America's crisis is a lack of fathers.

JaniceM said:
Instead, they should say it "can be" a contributing factor. But it's more about how parents approach their kids than how many (parents) there are.
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The issue IS parenting, single or not. But data shows that single parent homes are producing far more poor students and bad citizens, and in a huge majority of those homes (over 85%) the head of household is a single mother. Today's policy-makers don't want to talk about that too much because it smacks of woman-blaming.

My foster son turned 4 this month. When CPS placed him with me, he was not quite a month old. When CPS took him from my home to "reunite" him with his mother, he was 30 months old. He lived with his mother for about 8 months, but spent every weekend with me. Most of those weekends were 4 days long. CPS took him from his mother a second time and placed him with a foster couple in another city. He was there for 9 months, and after the first 4 months, they let him stay with me almost every weekend. CPS returned him to his mother again about 2 months ago. They live in a family shelter with other troubled mothers and their troubled kids. He has lost interest in school and learning, art, music, sports and nature, all the things he used to love. He's become sullen, withdrawn, angry and bullying. He is not the same child at all, and his future is bleak.
 

Murrmurr said:
The issue IS parenting, single or not. But data shows that single parent homes are producing far more poor students and bad citizens, and in a huge majority of those homes (over 85%) the head of household is a single mother. Today's policy-makers don't want to talk about that too much because it smacks of woman-blaming.

My foster son turned 4 this month. When CPS placed him with me, he was not quite a month old. When CPS took him from my home to "reunite" him with his mother, he was 30 months old. He lived with his mother for about 8 months, but spent every weekend with me. Most of those weekends were 4 days long. CPS took him from his mother a second time and placed him with a foster couple in another city. He was there for 9 months, and after the first 4 months, they let him stay with me almost every weekend. CPS returned him to his mother again about 2 months ago. They live in a family shelter with other troubled mothers and their troubled kids. He has lost interest in school and learning, art, music, sports and nature, all the things he used to love. He's become sullen, withdrawn, angry and bullying. He is not the same child at all, and his future is bleak.
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That sucks about your foster child.. I hope things work out for him somehow. I'm not an expert, but it sounds to me like he bonded with you, and is probably having problems because he was taken away from you and sent to a person who's a stranger to him.

Re: your first paragraph, though (and previous post)- it was in the mid-1990s (long before I ever saw a computer) that it was said kids from single parent/mother households are nearly doomed to fail in life, especially in their educations... Shortly after this was all over the news, my oldest came home with an exceptionally-high score on SAT.
My kids have college degrees, and one has multiple degrees.
Neither has been in any trouble with the law, other than a speeding ticket; never got into drinking/drugs; and- wording this as politely as possible- didn't have the 'lifestyle' that would lead to teenage pregnancies (male or female).
They've done quite well so far, and I believe they'll continue to do so.. although they were raised by a single mother..
 
Murrmurr said:
The issue IS parenting, single or not. But data shows that single parent homes are producing far more poor students and bad citizens, and in a huge majority of those homes (over 85%) the head of household is a single mother. Today's policy-makers don't want to talk about that too much because it smacks of woman-blaming.

My foster son turned 4 this month. When CPS placed him with me, he was not quite a month old. When CPS took him from my home to "reunite" him with his mother, he was 30 months old. He lived with his mother for about 8 months, but spent every weekend with me. Most of those weekends were 4 days long. CPS took him from his mother a second time and placed him with a foster couple in another city. He was there for 9 months, and after the first 4 months, they let him stay with me almost every weekend. CPS returned him to his mother again about 2 months ago. They live in a family shelter with other troubled mothers and their troubled kids. He has lost interest in school and learning, art, music, sports and nature, all the things he used to love. He's become sullen, withdrawn, angry and bullying. He is not the same child at all, and his future is bleak.
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This mother was a hot mess from the get-go. I understand the importance of keeping families together when possible, but it seems to me that the pendulum has swung too far in favor of birth parents and too far from what would truly be best for the child(ren).

Frank, would you have adopted this little boy if that had been possible? Seems to me you're the best, most stable parent he's had.
 

Murrmurr said:
They live in a family shelter with other troubled mothers and their troubled kids. He has lost interest in school and learning, art, music, sports and nature, all the things he used to love. He's become sullen, withdrawn, angry and bullying. He is not the same child at all, and his future is bleak.
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Did Jackie tell you that, or a worker? My heart is breaking; I don't know this kid, but I feel I know you (somewhat).
 
Which crisis??? At this point there are several.

We can not blame all that is wrong currently on any one factor, there is a confluence, a perfect storm of many. Nor can blame be put exclusively on men or women. But i'll stick to core issue of family composition to avoid getting into political factors.

i have long held that much of our modern social ills are not from the break up of the nuclear family (Mom, Dad, kids) but rather from massive reduction in extended family ties (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins).

There have always been families without fathers due to illnesses, wars, or abandonment. (Historically if wife died men tended to remarry, or if wealthy hired nannies). But when the extended family lived nearby, so visits were not just on holidays but involved eveyday life more often, the family could become a safety net. Uncles and older male cousins could become role models.

Even when a nuclear family is intact, frequent non-special occasion contact with extended family could provide a lot of social education. I had infrequent contact with my extended family until i was 10. Then i took full advantage of of having them around.

You learn that very different kinds of marriages can still 'work' and be healthy for both partners. You get to observe many different parentng styles/techniques not just the contast between your own Mom and Dad.

As extended family interactions decreased, parents began expecting schools to more. And teachers already had hands full with teaching their curriculums. Peers, TV, movies became bigger factors, tho studies well into the 90s (i haven't checked for newer ones) showed parental influence was still prime one for most kids.

Of course if the extended family is toxic, as some are, there can be a downside to close contact. But I think even more recent studies still show that if parent(s) toxic that having even one adult that cares enough to listen well, to set healthy limits, while being supportive emotionally can build resiliency in children that allows survivors of neglectful or abusive parents to grow into healthy adults that break what is often a multigenerational legacy of neglect &/or abuse.
 
Pepper said:
I'm crushed for this little kid, Frank. His heart must hurt so badly.
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I wonder sometimes (too often) if, along with a bunch of other emotional baggage, he carries a feeling of betrayal, and that he thinks I'm the one who betrayed him.

Understandably, foster parents are discouraged from criticizing bio-parents. I never did, not because you're not supposed to, but because it's damaging to the kids. Little kids tend to feel they are like their parents....you know, like if their parents are bad or stupid or criminal or mean, then maybe they are too. But my stomach sinks every time I remember telling him his mommy is nice and that she loved and missed him, and was trying to be better and stuff. And then I was all smiles and all positive as he was being loaded into the van that took him "home". And a few months later, on his weekend visits I'm seeing bruises and scratches and adult sized handprints all over him, and he's saying mommy did it, and he's pleading with me to not let her pick him up and take him home - but I let her. Taking off with him would've been a felony. I could've gone to prison and gotten a lifetime No Contact Order.

Believe me, I thought about it. I mulled over a few plans and talked to a couple of potential aid-and-abetters. But I reported her to CPS instead. And I sent a bunch of photos. I posted some of them on here, in the Diaries Forum. They're pretty graphic. The abuse is freaking obvious, and yet CPS reunited him and his mother....again.

So I didn't renew my foster care license this month. You're supposed to renew annually, but I can't, man. Not for CPS. They're so messed up; tax-funded manufacturers of criminals and thugs, personality disorders and deviates.
 
JaniceM said:
That sucks about your foster child.. I hope things work out for him somehow. I'm not an expert, but it sounds to me like he bonded with you, and is probably having problems because he was taken away from you and sent to a person who's a stranger to him.

Re: your first paragraph, though (and previous post)- it was in the mid-1990s (long before I ever saw a computer) that it was said kids from single parent/mother households are nearly doomed to fail in life, especially in their educations... Shortly after this was all over the news, my oldest came home with an exceptionally-high score on SAT.
My kids have college degrees, and one has multiple degrees.
Neither has been in any trouble with the law, other than a speeding ticket; never got into drinking/drugs; and- wording this as politely as possible- didn't have the 'lifestyle' that would lead to teenage pregnancies (male or female).
They've done quite well so far, and I believe they'll continue to do so.. although they were raised by a single mother..
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It sounds like you were a great mother, but your experience doesn't refute the statistics.

No one ever said that every single child raised in a single parent home will fail in life, the statistics simply say that they are far more likely to fail than those raised in two parent homes.

I'm sure I could find anecdotal stories about children raised in single parent homes that ended up in prison,* but that wouldn't mean they all did. Anecdotal stories about individuals prove nothing. It's the stats over large groups that show the true story over all.

*72% percent of adolescents serving sentences for murder are from fatherless households. 71% of high-school dropouts are from fatherless homes. 75% of kids in drug rehabs are from fatherless homes. 75% of the long-term correctional facility inmates are from father-absent households.

For every superwoman who is capable of being June and Ward Cleaver combined there are a lot who just can't manage that. Two is better than one in so many ways, two to make good decisions, two to balance out the disciplinarian with the nurturer, two so one can stay home while one earns money, or two to earn money. If one parent becomes ill, the other one is there. It's particularly hard on boys to not have a same sex role model in the home and girls benefit from having a loving father so that they wont be so desperate for validation from boys.
 
JaniceM said:
That sucks about your foster child.. I hope things work out for him somehow. I'm not an expert, but it sounds to me like he bonded with you, and is probably having problems because he was taken away from you and sent to a person who's a stranger to him.

Re: your first paragraph, though (and previous post)- it was in the mid-1990s (long before I ever saw a computer) that it was said kids from single parent/mother households are nearly doomed to fail in life, especially in their educations... Shortly after this was all over the news, my oldest came home with an exceptionally-high score on SAT.
My kids have college degrees, and one has multiple degrees.
Neither has been in any trouble with the law, other than a speeding ticket; never got into drinking/drugs; and- wording this as politely as possible- didn't have the 'lifestyle' that would lead to teenage pregnancies (male or female).
They've done quite well so far, and I believe they'll continue to do so.. although they were raised by a single mother..
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Mine were raised by me, their single dad. They're all doing very well.

That 90s data has gotten worse. That data is hard to find these days; doesn't get the publicity it used to get (hiding program failures).

Not too long ago, not quite a decade, I think, the SAT tests were altered (again) with the goal of improving US student's scores. It didn't work as well as the Dept of Ed hoped. Last year, it debated doing away with SATs altogether. They said it's an unfair measure because the US is multicultural (as if all US immigrants are dumb and hopelessly uneducable). I'm pretty sure it's actually because the US's global education rank keeps dropping year after year, and that's because schools are becoming less focused on academics and more on shaping a "more perfect society."
 
This documentary might contain some answers about the problems with education in America.

I haven't watched it yet. It's available for free on Kanopy and it's in my watchlist. I'll take a look after my workout in a little while and report back. :)
 
Murrmurr said:
The issue IS parenting, single or not. But data shows that single parent homes are producing far more poor students and bad citizens, and in a huge majority of those homes (over 85%) the head of household is a single mother. Today's policy-makers don't want to talk about that too much because it smacks of woman-blaming.

My foster son turned 4 this month. When CPS placed him with me, he was not quite a month old. When CPS took him from my home to "reunite" him with his mother, he was 30 months old. He lived with his mother for about 8 months, but spent every weekend with me. Most of those weekends were 4 days long. CPS took him from his mother a second time and placed him with a foster couple in another city. He was there for 9 months, and after the first 4 months, they let him stay with me almost every weekend. CPS returned him to his mother again about 2 months ago. They live in a family shelter with other troubled mothers and their troubled kids. He has lost interest in school and learning, art, music, sports and nature, all the things he used to love. He's become sullen, withdrawn, angry and bullying. He is not the same child at all, and his future is bleak.
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I'm so sorry to hear that about Paxton. He has been your focus for so long. I know you could have created such a better life for him. 😔
 
SeniorBen said:
This documentary might contain some answers about the problems with education in America.

I haven't watched it yet. It's available for free on Kanopy and it's in my watchlist. I'll take a look after my workout in a little while and report back. :)
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I find it interesting that the image shows nothing but older white men. Some that I recognize are rich, older, white men. As a 'cover image,' this is a bit of a turn-off for me. I'm pretty sure their kids got far better educations than the majority of US students, regardless if they were absentee dads.


Did you watch it? What was your impression? I'll wait to watch it until I see a response (-;
 
Em in Ohio said:
I find it interesting that the image shows nothing but older white men. Some that I recognize are rich, older, white men. As a 'cover image,' this is a bit of a turn-off for me. I'm pretty sure their kids got far better educations than the majority of US students, regardless if they were absentee dads.

Did you watch it? What was your impression? I'll wait to watch it until I see a response (-;
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I didn't get a chance to watch it last night. I'll take a look this evening.

The reason they're all rich old men is because education has become more of a business enterprise than what it should be, which is a means to educate the students. It's been that way for decades. Administrators earn more than most of the professors at universities where they use adjunct professors instead of full-time professors. Profits are the only thing that matter at some of the private universities and students graduate with worthless degrees and 100s of thousands of dollars of debt.
 
SeniorBen said:
Administrators earn more than most of the professors at universities where they use adjunct professors instead of full-time professors. Profits are the only thing that matter at some of the private universities and students graduate with worthless degrees and 100s of thousands of dollars of debt.
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My son's neighbor has a PhD and is an adjunct university professor - also an Uber driver, a tutor for struggling elementary school students and a Google Street View photographer.

Years ago I was impressed when I heard someone was a professor at a prestigious university. Now I feel sorry for them - they're part of the gig economy. Cool and interesting when you're in your twenties, not so much in your fifties.
 
StarSong said:
My son's neighbor has a PhD and is an adjunct university professor - also an Uber driver, a tutor for struggling elementary school students and a Google Street View photographer.

Years ago I was impressed when I heard someone was a professor at a prestigious university. Now I feel sorry for them - they're part of the gig economy. Cool and interesting when you're in your twenties, not so much in your fifties.
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One of my old neighbors was an adjunct professor at a religious university. What else is he going to do with a PhD. in religion, at least until he gets hired on full time somewhere. He said he loved talking about religion all day, so there's that, but he wasn't making much money.
 
SeniorBen said:
One of my old neighbors was an adjunct professor at a religious university. What else is he going to do with a PhD. in religion, at least until he gets hired on full time somewhere. He said he loved talking about religion all day, so there's that, but he wasn't making much money.
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He Loved what he was doing---isn't that a purpose unto itself?
 
Timewise 60+ said:
It was not illegal then! Nothing 'more or less about it'
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Really? Try telling that to Algonquin, Iroquois, Huron, Wampanoag, Mohican, Mohegan, Ojibwa, Ho-chunk, Sauk, Fox, and Illinois people.
And tell the Inuit and Métis of Canada, The Polynesian Māori of New Zealand or the Aboriginal peoples of Australia.

Nothing illegal? Typically first English then British, using their own laws for their own ends to ride roughshod over the natives whose land they possessed.
 
Robert59 said:

Father's Day is this weekend but as we celebrate we must not forget the millions of children who are growing up without a dad in the home.​

As our country commemorates Father’s Day this weekend, it is important that we recognize the millions of children throughout our nation who are growing up without their fathers. Data from the United States Census Bureau shows that nearly 18.5 million children grow up without their fathers, which has in return led to the United States owning the title of the world’s leader in fatherlessness.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/america-crisis-fathers
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Yes, it's sad to see the end result of so many broken homes.
 
SeniorBen said:
It's been that way for decades. Administrators earn more than most of the professors at universities where they use adjunct professors instead of full-time professors. Profits are the only thing that matter at some of the private universities and students graduate with worthless degrees and 100s of thousands of dollars of debt.
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Yep.
 
horseless carriage said:
Really? Try telling that to Algonquin, Iroquois, Huron, Wampanoag, Mohican, Mohegan, Ojibwa, Ho-chunk, Sauk, Fox, and Illinois people.
And tell the Inuit and Métis of Canada, The Polynesian Māori of New Zealand or the Aboriginal peoples of Australia.

Nothing illegal? Typically first English then British, using their own laws for their own ends to ride roughshod over the natives whose land they possessed.
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I thought the 'Brit Empire' was doing that long long before the English.
Now both,
and citizens are left without recourse often.
 
Gary O' said:

America's crisis is a lack of fathers​


Seems plenty of fathers to me

Maybe the title s/be;

America's crisis is a lack of Responsible fathers​

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Hear hear! The same situation over here as well.
You have babies (high school age) having babies some by accident and some to collect Centrelink government payments
 
Em in Ohio said:
I find it interesting that the image shows nothing but older white men. Some that I recognize are rich, older, white men. As a 'cover image,' this is a bit of a turn-off for me. I'm pretty sure their kids got far better educations than the majority of US students, regardless if they were absentee dads.


Did you watch it? What was your impression? I'll wait to watch it until I see a response (-;
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It was an interesting primer on how the free market might be good for the computer industry, it's horrible for education. They focused mainly on what happened in two counties in Colorado where big, outside money bought an election that put free market school boards in charge and they tried to privatize the public school systems at the expense of taxpayers.

The dishonesty of some people is really disgusting. The good thing is, if good people fight back, they can win.
 

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