Is Rising Illegitimacy Necessarily a Problem?

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About 40% of the children born in the USA are bastards (over 70% of Blacks, about 1/2 of Hispanics, and almost 1/3 of Whites).

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2011/11/ille ... -2010.html

The Family Research Council, obviously, calls this a social catastrophe

http://www.frc.org/specialpublication/r ... atastrophe

And, of course, some Republicans fear increasing numbers of Democratic voters:

http://www.parapundit.com/archives/002135.html

Which, of course, is a positive result.

Obviously, our society is changing. Is all of this illegitimacy necessarily a catastrophe? And, if so, what to do about it?

Its not a problem unless you make it one. The absence of the biological father from a childs life is not always a bad thing.

I for one am more concerned with the problem of rising Right wing sanctimonius arbitrary moralising.

Also if you eliminate illigitimacy you'll put poor daytime chat show hosts like Jerry Springer and Maury out of work.

Good point.

Does anyone want to go through and refute all of the Family Research Council's points?

I would respond to much of it with, 'it's about class, you f**kwit'. There's little conservative concern for the life chances of, say, Princes William & Harry - children of divorced parents (and later a single parent) who had a string of affairs.

'Illegitimacy', as they call it, is bollocks. Where there is a problem, it is with any stigma the rightwing (want to) attach to being 'illegitimate' and the wider social consequences of that.

Our Work & Pensions Minister - whose brief also includes Welfare - points to s**t like this as a justification for making it harder for women to get out of abusive relationships.

I didn't meet my dad til I was 13. I never missed him, and when I met him, I was glad he hadn't been around.

According to this article

http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html ... tm?id=4636

the increasing illegitimacy rate among Hispanics is creating a new underclass.

I'm confused about what illegitimacy is exactly, is it just a child born out of wedlock or does one parent have to be absent to call it illegitimacy? My parents were divorced and my father had full custody by the time I was about half a year in age. Does an absent mother mean I'm illegitimate?

Grr that's a funny term, I've never considered it I guess, but it feels kind of demeaning. I don't know if there is any rational basis for that feeling, however.

But when I say I think a lot of authority is inherently illegitimate I definitely don't mean to compliment said authority.

Sorry if this post is going off topic.

I'm also confused as to how it could be blamed for an inncrease in people who vote democrat, I think there are more specific reasons behind voting one way or another and it's weird not to address the specific causes.

Back in my day, being a child that was conceived out of wedlock makes me a 'bastard', despite the fact that my parents were married when I was born.

I suppose that some people have an inner need to find some reason to discriminate against others, even if those others are children and relatives.

Born to a couple that never married but separated or "broke up".

Does that make me a "bastard"?

it does, yes.

in fact a bastard is anyone who was born to two parents who were unmarried at that point, regardless of whether they separated, stayed together through the child's upbringing, eventually did marry etc. etc.

i, in fact, am one too, i'm quite proud of the fact.

bastards of the world unite!

"In the United States, in the early 1970s, a series of Supreme Court decisions held that most common-law disabilities imposed upon illegitimacy were invalid as violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.[5] Many other countries have abolished any legal disabilities of a child born out of wedlock by legislation."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimacy_(law)

The definition of bastardy - "legal illegitimacy" - seems to be antiquated.

It IS a problem, though. Is it really acceptable for a man to act irresponsibly by getting a girl pregnant and not sticking around to take care of his child? Or at least to help? What about situations in which one father has several children by multiple women? And he doesn't work enough to adequately support them? Granted, I don't have full-time work anymore, but at least I make up for it by caring for our baby full-time and keeping the older two after school. We save the money that would otherwise go to daycare, which means by quitting one of my part time jobs we actually have MORE money coming in. Just being there, if nothing else, takes a large burden off my wife.

Legally, underaged girls getting pregnant results from abuse. More often than we'd like to admit, this is from rape and incest. But many of these cases are are never investigated or prosecuted, so it continues to happen. Since the fathers are unable to provide for their children, either because they are in jail or too young to get a job, or those kinds of jobs are unavailable, it becomes a problem for welfare programs to handle--which in turn becomes a problem for taxpayers. And in a bad economy with not enough money going into the system, it becomes a problem that does affect everyone. If we ever reach the point when we're unable to support welfare recipients, what then? Yes, I'm aware that we can increase the national debt if we get in a bind, but eventually even that has its limits.

Since child sex is inherently abusive, I suggest even more stringent penalties and enforcement of abuse laws to reduce school-age pregnancy. What happens between two consenting adults is different, obviously, but I think there should be some kind of action that could be taken against a man who knocks up, say, more than two women. Polygamy is already illegal, so maybe it could be treated as such since that is essentially what it is.

And then there is the obvious: I am not at all opposed to birth control.

in truth for many a life without the father is better than one with, the financial support should be mandatory, it is in denmark and at least it offers some shared responsiblity regardless of location.

Men not supporting their children financially is a problem. This problem is almost always - surprise! - viewed as a problem of women.

The 'illegitimacy' angle here is bollocks. I'm a legitimate child, and there are plenty of illegitimate children doing a lot better in life.

What matters is economic and social security. Sort that out and see where you are, what problems you still have.

The haves have always castigated the feckless fecundity of the have nots, suggesting all would be well if they kept their clothes on and married (needless to say, the haves have a fine history of bedjumping and hushmoney).

And poor single mugs like me are paying for this in taxes. If and if a 39 year old black aspie wants a date the majority of woman my age have already have children. This is a broken system that is impossible change without serious reform.

Sounds to me like you're paying for it in more things than taxes!

Seriously, though, I wasn't looking at it as a black thing, though in the US it frequently happens along racial lines. Our welfare system was set up to help single-parent families. But because blacks were marginalized, more black families were forced into dependence on the system. Up to that point, black nuclear families were fairly strong. The government figured out that impoverished families were lying about their status to get more benefits. They started sending in social workers for surprise visits to verify single parent families. The husbands would just run out the fire escape. Eventually they just disappeared entirely. Welfare policies really have contributed significantly to the decline of the family unit and perpetuated the problem.

The civil rights situation has exacerbated the problems that blacks have had, but that is no longer the case. It certainly is a problem that crosses racial lines, something that is readily apparent to trailer-dwellers such as myself. And, yes, I sharply limit the exposure my kids have to neighboring kids. One young lady I know here is pregnant with her third baby, is struggling with addiction, and has lost her other two children to DHS. Knowing how that goes, there will likely be social workers sitting outside her hospital room like vultures waiting to take this one away, too. Anyway, main point being here that these situations could be avoided if steps could be taken to hold more men accountable under the law for their actions and if we could be more aggressive in pursuing child abusers...we'll just say anyone engaging in sex with someone younger than 14. Personally I think males should be automatically singled out as the aggressors, but probably it would be more fair in our legal climate to single out the oldest as the aggressor.

Strictly my opinion, of course, but the status quo is harmful to the mothers, not to mention girls who become mothers out of long-term sexual abuse or exploitation.

Isn't it more honourable for a man to impregnate only women with whom he is married, and to participate in raising the children, rather than to knock up a series of random ladies?

A middle-income man would be economically crushed by the child support payments. For someone as rich as Arnold Schwartzenegger: no big deal, he can afford it. For more transient men, who can leave town at any time, or who might be on drugs or in-and-out of jail: also no big deal.