Marriage key to cutting poverty among children

To find the poorest, most crime-ridden areas of any city, more than likely you will find them in the predominately black or Hispanic neighborhoods.

Social science shows that slavery and racism continued to have lingering affects on blacks up until the middle of the 20th century. Former President Lyndon B. Johnson said, “Men and women of all races are born with the same range of abilities. But ability is not just the product of birth. Ability is stretched or stunted by the family that you live with, the neighborhood you live in, the school you go to and the poverty or the richness of your surroundings. It is the product of a hundred unseen forces playing upon the little infant, the child, and finally the man.”

Black slaves in America were largely kept economically dependent, uneducated, and, in most cases, unarmed. Since the abolition of slavery, many blacks have excelled, but black communities continue to be plagued with one or more of the cruel vestiges of slavery, despite affirmative action laws. Are “unseen forces” still at work?

Children become victims, and bear the brunt of poverty and crime. There is one salient reason why blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately poorer than other ethnicities. It is no longer discrimination, and it goes far beyond public schools.

The Heritage Foundation reports the following:

“According to the U.S. Census, the poverty rate for single parents with children in the United States in 2009 was 37.1 percent. The rate for married couples with children was 6.8 percent. Being raised in a married family reduced a child’s probability of living in poverty by about 82 percent. In 1964, 93 percent of children born in the United States were born to married parents. Since that time, births within marriage have declined sharply. In 2010, only 59 percent of all births in the nation occurred to married couples. Marriage is a powerful weapon in fighting poverty. In fact, being married has the same effect in reducing poverty that adding five to six years to a parent’s level of education has.”

Fewer than 30 percent of black children are born to married parents. In other words, more than 70 percent of black children are deprived of having a father committed to marriage as a proper provider, protector, and mentor, not to mention the stress of a single woman raising children. About 60 percent of Hispanic children are born out of wedlock.

Before 1970, if a woman became pregnant, the socially accepted thing to do was for the man and woman involved to get married, commonly referred to as a “shotgun wedding.” The cost of these marriages was as little as jumping over a broomstick, but the wealth added to the children was immeasurable. Interestingly, the present divorce rate is much higher than when shotgun weddings were common, and discrimination was at its peak.

Fifty years ago, promiscuity was nothing like the present. But even then, parents wisely advised their children to never date someone they wouldn’t marry. The Berkley Foundation estimated that children born out of wedlock to whites would be reduced by 75 percent and 60 percent for blacks if “shotgun” marriages were still practiced.

Currently, the federal government discourages marriage by offering substantially more welfare to single parents and children born out of wedlock. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see why there is an incentive for the father to not marry the mother. The mother can claim no income and receive financial support for each child, as well as a host of other social programs.

Children in single-parent families, absent a father figure, are often relegated to Secretary Hillary Clinton’s suggestion: “It takes a village” to raise kids. In some “villages,” the kid learns to copy his older friends who use drugs, don’t graduate from high school, commit crime, and have children out of wedlock.

Either the I.Q. of Washington politicians is very low, or they know how to buy votes. Which is it? Or is it both? The taxpayers pick up the tab, but the ultimate tragedy and cost to the nation are the children born into poverty — a poverty not only of wealth, but also of virtue.

In America, show me a man and woman (any color/colors), married, hard working, especially with Christian values, and I will almost always show you children not destined to poverty. Let me repeat: man, woman, married, hard-working, Christian values.

A good education exponentially increases the chances of avoiding poverty, but can never replace marriage when it comes to the welfare of children. The value of a committed father and mother is priceless.




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