posted February 03, 2009 09:21 PM            

the same statistics can be used to prove both sides of pretty much any argument. the quotes of a few extremists, most of whom nobody ever reads...illuminate nothing. i would not call ann coulter a feminist, not sure what i would call her. venus has read some articles and met some of the sadder cases in san jose and thinks she has a handle on the subject. she is entitled to her opinion, but these TOMES quoting statistics and diatribes made her a very showy target.

the fact is that since slave days black families have been split up by the establishment, one way or another. the men were robbed and the women too, of their dignity, their families, and it goes on today. i am not saying black people should be pitied or that they cannot overcome the odds. i know many racist blacks(browns, reds and chinese too) but one has to wonder how it got that way.

it did not start with 20th century feminists! but venus comes over very much the traditional upper class conservative who thinks poor and underclass people are "just lazy", morally lax or predators on society.

and the thread started out shrill...what you put out comes on back to you!

posted February 03, 2009 11:04 PM            

_________________________________

Report: Teen pregnancy less likely in S.F.
By Beth Winegarner
Examiner Staff Writer 2/2/09

Young mom: Victoria Pascasio, 20, holds daughter Anina, 3 months old, at the Young Family Resource Center in the Mission district. Cindy Chew/The Examiner SAN FRANCISCO – San Francisco teens are getting pregnant at nearly half the rate of their peers statewide, but Hispanics give birth eight times as often as whites, according to a new report.
The City’s adolescents are also less likely to be sexually active — and more likely to use condoms — than others in California, according to “A Snapshot of Youth Health and Wellness,” issued this month by San Francisco-based Adolescent Health Working Group.

San Francisco teens 15 to 19 gave birth at a rate of 20 per 1,000 between 2003 and 2005, well shy of the 34 per 1,000 average reported across the Bay Area and 37 per 1,000 statewide.

However, Hispanic teens in San Francisco gave birth at a rate of 55 per 1,000 in 2004 compared to 7 per 1,000 for white adolescents and 5 per 1,000 for Asians.

“Overall, we’re terrific,” said Marlo Simmons, adolescent health coordinator for The City’s Department of Children, Youth and Families. “But when you boil it down, you can’t help seeing the disparities.”

In general, the lower birth rates — along with heightened sexual responsibility among San Francisco teens — can be chalked up to schools’ insistence on teaching kids about sex early and often, according to Charlene Clemens, who works with teen moms at the Family Service Agency of San Francisco.

Students in the San Francisco Unified School District begin learning about HIV and AIDS prevention in kindergarten, get their first lessons in puberty by fourth-grade and by sixth-grade are learning about sexuality, according to Meyla Ruwin, director of district health programs. The education continues through senior year.

Every piece of the curriculum is approved at state and local levels. Among San Francisco high school students polled for the recent report, only 28 percent reported that they have had intercourse, compared to 48 percent nationwide.

The high birth rate among Hispanic teens in The City, however, is lower than the national average of 82.6 per 1,000 in 2004, according to Clemens.

To reach out to those girls, the Family Service Agency sponsors a program in which teen moms meet with seventh- and eighth-grade students, including at Balboa High School and Visitacion Valley and Horace Mann middle schools. In those talks, the young moms dispel myths about pregnancy and child rearing, according to program director Wave Geber.

bwinegarner@sfexaminer.com

Sexual activity among teens

The Bay Area, and especially San Francisco, has a much lower teen pregnancy rate than other parts of the state and nation.

Have had sexual intercourse: San Francisco, 26 percent, nation, 48 percent

Used condom during last encounter: San Francisco, 71 percent, nation, 35 percent

Teen birth rate (15-19), 2003-2005:

San Francisco, Bay Area, State

20 in 1,000, 34 in 1,000, 37 in 1,000

San Francisco teen birth rate by race, 2004:

Hispanic, Black, White, Asian

55 in 1,000, 43 in 1,000, 7 in 1,000, 5 in 1,000

National teen birth rate by race, 2004:

82.6 per 1,000, 63.1 per 1,000, 26.1 per 1,000, 17.3 per 1,000

Sources: Adolescent Health Working Group, National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy

___________________________________

posted February 05, 2009 07:13 PM            

It's been weeks since the last one, so on Sunday, The New York Times Magazine featured yet another cheery, upbeat article on single mothers. As with all its other promotional pieces on single motherhood over the years, the Times followed a specific formula to make this social disaster sound normal, blameless and harmless -- even brave.

These single motherhood advertisements include lots of conclusory statements to the effect that this is simply the way things are -- so get used to it, bourgeois America! "(A)n increasing number of unmarried mothers," the article explained, "look a lot more like Fran McElhill and Nancy Clark -- they are college-educated, and they are in their 30s, 40s and 50s."

Why isn't the number of smokers treated as a fait accompli that the rest of us just have to accept? Smoking causes a lot less damage and the harm befalls the person who chooses to smoke, not innocent children.

The Times' single motherhood endorsements always describe single mothers as the very picture of middle-class normality: "She grew up in blue-collar Chester County, Pa., outside Philadelphia, and talks like a local girl (long O's). Her father was a World War II vet who worked for a union and took his kids to Mass most Sundays." Even as a girl she dreamed of raising a baby with a 50 percent greater chance of growing up in poverty.

How about some articles on all the nice middle-class smokers whose fathers served in World War II and took them to Mass? Only when describing aberrant social behavior do Times writers even recognize what normality is, much less speak of it admiringly.

According to hysterical anti-smoking zealots at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, smoking costs the nation $92 billion a year in "lost productivity." (Obviously these conclusions were produced by people who not only have never smoked, but also don't know any smokers, who could have told them smoking makes us 10 times more productive.)

Meanwhile, single motherhood costs taxpayers about $112 billion every year, according to a 2008 study by Georgia State University economist Benjamin Scafidi.

Smoking has no causal relationship to crime, has little effect on others and -- let's be honest -- looks cool. Controlling for income, education and occupation, it causes about 200,000 deaths per year, mostly of people in their 70s.

Single motherhood, by contrast, directly harms children, occurs at a rate of about 1.5 million a year and has a causal relationship to criminal behavior, substance abuse, juvenile delinquency, sexual victimization and almost every other social disorder.

If a pregnant woman smokes or drinks, we blame her. But if a woman decides to have a fatherless child, we praise her as brave -- even though the outcome for the child is much worse.

Thus, the Times writes warmly of single mothers, always including an innocent explanation: "Many of these women followed a similar and familiar pattern in having their first child: They planned to marry, found they hadn't by their 30s, looked some more and then decided to have a child without a husband." At which point, a stork showed up with their babies.***No doubt these babies are a product of immaculate conception

So apparently, single motherhood could happen to anyone!

How about: These smokers followed a similar and familiar pattern, they planned never to start smoking, found themselves working long nights at the law firm and then decided to have a cigarette to stay alert.

Then there is the Times' reversal of cause and effect, which manages to exonerate the single mother while turning her into a victim: "The biggest reason that children born to unmarried mothers tend to have problems -- they're more likely to drop out of school and commit crimes -- is that they tend to grow up poor."

First, the reason the children "tend to grow up poor" is that their mothers considered it unnecessary to have a primary bread-earner in the family.

Second, the Times simply made up the fact that poverty, rather than single motherhood, causes anti-social behavior in children. Poverty doesn't cause crime -- single mothers do. If poverty caused crime, how did we get Bernie Madoff?

Studies -- including one by the liberal Progressive Policy Institute -- have shown that controlling for factors such as poverty and socioeconomic status, single motherhood accounts for the entire difference in black and white crime rates.

The Times' claim that poverty is the "biggest reason" for the problems of illegitimate children is on the order of claiming that the biggest reason that smokers develop heart disease and lung cancer is not because they smoke, but because they tend to work so hard. It's a half-baked, wishful-thinking theory contradicted by all known evidence. Other than that, it holds up pretty well.

Finally, the Times produced an imaginary statistic that is valid only in the sense that no study has specifically disproved it yet. "No one has shown," the Times triumphantly announced, "that there are similar risks for the children of college-educated single mothers by choice."

No one has shown that there are similar risks for smokers who run marathons, either. There are probably about as many college graduate single mothers by choice (7 percent) as there are smokers who run marathons. And, unlike single mothers, smokers who run marathons look really cool.

posted February 06, 2009 01:06 AM            

Here's my attempt. Can we at least agree that not all single mothers are the same? That some are truly victims and others are not?

This is a huge distinction:

quote:

---

VDI quoted a statistical social study which shows that 70% of prison inmates are from single parent homes.

The study didn't say that 70% of children raised in single parent homes will wind up in prison.

---

Although my opinions on what passes for feminism are surely to be met with insults against me, I will say that it is undeniable that 1 parent alone has a much harder job raising children than 2 parents alone. (That is, we're assuming a lack of extended family as a support system.)

It is time consuming. It is expensive. It requires a lot of patience and other virtues. It requires a lot of self-sacrifice. I don't doubt there are plenty of single parents, of either gender, who can do a decent job on their own but neither do I doubt that there are those who simply do not do a decent job.

I can't blame all of society's failures on All single mothers but I CAN and WILL blame most of society's failures on a lack of personal responsibility that may perhaps touch upon but undoubtedly extends far beyond the scope of single parenthood.

posted February 06, 2009 02:02 AM            

Bad parents exist regardless of their marital status. A divorce isn't a magical wand which turns someone into a 'bad parent' if they weren't already that way to begin with, you know?