Seven and a half months into Ta-Shai Pendleton’s first pregnancy, her child was stillborn. Then in early 2008, she bore a daughter prematurely. Soon after, Ms. Pendleton moved from a community in Racine that was thick with poverty to a better neighborhood in Madison. Here, for the first time, she had a full-term pregnancy.
As she cradled her 2-month-old daughter recently, she described the fear and isolation she had experienced during her first two pregnancies, and the more embracing help she found 100 miles away with her third.
It is an iron-clad rule, presumably taught in journalism schools, that when discussing black single mothers and their children, one must never, ever ask: Who and where is the father, and how many fathers are there? Tens of thousands of articles have been written about the struggles of black single mothers, and the appearance of their children is always treated as a virgin birth. Not only are there no fathers in sight in such articles, there is no curiosity about where the fathers are and why they’re not stepping up to the plate. Instead, the reader will learn in great detail either about the callous lack of taxpayer-funded social services or, as in the present article on black infant mortality, about the provisions that a wise and benevolent government has made available to the mothers and their miraculously-conceived children, who seem to appear with the same inevitability as the tides.
When [Brandice Hatcher] learned last June that she was pregnant, Ms. Hatcher said, “I didn’t know how to be a parent and I didn’t know what services could help me.”
Over the summer she started receiving monthly visits from Laura Berger, a county nurse, who put her in touch with a dentist . . . . Ms. Hatcher had been living in a rooming house, but she was able to get help from a program that provided a security deposit for her apartment. . . . Under a state program, a social worker visits weekly and helps her look for jobs. And she receives her prenatal care from the community center’s nurse-midwives.
Very nice. But no amount of government programs can possibly compensate for the wholesale exemption of males from the responsibility of caring for their children. The fiction of the inner city virgin birth makes for a booming social service sector, but it otherwise spells disaster for a culture.
That’s not what ‘immaculate conception’ means.
Look it up.
Conceptions:
Immaculate = BVM
Virginal = Christ Jesus
(‘course I can’t remember simple algebra but this was burned into my brain … catholic school dontcha know)
Only the headline got it wrong.
IC means Mary, unlike all other humans, was conceived free of Original Sin.
(The things I could have learned instead of that!)
They should look for immaculate contraception instead. 😀
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“That’s not what ‘immaculate conception’ means.”
Maybe not to catholics. To me it just means some flimflammery.
Back to reality: “Because the observed trend in black infant mortality is based on small reductions in the absolute number of deaths (approximately three infants per year), conclusions based on these results should be considered preliminary, and additional studies are needed to confirm the reduction in rates over time.”
My candidates for 3 “facts” that most people THINK are correct, but are in fact false:
1. The Immaculate Conception refers to the virgin birth of Jesus
2. The earth is closer to the sun in July, than in January
3. Fascism is a phenomenon of the political Right.
There is a simple reason you do not hear anything about “who the father is” when discussing “black single mothers and their children” and the health care system — it is irrelevant. If the issue is infant mortality, how is the parentage of the child relevant to anything? Do we hear about “who is the father” when the issue is White girls and abortion? No. Because it is, likewise, irrelevant.
Another thing — Heather MacDonald talks about the “wholesale exemption” of males from responsibility. But the odd little quirk of America’s current health insurance system is that even if the baby’s father has health insurance, there is no guarantee that he could get his pregnant girlfriend covered EVEN IF he decided to marry her. The pregnancy would be a pre-existing condition — and a costly one, to boot, that the insurance coverage would not reach. So, Heather, if you really want to do something about infant mortality rates in the US (which are abyssmal), you might want to ask the question why people who would otherwise get the prenatal care — don’t.
Thanks for pointing this out. How would you hold the fathers responsible?
This is a propaganda site. Cherry-picking abounds along with hypocrisy.
What you are trying to say is that journalists have some sort of obligation to do social engineering. Not only that, you expect them to do so according to the values of a conservative racist like you. Finally, you expect them to know your values and expectations in advance. Maybe if you let this journalist (and we’re talking about ONE journalist here) use your time machine, she can go back in time and ask about the fathers. And then she can advise the pregnant girls that she’s doing it wrong.
A few additional facts for you:
There is no iron-clad rule against asking about the fathers. You know that there is not.
The issue is crisis pregnancies and its adherent problems. The issue is not your paranoid fantasies about the “liberal” media.
Who is ignoring the plague of absentee black fathers? Black pastors have been excoriating urban male youths for such abandonment since it became a problem in the late 60s. But what, exactly, can the government do about it? Track them down, force them to live with their children at gun-point? Cohabitational marriage is already heavily incentivised via tax policy, social welfare policy, health policy, and school funding policy, and community outreach plans, both private and public, have been offering job counseling to poor urban new fathers for decades. Truly, I’m at a loss as to what more you might suggest for the government to do to encourage fathers not to abandon newly pregnant mothers-to-be.
What the government can do for single mothers, however, is a different story, and that happens to be the story this article is about. The reason the father isn’t mentioned is simple; he has absented himself and will provide no aid. The question is, when our society’s attempts to encourage fatherhood fail, what do we do for the abandoned pregnant women and infant children they leave behind? Should we do nothing? Do you honestly think that the omission of cads from stories regarding health services is part of a vast left-wing conspiracy to justify “…a booming social services sector…” as you put it?
Sorry, that should be “poor, black, urban fathers”, though of course, such programs are typically open to fathers of every creed and color, the subject of this discussion is more limited.
I think B-Rob hit the nail on the head here. The whereabouts of the fathers are irrelevant to the issue, unless Ms. MacDonald is trying to make the argument that infant mortality is lower when fathers are involved, holding other variables constant. However, I fail to see such an argument being made.
Perhaps if your fellow travelers on the Right were not so opposed to comprehensive sex education and contraception there would be much fewer of these pregnancies.
Or how about we ask the question why are people who don’t have the resources for child care reproducing at all?
The problem with your argument is that it’s simply factually inaccurate — whether you are deceiving your readers deliberately or simply selecting poorly from the available literature I cannot say. This particular article may avoid the issue of paternal responsibility, but the discourse about the issue, taken as a whole, identifies three primary social causes of paternal absence: imprisonment, drug addiction, and premature death — all of which are intimately related to the lack of economic opportunity in primarily African-American communities.
@B-Rob
B-Rob, I agree that there are many many more issues at stake here than simply the absence of a father. However, I think the article still makes a valid, overlooked, and poignant point. As humans, we have evolved to rely on our parents for many many more years than every other animal on earth. In today’s society it is extremely hard for single parents to both take care of a child and hold a job. Together, those two points say that a lack of a two parent household can legitimately lead to a detrimental environment.
Of course, I’m wary to agree simply because conservatives have historically used arguments like this to argue that social services are unnecessary. That is not my point. My point, is that we do need to ask the question “where is the father?” and we do need to help all men of all races to see the importance of sticking with the woman they get pregnant. With inspiring leaders like Obama speaking to personal responsibility, hopefully this can happen. We also need social services because it makes both moral and utilitarian sense to make sure that all Americans can grow up in a healthy, nurturing environment. However, We must not ignore the responsibility inherent in child birth.
I’m not arguing we should deny single people of adopting, or that single women have no chance of raising a child. Simply that raising a child is a difficult and taxing practice (no pun intended), and if possible, it is best to have two (or more) parents. After all, it takes a village to raise a child.
If you want the article to say something different, get out there and write it. No one’s stopping you.
I’d read it.
A NOTE ON THE FATHERS
Ms. Pendleton, the young mother profiled in this article (and in the Isthmus article) *is* with the father of her daughters. The Isthmus article also discusses another father, Max Jones, who was very assertive during his wife’s pregnancy and actually saved his daughter’s life.
I do agree with some of the other comments that extreme youth and poverty are poor foundations for building a family BUT the real point is that Wis. has the worst infant mortality rate for African American infants in the country. Wisconsin (and the United States) has much to gain by understanding why Dane County is doing so well.
(From the comments of said article.)
Human beings have a biological urge or drive to procreate. It’s as powerful as many of our other strong biological urges. That is not going to stop because black men are often poor marriage material. It is why poor women in India, Africa and Britain continue to have babies even if they can’t afford them. It’s why Irish immigrants had children they couldn’t afford during the 19th century.
But then again, this woman cited above had the support and love of the father of her children.
@Ivan Karamazov
1.) The ‘Immaculate Conception’ refers to the notional sinless conception, of Mary, the mother of Jesus, a doctrine so weird (and so damaging to traditional Chrisitan soteriology—if Mary could be conceived sinlessly, whey not everyone else—no Cross necessary) that the doctrine of Papal Infallibility (when speaking ex cathedra on matters of faith and morals) had to be more firmly established to make it stick…and good-bye to the Old Catholics.
2.) The Earth is in fact slightly closer to the Sun in July than in January—unlike the axial tilt, it is not responsible for the change in seasons (else the Southern and Northern Hemispheres’ seasons would be in synch) it does make weather a bit more extreme in the Southern Hemisphere. Eventually, the orbit will precess such that this is no longer true, but I think it’s on the order of 10^7 years for a complete flip.
3.) Fascism is an artifact of the political Right. Mussolini and Hitler, the principal proponents of Fascism, explicitly marked it as such, and as being primarily opposed to the Left, with which they identified, democracy, socialism, and communism. There were more lefty members of the original German Worker’s Party at the point at which Hitler, in the pay of the right-wing Freikorps, came to spy on them for fear of Leftists, but they ended up being influence-free and/or purged—Fritz Thyssen, Henry Ford, and Mussolini wouldn’t have had it any other way. Mussolini had been a Socialist…but he stopped, and rejected it—was Whittaker Chambers a Communist in 1960? Was C. Clive S. Lewis an atheist then?
Horseapples!I don’t know what you read, but to deny that there is plenty of writing being done (true, or not) about black mens lack of parenting is prevalent, is to take yourself out of contention of any serious discussion on race relations in our country. Yes, I’m white, and 41 yrs. old to boot.
A-Bob asked the question:
why do the girls from the projects have babies? because it makes them important. they matter.
OK, theres plenty of discussion about black mens lack of parenting. I think Obama’s said a few things about that. How about the lack of discussion of these girls/women getting pregnant over and over with no means of caring for the babies or themselves. Black or white.
I journeyed back to this site after 6 months and once again, I can see Mrs. Mac Donald has apparently taken one topic and woven it into a non-germane and an impenetrable fabric of steel. The article did not focus on the constant absenteeism of paternal figure in the urban black communities for a simple reason and that is the crux of the writing had little to do with the issue she so passionately wishes the authored had focused on.
The article clearly focuses on the plight of the African American single mothers during pregnancy and marginally discussing infant mortality. Yes, “if” it was about the lack of a father figure in the unit of family, then perhaps the writer would have concentrated on that matter. But again, this wasn’t the goal of the article. If Mrs. Mac Donald had suggested, with evidence to back up such claim, that the majority of the writings do not focus on this very issue, perhaps we could have taken something from her entry even though several other participants have raised the inadequacy of focusing solely on this subject.
Frankly, with most right leaning folks, there is a tremendous strive to never do an investigatory journalism and rather zero in on bickering at the ones established by the journalists mostly coming from left. May I also remind everyone that Mrs. Mac Donald had an extremely insensitive post with regards to a possible negative influence of gay-marriage on the black urban young men and its subsequent irreversible effect in discouraging them to get married (read here: http://secularright.org/wordpress/?p=1990 ).
Oh, you know exactly where they are…
Conservatism, through its denial of how human society works (i.e. basic principles of economics, sociology, psychology, biology, neurology, and every -oly that actually took the time to study the reasons behind why we do what we do), stuck its head firmly in the sand and pretended that poverty would just “go away” if we continued to ignore festering social problems and went on thinking that we’re all just snappy rational actors who choose our lots in life.
It denied that people are created by the societies in which they live. It influenced public policy and social thought, seeking to strip away any effort on the part of society to help people achieve equal access to success. It sought to limit access to quality public education. It sought to limit access to drug treatment and prevention. It sought to limit access to affordable mixed-income housing. It sought to limit access to public television programming.
It sought to limit progressive taxation to pay for any of these programs. It sought to limit minimum wages. It sought to limit the regulation of environmental pollution in poor communities. It sought to limit criminal rehabilitation programs, and instead maximize punishment for drug crimes. It sought to limit public parks. It sought to limit gun control laws that might have prevented the explosion in inner-city violence.
Lets continue. It sought to limit multiculturalism. It sought to limit the celebration of other forms of expression than the standard norms. It sought to elevate one particular “American” culture to a moral standing above all others – which just happened to be white, heterosexual, Christian, patriarchal and wealthy. It sought to limit intellectual inquiry and free thought. It sought to limit the types of journalism and academic study that intended to gather data and develop theories of how and why so many people have been so marginalized and mistreated throughout history. It sought to brand any who took part in such activities as traitorous and Unamerican.
In short, Ms. Mac Donald, you happened. Enjoy.
Amazing. Finally someone has said out loud what I have been asking every time I see a story on single mothers. The absence of fathers is never brought up-especially if it’s about the strain these single mothers put on social programs. Literally, where are the fathers?
This attitude of knock em up and leave em is a serious problem among minorities, creating another generation without a strong male role model.
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New York Times: (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html )
“Incarceration rates are even higher for some groups. One in 36 Hispanic adults is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006. One in 15 black adults is, too, as is one in nine black men between the ages of 20 and 34.”
There is your answer. The government has JAILED the fathers.
“The government has JAILED the fathers.”
For what? Smoking on the subway? Overdue library books? Look. I don’t know what destroyed Black American culture. But please don’t pretend that it’s not dysfunctional. Admitting the existence of a problem is the first step in solving it. You wanna say “racists” like me caused the distruction? Go ahead. But you don’t cure lung cancer just by quittting cigarettes.
Hey, here’s an idea: Welfare. How do we know it won’t work until we try it?
@B-Rob
It isn’t irrelevent if they were manning up and putting money towards doctor visits for the girl. It’s only irrelevent if you absolve them of responsibility.
The government has JAILED the fathers.
I am not American and not really bothered by this problem either way but I am wondering about the arithmetic: In the worst case (black men between the ages of 20 and 34) 1 out of nine makes 11%, what are the other 89% doing?
@Gerald Fnord
Why would you bother to post that BS, as it is so easily refuted:
1) You agree with me.
2) http://www.space.com/spacewatch/301206_happy_perihelion.html
3) http://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-Politics/dp/0767917189/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260232097&sr=8-1
@Pat
Well, given that 7 out of 10 black women give birth out-of-wedlock, the 1 out of 9 jailed inseminators, or 1 out of 15 jailed inseminators, must have been awfully busy sowing their seed before they were incarcerated.
Q: where are the fathers?
A: da be smokin weed watchin’, basetball on da plasma screen. Da ain’t got no job, so da jus be livin’ wid her. See whad I’m sayin?
Da be wachin da babies, while she work at da nursing home. Dem babies cry too much, so he punch dem out. Now baby ain’t brethin”.
See!! those fathers are right under our noses. Easy!
Sorry, Eli, but I just had to respond to this:
Conservatism, through its denial of how human society works (i.e. basic principles of economics, sociology, psychology, biology, neurology, and every -oly that actually took the time to study the reasons behind why we do what we do)
I had to read this twice just to make sure I was reading it right. No, it’s the left that doesn’t understand human behavior.
stuck its head firmly in the sand and pretended that poverty would just “go away” if we continued to ignore festering social problems and went on thinking that we’re all just snappy rational actors who choose our lots in life.
I don’t remember any conservative claiming that poverty would ever “go away”. Everyone that I know that talks about ending poverty is on the left. The purpose of entire welfare state, including public schools and subsidized housing is to eliminate poverty. As Charles Murray pointed out in “Losing Ground”, the effects of the welfare state on poverty have been to exacerbate it.
It denied that people are created by the societies in which they live.
Yeah, that’s why conservatives all favor open borders and never talk about detrimental effects of popular culture on children.
It influenced public policy and social thought, seeking to strip away any effort on the part of society to help people achieve equal access to success. It sought to limit access to quality public education. It sought to limit access to drug treatment and prevention. It sought to limit access to affordable mixed-income housing. It sought to limit access to public television programming. It sought to limit progressive taxation to pay for any of these programs. It sought to limit minimum wages.
The statement, “Society should help people achieve equal access to success.” is a normative statement, not a positive one. A person who denies this isn’t denying reality. They just don’t have the same moral views as you.
It sought to limit the regulation of environmental pollution in poor communities.
Do you think regulation should be unlimited?
It sought to limit criminal rehabilitation programs, and instead maximize punishment for drug crimes.
Yeah, since people who break the law should be, well, punished for it. If you want to advocate for drug legalization, I’ll listen, but there is no justification for taxing people to pay for “criminal rehabilitation programs”.
It sought to limit public parks.
When?
It sought to limit gun control laws that might have prevented the explosion in inner-city violence.
No they wouldn’t. This opinion has been totally debunked.
Lets continue. It sought to limit multiculturalism. It sought to limit the celebration of other forms of expression than the standard norms. It sought to elevate one particular “American” culture to a moral standing above all others – which just happened to be white, heterosexual, Christian, patriarchal and wealthy.
Conservatives think that Western culture is better, not just different from, but better than other cultures. A brief survey of history provides ample evidence of this. History has shown that multiculturalism doesn’t work. I’ll provide examples if needed.
It sought to limit intellectual inquiry and free thought. It sought to limit the types of journalism and academic study that intended to gather data and develop theories of how and why so many people have been so marginalized and mistreated throughout history.
Of course, the left is totally open to free inquiry, unless it’s about global warming, genes and behavior, or anything else that offends the left.
@John
Oh! John you’re soooo mean 😀
… the discourse about the issue, taken as a whole, identifies three primary social causes of paternal absence: imprisonment, drug addiction, and premature death
Is that a fact? Only those three causes prevail? I live in the midst of this kind of environment, and I sure see a lot of these “fathers” just hanging out, establishing relationships with new sets of women, and coming and going from the community as they please. No doubt, they sometimes spend short periods incarcerated, but this is hardly the reason for their absence from performing their duties for their illegitimate offspring. You make it sound like it’s only outside forces that prevent these guys from doing the right thing. Oh, the victimized sperm donor!
There was a time when, “Who is the father?” would have been the first question asked. Today, we encounter such weirdos as those in this forum who sound like it’s an immoral question to ask. And what was all that silly bickering and splitting hairs over whether or not Heather used “Immaculate Conception” correctly? Talk about pettiness!
@Victoria
>>And what was all that silly bickering and splitting hairs over whether or not Heather used “Immaculate Conception” correctly? Talk about pettiness!
Really? So I guess you put no stock in “well, if you got that quite wrong, what ELSE might you have been sloppy or hasty about?”. Well, I do. Not overly concerned, but it is NOT petty.
A question I would like to see asked and answered more is, ‘Why did you not use birth control?’. The answer to THAT may lead to something we can actually do something about – the too-easy-to-meet conditions that allow one to live ( comfortably enough, apparently) on the public dole. You want to stop something from happening? Make it more painful than the alternative. Even the cognitively challenged understand pain, and seek to avoid it.