helenofjoy wrote: 

I did notice that.
I'm kind of surprised there were so many single fathers featured, though . 

 steeler wrote: 
You may have noticed there were no television programs featuring single mothers back then.

 Isabeau wrote: 

 

The 60's also gave birth to many families started for the wrong reason, to keep from being drafted.  College enrollment grew artificially as well, with more men than normal attending just to have that II - S deferment.  The sexual revolution and women's lib.  Drug's left the hood and into the burb's.  This was also the end of the one income family and the beginning of the end of the family as an institution.  There is a simple explanation for the end of the one income family if you can look at it rationally.  Two huge groups were finally allowed to enter the work force for the first time.  Women and minorities.  They were always around, but the beneficiaries of the civil rights legislation finally had major obstacles removed that kept them from working and women finally had the support of a movement that inspired them to expand their lives and seek employment in ways unheard of before, let alone allowed.  Suddenly, the size of the available labor pool basically doubled overnight.  Twice as many people chasing the same amount of jobs.  Wages fell as a result.  And ... the brightest and most dangerous minds of the baby boomers were culled by the draft, dying or becoming maimed inNam.  We will never know what we lost in leadership and innovation in that culling. 

I wrote the above in Feb 2009 as part of a bigger thing about the Middle Class and how it (the Middle Class) was never supposed to happen in the first place and how its deliberate decline began.  I’ve held the above to be basically true for decades but now I think I see a better picture 4 years later and with the notions of Social Justice and Social Engineering added to the perspective.  These notions are new to my awareness since the 2008 election.  Never heard of em before then.  Not on my radar. 

Hence my question to you earlier.   Right now, with the reprise of the Universal Childcare plan along with the reminder of its defeat 40 years ago, I have started to look at the Woman’s Lib / Feminism movement as a long standing part of this grand social engineering plan that I mentioned earlier.  I am not judging it / them just making note.  What better way to crash wages and hasten the end of the Middle Class.  So this is to primarily address how the two income family came to be a necessity, and little else for the sake of this discussion.

If we have some common ground in this proposition, then I think we can continue happily through what could be a pretty neat discussion.

 Proclivities wrote: 

That is interesting about the single fathers on 1950s and 1960s television. I had forgotten about those. .

 steeler wrote: 

I would ask you to watch the video in its entirety and see the statistics and scenarios presented.

Well worth the watch and states the problem at hand in a well researched straight forward way, imo.

sirdroseph wrote:
So we should think of the children? OK, I'm on it!

But don't measure the success of that effort by how many one-parent households there are. Every one of us that's raised kids (regardless of how many participated in that raising) has all the parent guilt we need.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
You should well know that I don't want to do anything on an institutional or governmental level. Here, I will just copy and paste all that I think should be "done" so to speak:

Of course we need to take care of all of the single parent households that already exists through affordable health care and fair tax laws no question, but we should also look upon these services as necessary evils, much like abortion and do everything in our power on an individual level to make better choices in our lives lessening the chances of having a child when you are not ready or with the wrong person who is not ready.  To me it is all about selfishness, we should put children above ourselves in the way that we think and live our everyday lives. If we always thought first; well, what is best for the child? I think maybe we would make a lot of different decisions in our lives and for the better.


Sorry as far as solutions, that's all I got!

meower wrote:
I won't tell anyone.

Except the entire internets, I mean.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Yes.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
have I agreed with you before?

sirdroseph wrote:
So what do you want to do about it?

No discussion of social issues (at least those where members of some demographic are being blamed for many of society's ills) is complete without a proposed solution. So what do you propose?

These demographic trends are the result of millions of individual decisions. Do you want to

• Put negative pressure on people to decide differently (punish them)
• Put positive pressure on people to decide differently (reward them)
• Take the decision out of their hands
• Something else?

Keep in mind that anything you're talking about is likely a government intervention in families' lives, something that ought to horrify you. All to drive some statistic towards a random number that is "righter" than the level we're at now. How do you decide what that level should be?

We removed disincentives to single parenthood over the last hundred years, and as a result more families broke up. As your own example shows that isn't always the worst option. What makes you think all those other people called it wrong, while you were justified?

 sirdroseph wrote: 

my bad. sorry about that.

(I'm not)

 meower wrote: 

I sure doubt that, I assumed we were all parents. I know I am. Twice over.  I singlehandedly (with the help of his grandparents) raised my biological son and am in the process of raising a step son whose biological father fortunately, yes fortunately died many years ago saving him some grief no doubt (alcoholic, gambler).

 steeler wrote: 
I agree with what you are saying, and I know this is somewhat off-topic - except for its cultural reference.  For some reason, there were a several TV shows from the 1950s to '70s, that featured single fathers (Bonanza, Bachelor Father, My Three Sons, The Rifleman, The Andy Griffith Show, etc.).  It doesn't seem that TV shows really deeply addressed the issues of single parenting until The Courtship Of Eddie's Father, Julia, and One Day At A Time.

 Lazy8 wrote: 

No question there are many instances that the biological father or mother being around is worse than them not, no question. I don't disagree with that, as a matter of fact I have lived it. I properly blame myself for choosing a woman to have a child with who had no business being a mother. I accept 100% of the blame for all of the horrible things she has done over the years and put our son through. I consider this mistake as the greatest failure of my life and have always made sure that I was there for my son to pick up the pieces and give him financial and emotional support as his mother continues to blow through life destroying all in her path.  I know that 2 parents cannot always be attainable, never has been and never will be, but this phenomenom has blown up out of control in the past 100 years or so and IMO it is not a good thing.

 Lazy8 wrote: 

(I think you might be the only parent who's commented so far in this line of talk in this thread, I could be wrong.....)

Thank you.

I'd imagine that there are Rpeeps who were raised by single parents, and that there are Rpeeps who are single parents, and that most of those kids/grownups are doing just fine thankyouverymuch.

As a matter of fact, I'd suffice to say that the number of peeps with 2 parent households who are screwed up is about the same number as those who grew up in single parent homes. Jusayin' as much as many of you don't like our president, you've gotta admit he's done OK for himself.

Bottom line? Kids need to be supported by many people, parents, teachers, coaches, neighbors, etc etc etc. Sometimes, even the government needs to step in to make sure their safe (even the 2 parent households abuse kids,)

I've got more to say, but am too disorganized to say it right now.

sirdroseph wrote:
I'm gonna go ahead and trust the parents on this one.

Two parents at war with each other? Two parents united only by a single DNA exchange during a beer-goggled hookup? You play the hand you're dealt. Sometimes the child's needs mean dumping a partner who just isn't into the kid thing, or develops an addiction, or can't be trusted around kids. "Not good for the child"? Compared to what?

I'll agree that, all things being equal, two parents might be preferable to one—but all things are never equal. It's a hard job, a job I'd want help with, but I can't look at every single parent family as a failure.

 steeler wrote: 

Well then I will say it for you. As far as child care, if you scroll way back in the thread this discussion started in I addressed child care affordability with this analogy. I think that day care needs should be analagous to abortion needs, they should be both be legal, affordable and easily available.  They should not be used as choices merely to make your life easier meaning to be able to have both parents work to acquire all of the material possessions that you desire or to purposely have a child because you want one knowing that you will be the only one raising it therefore using day care as the other parent while you are at work. Just as you should not use abortion as a means to discard your mistakes so you can keep on living da vida loca while continuing your power career.  Of course we need to take care of all of the single parent households that already exists through affordable health care and fair tax laws no question, but we should also look upon these services as neccessary evils, much like abortion and do everything in our power on an individual level to make better choices in our lives lessening the chances of having a child when you are not ready or with the wrong person who is not ready.  To me it is all about selfishness, we should put children above ourselves in the way that we think and live our everyday lives. If we always thought first; well, what is best for the child? I think maybe we would make a lot of different decisions in our lives and for the better.  This is just my opinion of course, but that is how I sees it.

 steeler wrote: 

 sirdroseph wrote:  
I would disagree with your assessment that society is glamorizing single parenting (there have been television sbows featuring single moms, and movies with single moms and dads, but that reflects reality; before that time, these popular culture engines were ignoring that reality).  I do think society has been accepting of single parenting because it is a reality. That is a good thing. You seem to be implying that society should be actively discouraging single parenting, and I suspect if we got down to specifics, you would posit that means, for example, that we should not be making child care so readily available.  I would argue that society recognizing  the reality that there are single-parent households and that there are households where both parents work is pragmatic.     

Note that I said many would agree that having 2 or more committed or related person sharing the responsibilities of raising the child is easier and, therefore, generally better. That is not the same as saying that one-parent households or households where both parents work is bad for the child.