The Unintended Consequences of Single Parenthood

There is no way that we could possibly eliminate single parenthood.  It’s not an ideal environment to raise a child, but sometimes it simply can’t be helped. 

However, single parenthood by choice — mostly single motherhood — is certainly something we ought to discourage.  Dan Quayle got castigated by Hollywood when he pointed to the TV character Murphy Brown, who chose single motherhood, as a bad example.  He was right.  Obviously so to those of us who understand how important it is to be raised by a mother and a father, but not so much for those that think everything’s cool.

It took a long time to see some of the effects, but in Britain, it’s revealing itself.

A deputy head who sat on a Government taskforce aimed at improving behaviour in schools yesterday condemned a generation of modern parents as ‘uber-chavs’.

Ralph Surman said the parents of today’s pupils were themselves the children of the ‘first big generation of single mothers’ from the 1980s.

He claimed they – and in turn their children – have been left with no social skills or work ethic and may be impossible to educate.

Mr Surman spoke out in response to figures unearthed by the Conservative Party, which show that the number of 16 to 24-year-olds who are not in education, employment or training – known as NEETs – is rising across Britain.

‘We must talk about a class of uber-chavs,’ he said.

‘They are not doing anything productive and are costing taxpayers a fortune.

When everything is provided to you at other’s cost, you have no appreciation for it.  Government wanted to show it cared by providing care for these children and their mothers.  It took much of the worry out of being a single mother by choice, and it took much of the guilt away from men who abandoned their children ("Hey, they’ll be taken care of by the nanny state."). 

Yes, the Bible tells us to take care of the widows and orphans, but personally.  When we abrogate that function to the impersonal government, don’t be surprise when people start to take it for granted and expect it.  And the results, it seems, are worse for those who give and those who receive.

Filed under: Culture • Economics • Ethics & Morality

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