Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
About the Boys
“It’s about what these women will let guys get away with.” You may not expect to hear commentary like that at your garden variety think tank panel discussion, but it got pretty lively at the American Enterprise Institute discussion on the topic “Do Healthy Families Affect the Wealth of States?”
Megan McArdle of Bloomberg View is author of the above comment. The question at hand was: Why are so many young women (64 percent of moms under the age of 30) having children out of wedlock? The class divide in America is nowhere as wide as on the matter of marriage. College educated men and women are sticking with the traditional order of marriage first, children after. Not only that, but they are far less likely to divorce than their parents’ generation. Those with only some college or less, by contrast, are much less likely to marry before having children, and much more likely to divorce if they do marry.
McArdle was answering her own question in a sense. She noted that many who had studied the retreat from marriage among the uneducated propose the “working class men are garbage” thesis. According to this view, lots of young men are unemployed and playing video games all day. Why would a young woman want to marry such a loser? She’d just be getting another kid.
But as McArdle observes, someone is enabling that behavior on the part of the young men. Someone is putting a roof over their heads, food in their bellies, and paying the electricity bill so that the game console stays on. Is it his parents? Or is it a young woman? If she has a child (possibly his child), she is eligible for a whole panoply of government assistance, including TANF, food stamps, WIC, housing assistance, low income home energy assistance, and much more. Thirty years ago, in Losing Ground, Charles Murray wondered whether the welfare state was enabling the sort of behavior that isn’t good for people – like having children out of wedlock.
The question still stands. In the interim, Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed a welfare reform bill that was successful in reducing welfare dependency to some degree and certainly contributed to a drop in childhood poverty. Two disheartening things have happened since: 1) the Obama administration unilaterally vitiated the work requirements in the welfare law through regulation; and 2) the secular trend toward unwed parenthood continued unabated.
Is it the lack of jobs for high school graduates that has made young men less “marriageable” or is it the retreat from marriage that makes kids who grow up in unstable homes less able to take advantage of job opportunities? Chicken? Egg?
Most of the panel members agreed that causation is probably a two-way street. What is not in doubt is the association of intact families with greater wealth, employment, security, and all-around high functioning. A study by W. Bradford Wilcox, Joseph Price, and Robert I. Lerman found that states with higher than average percentages of married parents were associated with higher median incomes, lower levels of child poverty, greater social mobility, and higher male labor force participation rates, among other measures of success, than states with higher levels of unwed parenting.
Life ain’t fair, and cannot be made perfectly fair. But it almost seems a conspiracy of silence among the college educated to keep from the working class the key secret to their success. Particularly in families with college-educated couples who don’t divorce (the vast majority), children are given security, stability, money, time, a kin network, and a thousand other advantages. The children of single parents, by contrast (and yes, many do fine) are much more likely to suffer from feelings of abandonment, to live in poverty, to cope with emotional tumult in their mother’s life (most live with mom), to be sexually abused, to be forced to adapt to a blended family, and so on. Also, as David Autor and Melanie Wasserman suggest in their report Wayward Sons for The Third Way: “A growing body of evidence … indicates that the absence of stable fathers from children’s lives has particularly significant adverse consequences for boys’ psychosocial development and educational achievement.”
There may be lots of reasons, starting with their parents, why many young, high school graduate males are unemployed and playing video games. But if young women consider them unfit husbands, they ought also to be unfit fathers, right? Unless, the state is the father. Over to you, Charles Murray.
Published in Domestic Policy, Marriage
I don’t believe the problem is purely economic, unless your terms of economics is beyond materialism, then we agree.
Not a week goes by where I don’t see another article along the lines of this #thosemen meme. It seems like when women started saying they needed men like fish needed bicycles, that they were just throwing a tantrum of sorts. The result: Men decided that they needed women like fish need bicycles. Frankly, I get all the angst about these man-boys. It is a big issue. You know what the even bigger issue is? A committed relationship is a 2-way street and quite honestly, most women in our culture aren’t up to THEIR end of the bargain. Here is the cure for all the aggrieved women out there. If you want to be loved or treated with respect, try being lovable and respectable. You aren’t enablers of the problem. You are the reason for the problem.
If women refused to have sex with a lout, fewer men would be louts. Make that much fewer men.
No yet, make that almost no men.
Blaming broad caricatures of manboys and welfare queens for such high levels of illegitimate births is skimming the surface on a very deep rooted problem. Those two demographics are both significant, but not large enough, a segment of the population to account for these major cultural shifts.
For one thing, the nerds in their moms basement playing video games all day are not the main supplier of unwanted children. They are essentialy the new untouchables and will go without sex or intimacy ad infinitum. Many are smart, but coddled by constantly being reassured they were “gifted” and instilled with a near pathological aversion to risk. This isn’t a new segment of society, but it is a growing one.
The welfare queens are a different segment, one I’m less familiar with directly. But the assumption that 64% of women under thirty having children are doing so as a scheme to scam the government strikes me as absurd.
The segment of the actual welfare queens can safely be assumed to be dwarfed by the number of “oops” moms. But it can also be assumed they skew the numbers significantly as well. having practically litters of children by different fathers and inflating the %64 statistic. In other words most out of wedlock mothers may be one-off “oops” moms, but the smaller segment of actual welfare queens are supplying three times or more the supply of illegitimate children.
Much like how the multi-divorcees bump up the divorce rate.
Also a little talked about stat is how many college students are having abortions. Sure college educated women may be waiting to give birth to a child after being married, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that that was their first pregnancy. Especially with the rampant sexual activity on college campuses.
So don’t start.
Mate De brings up an important point. It seems as though lower class people are more likely to be pro-life, and less likely to get abortions, and maybe that is why they are more tolerant of single mothers? Obviously, marriage is the best for children, but nobody wants to create an environment where a woman might feel pressured to get an abortion. It’s a difficult line to walk.
I don’t have much experience with upper class people. Is there a great deal of pressure on unmarried upper class women who get pregnant to abort? My limited experience tells me that there might be, but my experience is limited.
I sometimes volunteer with the Sisters of Life in NY, and they were the ones who told me how many college students come to them for help, some have the baby but some go through with the abortion but they did say that many more of them do have the abortion. They know it is a baby but they see it has sacrificing one life (the baby’s) for theirs, the life that they planned for, ie: graduating, getting a career, getting married, etc.. and believe it is better for the child not to be born because they couldn’t provide the right life for them at that time.
Who then is supplying these twenty something, single, low educated women with unwanted children?
One problem I see in the original post is the assumption that “classes” entirely stick to their own. Historically speaking most women have tried to “marry up” socioeconomically and men are fine with “marrying down.” Many men even see it as a positive, allowing him to find an available younger, more attractive mate below his social standing than in it.
These politics and desires have remained while the old social norms have been swept aside for a sexual free for all. Resulting in a class of men that would better be described “predators” than “manboys.”
They essentially float along in a career of decent but not great pay, rent, own a car that is disproportionate to their income and have multiple three to six month relationships in between the occasional one night stand. Their girlfriends are usually younger, in the service industry (or some other low paying job), have some or no college and may or may not have a child… yet.
Sex is the singular connecting thread through all of this. All american races and cultures have assimilated old values to new and created a hybrid monster. Women and men now view sex as an audition for potential commitment. But it has resulted in the men lowest on the totem being pushed out of the sexual arena entirely and the lowest women to be preyed on by a class of men in the lower middle
I think it’s that the lower classes are more tolerant of single motherhood, therefore it’s easier for them to be pro-life.
I don’t think it’s easier for the lower classes per se, but it’s the expectations that the upper classes have of what their life is supposed to be makes them more vunerable to abortion. There are pro-life Christian women that have abortions.
There is an order to things and a baby at 19 is out of order and therefore will destroy their expectation of what their life is supposed to be. This is why the upper classes in past generations insisted on chastity for their daughters so that their life could go according to plan (obviously that didn’t always work and there were other reasons as well) .
I think this issue has always been an issue of class. Same with the men. It was the lower classes of men who would be drinking their wages away, or abusing or neglecting their familes that lead to the temperence movement. But I think the way to fix this boys issue is for women to be less free with their sexual wares. Women really do need to make them work for it. It’s the old why buy the cow….
I’d have to track them down, but I’m pretty sure the statistics for more sexual partners, illegitimate children and abortion are all higher in poorer communities. The richer communities rates are still higher than they were sixty years, of course. Cultural rot apparently sets in and kills the roots first, leaving the higher limbs to die a slower less noticeable death.
Midge, I agree with you that it is much, much easier for a pregnant lower class woman to be pro-life than it is for a pregnant upper class woman. The pregnant lower class woman will probably receive emotional support from some if not all of the people in her life. That doesn’t mean that they don’t believe in marriage, it just means that they are pro-life. I have witnessed pregnant upper class women who were faced with near total condemnation from everyone (except me) that they knew-not because they had sex before marriage, but because they dared to even consider having the baby. In one instance, the woman’s “friends” rallied to the support of the father who wanted her to abort, and they accused her of being selfish because she wanted to have the baby. I tried my best to support her, but I was literally the only person supporting her. What happens to upper class women who get pregnant before marriage can be really horrific, not to mention what happens to their babies. I don’t believe that upper class culture is necessarily healthier than lower class culture.
I think as others have mentioned it’s that a baby is often a financial asset for a poor single woman. That is almost never true for a middle- or upper-class woman; quite the opposite, the economic security and other personal fulfillment which those women can reasonably expect will be severely curtailed by a baby.
I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself but in poor/lower middle class circles when a daughter gets pregnant, the parents think guiding them responsibly is getting them signed up for WIC food. And the parents really appreciate the baby checks. It’s not a mean-spirited caricature. It’s reality. At least, it’s reality in an economically depressed area.
Doubtless.
But I would expect the ratio of abortions to unwed births to be higher in higher-class communities, simply because they have so few unwed births.
It’s that conditional probability thing. It can simultaneously be true that:
a) higher-class girls have fewer unwed pregnancies total
and
b) if a higher-class girl does conceive outside wedlock (or an existing engagement, where marriage doesn’t have to be forced, only sped up), she may be more likely to abort the child because the stigma against unwed motherhood among the upper classes is still very strong.
Of the relatively few higher-class girls pregnant out of wedlock, some portion may be persuaded to “compromise” by putting the baby up for adoption. Then they avoid unwed motherhood, but not the stigma of having had an unwed pregnancy – unless they can arrange to have several months of their lives plausibly covered up.
N.M. Weidemer: according to the Guttmacher Institute, you are correct. They say that 52 out of 1000 poor women get abortions, whereas only 9 out of 1000 of the wealthiest women get abortions. But they only give statistics for the very poorest and the most wealthy, which makes me wonder. I don’t know how much I trust the Guttmacher Institute, but will look further into this.
Also, according to their statistics, 60% of women who get abortions already have one child, which would indicate that most of them are poor.
This is doing nothing for my desire to sell the Republic out to the next passing barbarian tribe, guys…
“Out of wedlock” and “illegitimate” are outdated and meaningless terms harking back to when legal marriage was understood to exist for responsible family formation. The Supreme Court ruled legal marriage means something else, so we don’t have legal recognition of responsible family formation. The closest would be something like, children living with both parents.
What I witnessed in my limited experiences with upper class people was bizarre. In my own lower middle class/working class circles, we were advised to wait until marriage for sex, but told that in the event of an unwed pregnancy, we were expected to give birth. The upper class girls I knew were pressured by everyone, including their own parents, to be sexually active before marriage, and then when they got pregnant, everyone especially their parents were horrified and pressured them into abortions. Remaining a virgin until marriage didn’t seem to be an option for them, neither was having the baby in the event of a pregnancy. It was the cruelest thing that I have ever witnessed personally.
That ship sailed when we stopped referring to bastardy. As we have euphemized the language, we have removed the social stigma.
Sure. Selfish. And foolish.
I think it is healthier – for the babies that survive.
It’s kind of hard to pretend that the family instability spreading through the lower classes isn’t adding to their misery. And unfortunately, unwed births, though they avoid abortion, contribute to that instability. By contrast, the more stable family practices of the upper classes really are healthier. That sometimes that stability is purchased at the cost of unborn life may be both horrifying and true.
In choosing between a good life, a blighted life, and death, some will choose death over a blighted life, not only for themselves, but for their children. That choice can be stubbornly resistant to reordering, even when the person preferring death to blighted life believes he has a moral obligation to reorder his choice.
Again, there is a chicken-and-egg aspect to this. In states with more economic opportunity/prosperity you will find higher median income, greater social mobility, higher male labor force participation and more opportunity and incentive to form a stable self-sufficient family unit. Where there’s a strong correlation between unwed parenting and being on welfare, there is less incentive and opportunity to form a stable self-sufficient family unit.
Which is a shame, because that plumber / electrician will always be in demand, and probably make enough money to live quite comfortably. (While being looked down upon by those perpetual students in their 40s with useless boutique degrees.)
I’m encouraging my daughters to become plumbers and electricians, actually.
I can’t figure out the context for: “It’s about what these women will let guys get away with.” That very sentence rankles, as if the women are supposed to control men and keep them in line. And the mistake they make is in not controlling them tightly enough.
So please help: what is the context of that line? It is really her simplistic answer to why so many women are having children out of wedlock? Not sure whether I should fill the room with uppercuts.
It was a comment on how games have gotten absurdly entertaining and deep. Obviously there’s a point where a good thing becomes a negative, but I’m tired of video games being viewed as illegitimate forms of entertainment. They are infinitely more engaging that TV and movies.
Reading books or whatever your favorite pastime can as easily be a waste as anything else. The only difference is they’re a form of media that’s been around for much longer.
Who famously used the expression, “punished with a baby”? Why, that would be the President of the United States, father of 2 girls and Ivy Leaguer.
If you want an insight into the prevailing and officially sanctioned mindset of lower class women concerning single motherhood, then go to You Tube and search for an appalling 14-minute video by typing “Father Albert Ann Coulter” into the search box.
You may not like Ann Coulter, but you will despise Father Albert and pity the poor women who are counseled by this collared con man.
“Uneducated” is not an appropriate word to describe all folks who don’t have a college education. For example, a working class person may have a high school diploma plus extensive vocational training.
To say “the non-college-educated” or “those without post-secondary education” would be fairer and more precise.
Just make sure when they buy the cow that they get what they paid for. ;)
Thank God children conceived out of wedlock are not called bastards for the rest of their life anymore. That right there would be a whole heap of more incentive to abort.
I’ve seen that video, it is a pathetic display as to WHY we can’t have a conversation about anything in this country. It might hurt someone’s feeling. None of those women could not even admit that MAYBE their situation was not the ideal and that MAYBE it would be easier if they did have a father for their children or if they had a father themselves. Also it was nice to see Ann call out the good father asking him who the good Christian actually was, that perhaps it would be best to councel these women on how best to deal with their less than ideal situation instead of pandering to them .