|
|
May 20, 2001 Dear Sirs: I read with alarm your piece on the cover of the latest issue - "Unmarried, With Children" and its apparent utter disregard for the underlying issue - the children and their relationship with their father. The concept being espoused here - that women can crank out children and raise them on their own - ignoring the other parent in those children's lives - is outrageous on its face. We have overwhelming statistical evidence that this "family choice" is destructive to children. When it comes to children without their father in the home, we find the following pathology:
And much more. When you get down to it, adjusting for the prevalence of single-mother households generally, the bottom line statistics mean that children from a fatherless home are:
Yet we "celebrate" single motherhood with "examples" such as Callista and Rosie? Exactly what are we celebrating here? The right of an adult to choose a lifestyle that is *demonstrably* harmful to her offspring? The right of an adult to intentionally disadvantage the next generation to pleasure herself? When are we going to stop "celebrating" the destruction of millions of children every year? The simple fact is that 17 million fathers are disenfranchised from their non-adult children right now in America - almost two million every year. Every child has a mother and a father. That is the nature of biology, and while we can, as adults, destroy that child through our own hedonism we cannot change the fact that without both male and female gametes there is no next generation. Our adulteration of the prescription laid forth by biology for a stable and healthy next generation has served us horribly over the last 30 years, and threatens to undermine the very fabric of our society. Stephanie Coontz claims "...we have to support all kinds of families with kids." In a word: Balderdash. Society has no obligation to support its own destruction, particularly when that destruction is a matter of free choice imposed by adults on those who are powerless to render a vote or opinion - for nothing more than an adult's personal pleasure and whim. Further, what Hertz doesn't want to point out or admit - is that it is those like her who have blathered about this "support" that have made this "choice" possible. By permitting men to be ejected from the family at the whim of the woman, yet be financially forced to support not only junior but momma we have created a system in which 80% of all divorces and essentially all out-of-wedlock births are decided upon and initiated unilaterally by one gender, with disastrous consequences for the children involved. The only "watershed moment" that Rosanna Hertz should be pointing to is the fact that feminism has managed to instill in the mainstream American Woman that she has a right to disadvantage children for her own pleasure - a disgusting, immoral and unethical position for *any* adult to take, whether male or female. We rightly decry men who run out on their families, and punish them with not only societal disapproval but draconian civil and criminal sanctions - including time in prison. Where is the equally-loud shouting about women who FORCE these men out, and where are the equally-harsh sanctions and sentences for their behavior? The double-standard is alive and well, with children being the ones who suffer from the radical notion that the traditional family doesn't - and shouldn't - matter. To be fair, you did point out that Susan Brown is raising the alarm over the outcome for these children. As she should be - the evidence is clear and beyond dispute at this point in time that these children are severely disadvantaged in a statistical sense, and while you cannot predict the outcome for any one particular child, the fact is that these statistics point to millions of children who do less well as a direct consequence of an adult's choice being forced upon them. It is high time that we stopped, as a society, "supporting all kinds of families." Society should encourage the production and raising of children INSIDE stable, two-parent family homes - and NOT subsidize the choice of those who destroy those homes for their own pleasure. While this would not extend so far as to enforcing marriage, it certainly should - and, I would argue, must - extend to stopping the legalized extortion of being able to "choose" to have a child accidentally conceived, cut that child off from his or her father, and then expect the recalcitrant father to pay Mom for the disadvantaging his child! I advocate a reform called UPREPA which would, for the first time, codify the rights - and responsibilities - of both parents towards those children who they bring into the world. It would, for the first time, stop the exploitation of children both by mothers and fathers for their own pecuniary interests, and place their right to their parents - and their parent's right and responsibility to raise them - first and foremost on the societal and legal stage. You can find this declaration in an online petition at: |