America is now the culture of selfishness.

Once you have a kid, your life is no longer about you any more. There's way too much permission in society given to the people who come up with the extraordinarily stupid idea "if I have a kid, I'll feel better about MYself" - no consideration of the fact that the kid who results from a divorced family structure will be crazily F'd up. What's the plan of these idiots who get divorced? No, you're not a "good parent" if you get divorced while you have a young kid.. you are now transmitting to the baby the same exact trauma that inspired you to get pregnant at age 19. What was the logic for getting together with the knucklehead in the first place?

Emily got 90% of the way on this sentence: "Studies have found that children born to single mothers are vastly more likely to be poor, have behavioral and psychological problems, drop out of high school, and themselves go on to have out-of-wedlock children." --> Yes, because the single mothers who had children out of wedlock were THEMSELVES children out of wedlock who dropped out of high school.. it's a gift from the generation before that keeps on giving. And, unfortunately, nobody bothers to step back and ask "why is this happening and how can I stop it?"

I don't think the statistics on out-of-wedlock marriages or births capture what's actually going on in the lives of the people described. America does have a tremendous culture of entitlement, of "I want that NOW and so therefore I must be worthy of having it." Much like a successful career, a kid just isn't like that. I think parental marriage rates are decreasing because people are convincing themselves that they can be parents without actually making the sacrifices necessary to be good parents.

It's somewhat counter-intuitive, but I'd always much rather see as a parent the couple who does NOT think they're ready for parenting than the mother who's 125% convinced she'll be the world's best mom. She'll be addicted to crank.

The goal of a person's life before the age of 25 should really be to avoid getting pregnant (or getting anyone pregnant). I wasn't capable of keeping an iguana alive at that age.. I can't imagine what forms of delusion convince a 22-year old section 8 chick that it's a great time to become a mom. It takes time and effort to acquire the skills and experience to start pulling the income needed to happily raise a kid.

Having a baby should be the end result of a long process of career acquisition and relationship stability. Instead, in America, at some point immediate gratification became more important than the sanity and practicality of raising a young life.

We get more of what we subsidize. If you don't want kids having kids, don't reward them for it.

Pogue Mahone:

We get more of what we subsidize. If you don't want kids having kids, don't reward them for it.

I say this with all sincerity: when I read posts like this, I think there may be hope for our nation after all.

The only question is whether people will understand in time.

Pogue Mahone: We get more of what we subsidize. If you don't want kids having kids, don't reward them for it.
Dear lord if only it were that easy. Have you ever seen someone attempt to pass sain legislation through? The problem with democracy is laziness. You try to cut of the leachers and they will trounce you up in arms. The problem will likely have to get a whole lot worse before enough of a majority finally scream loudly that enough is enough.