Quote:Single parents have more than tripled as a share of American households since 1960. It's a huge problem without an easy explanation.

You probably remember the headlines about “Breadwinner Moms” a few months ago. The Pew Center had published a report finding women are the best-paid workers in a record 40 percent of households with children under 18. That’s practically quadruple the 1960 number.

But a little detail was often lost in the large-font headlines. Sixty percent of “breadwinner-mom” families are really just single-mom families. In fact, single moms account for precisely one-quarter of U.S. households. Single dads make up another 6 percent.

In other words, the biggest story here isn’t the rise of female earners, exactly, even though that’s a distinct and powerful trend. This is really a story about a more astonishing fact: Single parents have more than tripled as a share of American households since 1960.

Single parent households exist in a different socioeconomic pool than married households. Single mothers earn incomes that place them well below married mothers in the income ladder. According to Pew, married mothers earned a median family income of $80,000 in 2011, almost four times more than families led by a single mom. This is likely a consequence of the lower educational qualifications of single mothers, as well as the fact that they are younger and more likely to be black or Hispanic. Married mothers tend to be older and are disproportionately white and college-educated.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/arch...ca/279203/

I am amazed, personally, with how many acquaintances* of mine are single parents. Most of these acquaintances started married so the intention to raise a traditional family was there. There was a time right out of college and through my middle / late 20s where I knew ONE couple who got divorced. Now, it's got to be 1 in 5.

*I say "acquaintances" above because we do not have any close friends who are divorced nor in single parenthood. It's always someone on the periphery. I wonder, is that a subconscious choice or just randomness?

Mysterious?

Yeah, that 'mysterious' word got me, too. Seems it is only mysterious to the writer.

Maybe they just don't want to investigate and do some real digging, some real reporting. Because it may point towards some of their favorite social issues and the lobbying, pushing of an agenda that has resulted in just what it was supposed to result in, the destruction of the traditional family unit. It is the Atlantic, after all. Reliably liberal.

(09-03-2013 03:38 PM)MileHighBronco Wrote:  Yeah, that 'mysterious' word got me, too. Seems it is only mysterious to the writer.

Maybe they just don't want to investigate and do some real digging, some real reporting. Because it may point towards some of their favorite social issues and the lobbying, pushing of an agenda that has resulted in just what it was supposed to result in, the destruction of the traditional family unit. It is the Atlantic, after all. Reliably liberal.

That was intentional for those that like to accuse me of only using right wing sources.

OK, got it.

I can only speak on my own situation. I married and we had two kids. Long ago, when my kids were 7 & 4, my ex-wife's personality changed 180 degrees and we divorced.

You can only control yourself. You have no control over what your spouse does. They could join a religious cult, become an axe murderer, etc. And then there's a divorce and the kids have just one parent.

There's no test you can give a potential spouse that will predict a radical personality change 20 years down the road.

(09-03-2013 08:15 PM)UConn-SMU Wrote:  I can only speak on my own situation. I married and we had two kids. Long ago, when my kids were 7 & 4, my ex-wife's personality changed 180 degrees and we divorced.

You can only control yourself. You have no control over what your spouse does. They could join a religious cult, become an axe murderer, etc. And then there's a divorce and the kids have just one parent.

There's no test you can give a potential spouse that will predict a radical personality change 20 years down the road.

Nope. It's the gays' fault. Damn gays!

Guys, I need to apologize. My homosexuality has caused all of this.

(09-03-2013 09:10 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  Guys, I need to apologize. My homosexuality has caused all of this.

As usual, tom needs to be the center of attention.