"Seeding and Ceding"

                                                 

Hello Again Loyal Readers,

During my hiatus from writing my blog I took the time to study the U.S. Census Bureau's latest census figures.  One of the statistics that leaped from the report was the number of fatherless families in the U.S. today.  I was surprised to learn that one out of every three families have no father living at home. 

Why is this relevant?  Well, aside from the implications this has on raising responsible and productive children, the Census Bureau reports that families where no father is present represent a significant portion of families who are living below the poverty level.  According to the Census Bureau, families where both a mother and father are present represent only 7.9 percent of families subsisting below the poverty level.  Contrast that with female head of household families; 39 percent of fatherless families are living in poverty.

While economists and social scientists may opt to look at these numbers as "numbers", the average American is forced to live with the sad realities of these numbers.  This rogue breeding of children, then ceding responsibility to society at large is crippling  our culture and placing unsupportable demands on our social welfare system.

We all see the results of the breeding and ceding mentality; increased gang activity, high school drop out rates that exceed 40 percent in most of our large cities and an increase in drug abuse by American youth.

It is instructive to note that in the 1950's and 1960's the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare required home visits to welfare eligible families before family welfare was made available.  Welfare program audits were vigorous and required aggressive government action to identify and find the children's father and enforce child support payments through payroll withholding.  In instances where the father failed to render child support the father was jailed for failing to support his offspring.

Today, neither state or federal agencies perform program audits nor are aggressive efforts made to force fathers to provide support to the children they chose to breed.  Instead the bill is sent directly to the taxpayer.

Ah...I long for.the good ole days.