, or strong women that "didn´t need a man around".

When I was dating, so many women simply weren´t interested in a nice guy, they wanted the bad boy, the tattooed "edgy" guy that they could change. 1 or 2 kids later, many came back around to me wishing they had chosen me. By then I was involved in my wife, one of the only decent women it took two decades to find.

Thank you feminism and liberals. You´ve deemed men unnecessary, and the male reaction has been broadly to get sex where you can, no strings, since you basically cannot find any good women anymore anyways. You made more losers by selecting the loser men, so now we have mostly loser men and trash women.

As ye sow, so shall ye reap.

If you look at descriptions of foster kids who are available for adoption, the one thing they all have in common is that they all want a home with a mom and a dad. I´ve never seen one who wanted a single parent, two moms or two dads or some other combination.

Kids are hard-wired to want two parents of different genders who are married to each other. When in God´s name are we going to recognize that?

The enemies of socialism:
The family
Private property
Religion
Small business

Leftwing feminists and their judges are the biggest enemies of fatherhood, followed by Democrats in general.

Yes, #10.

#5´ post, "I resent being forced to pay for the illegitmate breeding of lowlifes" has another description -- INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE -- AKA SLAVERY. It ain´t legal, citizens, under our Constitution.

Redemption is available and possible until everybody´s last breath. We should remember that.

Knowing that, we should spread that message, instead of one that relegates the ignorant to the rubbish heap, for eternity.

As for the nation, it was pointed out to me that Israel returned to God, after straying. That is documented in the book of Jeremiah.

I found much hope in that. It was the inspiration channeled through one man, ultimately, that accomplished that revival.

Who is that man today?

One reason these teenage girls have babies with loser guys is that they don´t have fathers of their own. Thus they badly want male attention and have no model to judge manliness, so they pick losers and have sex to keep them.

Once they have one kid and the guy leaves them, they repeat the cycle with another guy, attempting to bind him by having a baby with him. There is an attempt to find a provider of sorts, someone who can supplement their aid under the table. They are in no shape to attract a decent male provider.

The most savvy, attempt to mend their ways and get support through a church. Unfortunately the church is filled with women competing for the few available decent men.

When I was a social worker I saw this over and over. The social destruction is logarithmic.

Celebrate diversity

First we had the leftist hippies saying "we don´t need no piece of paper, man" thus making marriage before cohabitation mainstream. Then we had the feminists saying "I don´t need a man in my life" and celebrities having babies without benefit of marriage, thus making the father irrelevant. And we had the government financing it all, so here we are.

Boys need a father involved in their lives. You can tell the boys who have a father involved in their lives from those who don´t in elementary school. The boys with a dad can control themselves and will follow instructions in little league sports. The ones without a dad look at you funny when you tell them to do something. The girls without dads start acting differently when they hit puberty. The ones without dads are more sexually active. The kids did not chose the way they would be raised. The result is two Americas.

At least Mormon polygamists are there for the kids.

In the 1950s, blacks had a higher percentage of intact families (i.e., fathers at home) than did white families.
Then came Democrats bearing gifts.
Result: Destruction of black families.

Fathers may be disappearing, but baby-daddies are everywhere.

From the first page: "America is awash in poverty, crime, drugs and other problems,"

But it is not until the second page that it hones in on the real problem: "Though income is the primary predictor, the lack of live-in fathers also is overwhelmingly a black problem, regardless of poverty status, census data show."

Absentee fathers is NOT an American problem. It is a BLACK American problem, just as poverty, crime, and drugs are primarily BLACK American problems. The nightmare American statistics you see quoted are almost exclusively attributable to the Black population. So, why is this so? How did we get here? How did Black American culture become so derelict and destructive?

It´s no secret. We have known about it since Daniel Patrick Moynihan authored The Negro Family: The Case For National Action, in 1965. Worthless African cultures and values were never adequately repressed and replaced by Western European culture and values in the Black segment of the American population. And this is what comes of it. It is NOT racial. It is cultural. It is NOT genetic. It is learned. All that needs to be done is to stop teaching it.

Moynahan also warned us that the Great Society and War on Poverty plans by LBJ would destroy the nuclear black family and create a dependent permanent underclass. He KNEW exactly what the other Dems were up to but nobody would listen or do anything about it. There are a lot of factors but the main culprits are the leftists and the "anything goes...if it feels good, do it" mentality they have been pushing for years. I think it was ALL insidiously planned from the beginning in order to destroy the U.S. so they can divide and conquer...they want to come in and take over everything.

This is also why I continue to advocate waiting until you are married before you give it up. And I also advocate not jumping into marriage lightly...but rather take is as the most serious decision you will EVER make. Make sure this is the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. And work at it...don´t run at the first argument.

The hardcore crack heads rent their own kids out for sex to get a fix. Of course you´ll never hear about this.The internal black rule of law isn´t that much different than Sharia.Both resent the white rule of law sticking their nose in their business.Drive by shootings is their version of justice being doled out in a bad drug deal or woman/man stealing.

There is a war on men and boys in this country. Next time you watch tv, take a look at the commercials. The father is ALWAYS an idiot, to be admonished by the much smarter wife and/or kids. Like the other poster said, the sitcoms are the worst. I used to like Modern Fsmily, but the portrayal of one of the dads and also his son, Luke, as the stupidest characters ever, was a turn off.

Fatherlessness is destroying black America. But they don´t want to hear it. Watch an episode or two of Bridezillas, and you will see the fruits of black matriarchy in America.

Can´t really add anything encouraging. Blacks have a 75% illegitimacy rate. There is little foundation for kids to stand on, and the Fed just keeps on financing it. Now that there is a "black" President, it´s getting more entrenched.

There are a lot of hard working Americans that can´t afford to buy the cars that a lot of the Food Stamp wielding Welfare parasites are driving. Maybe if they really had to work for a living instead of depending on entitlements they would learn to be responsible! Necessity can do strange things! Meanwhile, expect the basterdization of America to continue under this administration.

Traditional family? How quaint. Isn´t that what we are always told?

Children are looking to fathers as leaders and that´s being bred out of the species, isn´t it ? Govt schools, ridilen (sp), feminism, phony self-esteem, and the killing of natural competitiveness and aggressiveness

Why isn´t the sexual profligacy and promiscuity of both the man and the woman addressed except in passing, when it is probably the single most important cause of fatherless families?

Why isn´t the role of religion even mentioned when it is so important in inculcating young people with strong moral values so they don´t get themselves into such dire circumstances?

Why isn´t the government´s entitlement program which encourages fatherless families and more babies addressed in this article?

It´s staggering to think that the writer and his interviewees think that it´s simply absent fathers causing this problem when the causes are so much more complex.

The welfare policies of America encourage fathers to skip out and mothers to have more babies because they don´t worry about being homeless -- the gov´t will take care of them.

Nothing is said about deterrence of "illegitimate" children though abstinence, and you find abstinence being laughed at by the current crop of moral cretins, usually social liberals, young people and their parents, and the media.

It´s not reasonable to assume that "fatherhood initiatives" will solve this problem or even make a dent in it so long as the morality behind promiscuous sex isn´t addressed. I realize that´s quaint but there it is. When there are few consequences to having a fatherless family and unlimited sexual activity, why bother stopping it?

Excellent analysis #31, I wish you had written the article.

And we wonder why we live in a moral vacuum in today´s America and why the societal rot is accelerating here. But, look, a two-parent family (man and woman) makes it happen. Also, it takes two to tango. The women pairs the pants, too.

I have long thought that the activities and habits of the American black community are what the Obamas speak to with some of their lectures to all of us. Even though I loathe Obama´s political ideas and intentions for this country as a whole, I always hoped more in the low-level black ´community´ would see him and his wife and children as examples of how to live.

Unfortunately, the black community doesn´t see them as family ideals, only as black like them, and possibly that the Obamas are just putting on a show for white America until the more militant aspects of Obama´s plans engage against white Americans.

My little old mother-in-law commented shortly after Obama took office in 2009 that the blacks she noticed seemed to have more dignity. Many adults did, but many more young blacks only developed more severe attitude. Obama´s ´´my way or the highway´´ tactics now only reinforce that attitude.

So, all of America loses our God-given rights daily, or they´re regulated out of practicability, and the black American communities deteriorate even further as the black militancy grows. Keep in mind also that the black militancy is drawing in many from the ever-expanding Latino community too. Toss in a multiplcitous muslim population and we´ll be surrounded on all sides soon with no escape but sure conflict.

America now prefers beta males.

If the coffee break conversations that i overhear are to be believed, the greatest practitioners of abstinence are men and women who have been married for 10+ years. Sortta makes me wonder who is the market for viagra and cialis?

I am old enough to remember when being a unwed mother was thought shameful. A unwed, pregnant girl was sent to a "home" for unwed mothers, away from the family because of the shame. Today being a single mother is some kind of a badge of honor, something held up to the community that says, "look at me!" This will only get worse until we can make being a single mom uncool.

"Next time you watch tv, take a look at the commercials. The father is ALWAYS an idiot, to be admonished by the much smarter wife and/or kids."

Unless it´s a black family. Then it´s a handsome, clean-cut black man, his bright-eyed, perky wife, and two bouncy, energetic kids gathered happily around the kitchen table. There was an increase in this portrayal since Obama´s election, and every time I see it, I think "Yeah, and how often does THIS occur in real life?" It´s just another layer of fakery laid on top of the unmentionable disaster that is black "culture" in America.

I agree that here´s another fine mess the goooberment got US into....

Watched The Christmas Story yesterday for several hours and saw the "real" America once again. The Mom was home cooking and cleaning and watching the kids and Dad was out working and driving his Oldsmobile. What a great story.....Ralphie and Randy and Mom and Dad together solving the furnace problems and the Bumpus´ dogs.....

When LBJ convinced the daddies to leave the home so the mommies could get welfare -- it started the slide into immorality. Then the boomers came along with the free/sex idea and now you have bitter/angry physically grown kids/emotional backwards -- like obama -- mad as h@ll and lashing out at society....

AND that´s the answer for the lingering question -- WHY so many shootings in the black neighborhoods. NO FATHERS to direct the young boys.....like obama who´s white mother slept around and left her kid with someone else to raise. Typical!!

AND "now" WE are stuck with himmmmmmm....

LZK

Can´t wait to hear the groaning and moaning when these human debris start complaining about the cost of "enrolling" in obamacare. Sixty three dollar per head? Of course the few taxpayers will subsidize the pigs.

Maybe if they install condem dispensers in the schools the kids will stop having kids. /s

#40 "..Total collapse and chaos with every man for himself might be the only fix…"

I think so, too. And I think that´s what will eventually happen.

I´m somewhat torn on this issue.

I was, for a time, a single parent of my five kids...all by the same dad...who I was married to for 15 years before we split up. That was 15 years of physical, verbal and emotional abuse and on the day he threatened to kill me in front of our five kids, I decided I was done trying to keep it together.

Personally, I am grateful for programs like food stamps and TANF and other resources that are available to women like me. I never did have to use any of that, and the only welfare I did use, was low income fuel assistance and my parents didn´t make me pay rent when I lived in the house they owned. But I had help....and I had to take it for a few years.

That said, the system is definitely set up for single parents. There is no encouragement for marriage, whatsoever, which in my case was a GOOD thing, but overall it´s deeply damaging...because most people collecting benefits don´t use it as a safety net, but as an entitlement.

I don´t see that stopping any time soon.

No. 17, I am old enough to have had a neighbor commit suicide at 18, when she was in college, because she was pregnant and too ashamed to tell her parents. She was not afraid of her parents, I knew them well and they would have tried to help.

That was way before free sex, women´s liberation, etc, which ultimately led to friends with benefits.

For many years now, most boys will not bother to date girls who won´t. Those girls become wallflowers and oftentimes old maids. The boys know they are competed for and act accordingly.

Will we ever have another "Great Revival"? I doubt it.

# 36 - I suspect that the market for Viagra and Cialis are probably men affected by diabetes and other health issues where they have a physical problem with erectile dysfunction.

However, when free samples can be obtained liked candy...

I think it was James Lileks in National Review who named the inner city one parent culture as the "rapture of the males". They stop by to drop off some DNA and then disappear from the face of the earth, letting Uncle Taxpayer pick up the tab.

Fathers matter. They matter a lot. That´s why we bother with civil marriage. It gives men and women, but especially men, a new place and title in society; husband and father. That is why the fight to keep the natural elements, one man and one woman, is so crucial. We lost an election recently but we will regroup and go again in four tears. However, if we lose the fight for marriage it´s all over folks.

I don´t think it´s a good thing to go back to where women who were pregnant out of wedlock was so shameful that she was compelled to commit suicide. HOW on earth is that BETTER???

We hold young women accountable because their "sin" is obvious, yet young men are NOT held accountable because we can´t tell just by looking at them.

That is blatantly unfair and we as a society are LAZY by letting young men get away with it. WHEN are we going to start treating MEN who father all these children AND DON´T TAKE CARE OF THEM as harshly as we treat the women? At least the women are finding a way to provide.

Nicole Hawkins reminds me of Obama´s mother.

Lots of blame to go around. And, no, it is not only in the black community. But it is beyond the epidemic stage there.
Someone mentioned religion. OK. If our faith doesn´t affect what we are and how we live, I question it. And I´ve seen far too many instances of those who, on Sunday morning, are praising and singing - and sometimes preaching - who on Sunday night or Monday evening are engaged in vile behavior. Can cite specific examples too.
Kids learn from what they see. Ideally, boy learn how to treat women and girls by seeing up close how dad treats mom. They learn responsibility by seeing it up close. Girls learn how men should treat them, by seeing how dad treats mom.
Not once in a lifetime talks, but daily observation. Not from the TV or the government school, or even in Sunday School. Home. Up close. Every blinkin´ day.
Part of the problem is the death of shame. A forgotten thing these days.
Yes, it takes two to tango. And both are to blame. And LBJ et al were vile creatures. So? We´re supposed to be overcomers, and it´s time to get at that. Model some good behavior. Perhaps it will be contagious.

Did I say it was better?

In re: 46, a little clarrification is in order. The majority of the conversation snippets that I am referring to are between women. So if your premise is correct, there are either a lot of single guys who are dealing with those problems, or if my assumption is correct, there are a lot of married guys who are seeking pleasant diversions outside of marriage.

And that is particularly troubling to me because they are effectively telling their sons it is OK to cheat.

Evil rejoices.

Never forget, it´s not just the politicians and culture mavens ... it´s EVIL doing this.

Evil is real. It´s organized, planned and on a mission to deconstruct the "made in His likeness and image."

What many refuse to grasp is that while sneering at them as losers and leeches, they sneer at you as chumps to be fleeced.

#23, keep in mind that way back in 1965 when Daniel Patrick Moynihan said the
"Negro family" was "in crisis" because of a "pathological" failure of establish and maintain marital bonds,the rate of nonmarital childbearing in the Black community was 1:5.

Right now the White nonmarital childbearing rate is 1:5.

Hispanic 2:5. Black 2:3.

We (all races) are in a state of societal decomposition because we have intentionally taken what God has "joined together," and, in Biblical language, rent them asunder: sex and marriage, sex and babies, man and woman, love and life, body and soul.

We rejoiced in dissolving all bonds, then were surprised when things fell apart.

My husband has always said that marriage evolved because men are basically barbarians and they need women and the responsibility of children to civilize them. Men in the black community are a perfect illustration and it´s the women´s and the government´s fault. Women, through government child subsidies, have taken responsibility and commitment from men out of the equation and men are reverting to barbarism. One need only look at the daily shootings in Chicago to see the results.

Basic economics. What you subsidize, you get more of.

And what you subsidize a lot, you get a lot more of.

"Great Society", my butt. "Great National Suicide Pact", if you ask me.

So many good comments here. I absolutely agree #37, shame and guilty are missing in our culture. The "to each his own" and "I´m don´t want to be seen as judgmental" attitude is dangerous. Don´t get me wrong, I´m not advocating sharia style honor code stuff. Just going back to the idea that some behavior isn´t proper, and is and should be embarrassing. But in the world of facebook and reality tv, that is wishful thinking.

Growing up in a strong Catholic and very proper southern household was a blessing. I knew right from wrong, I knew it was important to behave in ways that would not embarrass my parents. If I did something bad, I felt guilty. Having social norms and standards is a nessecary function of a healthy society and a healthy family. We have lost that and sadly, I believe it will only get worse.

Posted from my iPhone, please pardon any typos!

#36 and #49 - A friend of mine has a theory that the explosion of the use of ED meds is in large part because of the prevalence of porn in society today. Men see these "perfect" women (who are not perfect at all, but who are rather air-brushed and/or surgically altered), and then can´t...er...get interested in their wife of 20 years who has a few wrinkles here and there and weighs 20 lbs. more than she used to and whose bosoms are sagging.

I´m guessing my friend is not far off the mark. I have more soapbox-worthy comments on this subject, but have to go out for awhile. More later...

Duh! The sooner this is addressed, the sooner real adults can talk about the problems that is caused by this issue. The only war on women is largely self perpetuated by their choice in breeding partners.

#2, Maury is not quite real. Not saying that the behavior does not exist. Stop basing arguements on Maury or "reality" TV shows.

Articles like this always bring out the racists. It is true that lack of a stable family has commended many generations of blacks into poverty and violence. for the bigots and ignorant I hate to tell you this, but many white familys are now infected by the same sickness,of irresponsibility and callousness. The marriage rates of poor whites have gone down dramatically.
I believe it is culture and the hostility towards fathers perpetuated be the liberal elite. Also having worked with the poor, many young girls view a baby as a status symbol, raising the child is another matter. It is a mess that will take generations to repair. This is a cultural problem that within a generation will infect our whole society. it´s coming to a town near you

I believe as many have said this will eventually bring the country down. No one should be having unprotected sex in this day and time. The women are as much to blame as the men. When I asked one woman why she had two kids with a man who only came around occasionally and refused to provide support for the kids, she said black men do not use protection. I said why don´t you then? No answer.

Well have mercy! Y´all only now notice? There is only one place to point the finger. At yourselves for even thinking there is such a thing as sex without consequences. Such an attitude not only causes a very nasty harm to yourselves but look...at...the children. A ruined childhood can never be regained. Values never learned cannot be restored. Learned ignorance cannot be overcome.

How is it the women´s fault--or solely the women´s fault? I think that the so-called sexual revolution--favored by men as much as by women--has caused this problem. Men have always been reluctant to commit to marriage and now have even less reason to, since commitment-less sex is readily available. Hugh Hefner, by the way, was one of the biggest promoters of male non-responsibility (disguised as women´s liberation).

This all stems from the idiotic idea that there is no difference between the sexes. There has been a long relentless attack on men to be more like women, who have been assumed to have a superior take on the world.

The reality is that there IS a general difference between the sexes and we NEED both. Women tend to be more nurturing and helping. Men tend to be more shoulder the burden and get things done. Without the male influence, the Country leans toward nurturing everyone. But without a lot of people trying to get things done, things don´t get done and we spend a lot of time whining about the state of things. Maybe we can all just have a big group cry.

Responsibility, sacrifice, shouldering burdens; this Country is forgetting it´s essential heritage and whether you like it or not, a good chunk of it comes from the male persona.

#65... it is women´s fault because the modern woman wants everything, sex when they want it only, kids, home, job, support, comfort, and a honey do master to fix all their problems, all while expecting a man to give everything and never get anything. What man signs up for this?

Women may have sex with men prior to marriage, generally start off marriage with a pretty decent sex life and then after they have a kid, cut off the tap, or use sex as a bargaining chip to get chores done around the house. Women take one of the most important and marriage affirming activities husband and wives should be participating in and relegate this bonding and affection giving wonder to a chore to be checked off a list, and generally pretty infrequently at that. Now tell me please, what man signed up for that? And yes I am a married woman, and yes I have seen this so many times and seen it wreck and at times even end more than a few marriages. Sex isn´t optional in marriage barring physical illness or mutual complete consent.

Mature men do indeed by in large want happy committed relationships, kids, and family. BUT, given this rather dismal outlook on commitment, marriage, and a healthy sex life, again I ask, why would any young healthy happy man sign up for that emotional train wreck? Women need to own up to their destructive and overtly, unnatural dominant behavior and realize this is the root of men simply deciding that the bicycle doesn´t really need the fish either!!

Lots of excellent comments here.

Single parenthood is nothing to celebrate. I don´t know if our society can pull back to a simpler time, however.

The benefits of a two-parent household are easy to see by people who work with children. Unless these youngsters are being raised in abusive homes kept together by denial and secrets about the abuse (and that´s actually rare), they´re better adjusted than their counterparts raised by single parents.

It´s also rare to see children and adults on the fringes of society who come from healthy two-parent families. Many single parents try their best to compensate for both parental roles, but boys are much more vulnerable to be caught up in illegal activity as they grow up. Girls run the same risks with sexual exploitation added to the mix.

One more minor point - #20 - I have relatives around Utah, and many polygamist groups have fathers who are *not* around for their kids. The groups most often in the news have older men impregnating uneducated teenage girls who can´t support their broods, and these girls are told to apply for welfare to support the children. They´re no different from Nicole Hawkins, really.

The outrageous divorce decisions of Family Court judges have motivated men not to get married. Welfare state payola has motivated women to have babies without marriage. It´s a mess.

Thanks for the validation #60 and #68. Makes me glad that I am an old fart.

Many are missing the point. These women are unwed mothers because it is an occupation little unemployment and the checks keep coming. How ethical is it to reward someone on their taxes just for having kids ?

Some high school girls have three kids before leaving school. Their mothers raise the kids.

God bless you Ladyhen. Where have you been all my life.