{"id":784,"date":"2013-10-15T20:52:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-15T20:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/10\/the-julia-problem-its-about-the-men.html"},"modified":"2013-10-15T20:52:00","modified_gmt":"2013-10-15T20:52:00","slug":"the-julia-problem-its-about-the-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/10\/the-julia-problem-its-about-the-men.html","title":{"rendered":"The “Julia” problem: It’s about the men"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/span>So I\u2019ve been reading about the topic of unwed motherhood, and here\u2019s my working theory:\u00a0 it\u2019s all about the men.<\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n

I still have some more reading \u2014 a lot more reading, really, in lieu of research experience in the way a sociologist might have \u2014 but this is what I\u2019m thinking:\u00a0 one of the core issues in the city, and elsewhere, is family breakdown.\u00a0 The percentage of children born to unmarried parents is climbing (the rate itself, that is, children born per thousand unmarried parents, has leveled off and even dropped slightly in the same way as the total fertility rate, expressed as children per thousand woman, has dropped since the recession), and, unlike the case in Europe, it\u2019s well-documented that these couples are much less stable than marriages.\u00a0 The chances of a child growing up with both parents at home, when those parents are unmarried, are small.\u00a0 And, though progressives would like to think that children will thrive regardless of how many parents, in what combination, and regardless of the level of stability, are raising him\/her, we know that it significantly impacts the child\u2019s life chances.\u00a0 <\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

[Look, I\u2019m taking this as a given.\u00a0 I\u2019m not going to dig out the research, and I think the \u201csolutions\u201d proffered by progressives \u2014 \u201cthere\u2019s nothing wrong with being a single mother, since kids of middle-class single moms do just fine; the only thing wrong is society\u2019s unwillingness to fork over more money on free daycare and other forms of welfare\u201d \u2014 are just foolish.]<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

But fundamentally, when a woman chooses to have a child without being married, or without a marriage-like relationship with the father, I really think that the large majority of the time, the issue isn\u2019t access to contraception, but motivation.\u00a0 In some cases, she\u2019s pregnant intentionally.\u00a0 In other cases, she\u2019s more or less indifferent to whether she gets pregnant or not.\u00a0 Maybe in some cases, she\u2019s been conditioned to think of pregnancy as unavoidable (thinking of the girl who finds herself wanting to have sex but without contraception immediately at hand, and just doesn\u2019t have the common sense to say, \u201cno, we can\u2019t have sex tonight\u201d).\u00a0 Teens and young adults have certainly been told, in the media, by activists, maybe even in their schools, repeatedly, that sex is unavoidable and inevitable.\u00a0 We expect teens to resist the lure of drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes; we don\u2019t teach them safe-drinking practices by saying that \u201cwe have to accept that kids will drink and do drugs; it\u2019s a natural part of adolescence.\u201d\u00a0 The zero-tolerance attitude is particularly strong when it comes to cigarettes and objections to e-cigarettes and other means of harm-reduction.\u00a0 But as far as sex goes, teens are often told, \u201cyou can\u2019t help it.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 And I think that breeds a certain fatalism.<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, of course, there are plenty of cases where contraception, no matter how diligently used, fails.\u00a0 And my opinion is that anyone who has sex, regardless of the method of contraception, should be prepared for the consequences, and really shouldn\u2019t do so in the first place if having a child would be intolerable.\u00a0 (I\u2019d go so far as to say that this is a pretty good reason for keeping sex within marriage, but let\u2019s set that aside \u2014 it\u2019s not my primary argument.)<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

But, be that as it may, what can we really do about girls and young women who get pregnant without being married\/stably-partnered?\u00a0 Our options are fairly limited.\u00a0 We can\u2019t really cut off welfare, seize their children, forcibly sterilize them.\u00a0 Once a woman is, indeed, pregnant, the existing array of social services likely remains the right answer, even though this will certainly send the message to these girls\u2019 sisters, cousins, and neighbors that having a child at a young age, without a father, isn\u2019t so bad, really.\u00a0 For a middle-class girl aiming at college, travel, and an enriching career, having a child can dash a lot of dreams.\u00a0 If your life path was working at McDonald\u2019s anyway, it wouldn\u2019t be so bad to have a child to greet you at night.\u00a0 <\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Can we get these girls to feel inspired that they can be more ambitious?\u00a0 Look, there\u2019s all kinds of interventions for, at least, black and Hispanic inner-city girls (not so much for poor white girls, of course).\u00a0 \u00a0But at the same time, I\u2019m not sure that these interventions can successfully communicate the message, \u201cthe world is your oyster, as long as you don\u2019t get pregnant, and if you do, no amount of joy and happiness from motherhood can make up for the misery you\u2019ll experience, and you\u2019ll never, ever be able to make something of yourself if you have a child.\u201d\u00a0 There\u2019s a whole list of things a middle-class girl or woman wants to do before having children, so much so that it seems perfectly natural to marry in one\u2019s late 20s but to continue to build one\u2019s career, travel, enjoy being carefree for a good 5 \u2013 10 years afterwards.\u00a0 Such a girl\/woman is conditioned to see children as an impediment.\u00a0 But a \u00a0poor woman who has children young and unmarried just doesn\u2019t have the same perspective on motherhood.\u00a0 <\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Anyway, where was I going with this?\u00a0 Sorry, as usual, I failed to follow the \u201cbottom line on top\u201d dictum.\u00a0 The men.<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the basic idea:\u00a0 you can be as punitive to an unmarried father as you like without worrying about indirectly harming the children.\u00a0 It\u2019s my understanding (note to self:\u00a0 verify this later) that when a single mother goes on welfare, the state gets involved to demand the father pay child support, even if up to that point, mom was content if he just brought a package of diapers over every now and again.\u00a0 So let\u2019s start here.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how successfully this requirement is implemented and enforced \u2014 what happens if a father doesn\u2019t pay the required child support.\u00a0 And certainly there are plenty of men who just don\u2019t have a job with sufficient salary to manage their child support obligations \u2014 but that doesn\u2019t mean that he should get a pass.\u00a0 To start with, in such a situation, the state should intervene in the same way as with a mother who, in principle, is required to work \u2014 to put in the requisite number of hours in some way or another (and maybe 40 hours isn\u2019t quite enough to drive home the point), even if she can\u2019t get a job.\u00a0 The state could, alternatively, mandate that dad provide childcare, if he\u2019s unemployed and mom isn\u2019t, but would otherwise be receiving a state subsidy for childcare.\u00a0 Or send him to a dormitory-type job program (VISTA?).\u00a0 The point is, if you father a child and can\u2019t afford the child support and mom collects welfare, the state owns you.\u00a0 <\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Oh, and \u201ccollecting welfare\u201d shouldn\u2019t be limited to just cash benefits \u2014 it\u2019s food stamps, and housing subsidy, and daycare subsidy, and Medicaid and any such similar benefits.\u00a0 <\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

And if you marry, then all these obligations are removed.\u00a0 (Granted, this requires a further step of enabling a household in which dad is around but unemployed to be eligible for welfare just as much as without him.)<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

The point of this is twofold.\u00a0 Partly I want every young man who thinks siring multiple children by multiple girlfriends makes him extra-manly, to think twice about this because of what happened to his buddy who now works two jobs and is counting the days \u2019til his youngest turns 18.\u00a0 And, of course, the bigger problem is that poor men are pretty lost (hence, the judgment by many poor girls\/women that they might as well have kids out of wedlock because they boyfriend is never going to be marriage material anyway) \u00a0\u2014 but if by means of multiple sticks we can force some fathers to father their children, there might be some promise for the next generation.<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, granted, I haven\u2019t worked out what happens if the women simply refuse to name the father, claiming \u201cI met him at a party; I don\u2019t know his name,\u201d or some such.\u00a0 I suspect the best that can be done here is prosecute her for fraud if in some way it\u2019s discovered later on that she did in fact know the father\u2019s identity.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
And, of course, this is all still in the category of \u201cplaying around with ideas.\u201d\u00a0 And I still have to finish \u201cPromises I Can Keep\u201d and then reread \u201cIs Marriage for White People?\u201d which addresses issues of marriage in the poor and middle-class black communities, and then plunge into the CDC statistics on childbearing.<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I\u2019ve been reading about the topic of unwed motherhood, and here\u2019s my working theory:\u00a0 it\u2019s all about the men. I still have some more reading \u2014 a lot more reading, really, in lieu of research experience in the way a sociologist might have \u2014 but this is what I\u2019m thinking:\u00a0 one of the core […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe "Julia" problem: It's about the men<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"So I've been reading about the topic of unwed motherhood, and here's my working theory:  it's all about the men. 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