Single parenthood will lead really really fast to lots of problems. We need to approach it from a child welfare (I remain unconvinced it is healthy for many children..some will do fine)..and economic standpoint and leave out you are a bad girl notion. Instead, here is a situation you can get into with very grave results for you, and you are forcing others most likely to help pay for you....your child will not probably have a father in his/her life, and we have to really really play dumb to think that does not hurt a number of children..again, not all..if there is no father there are probably no grandparents, uncles, cousins on that whole side of the family. There are skills often passed down from father especially to son. There is the protection a father can offer. Remember those Russian men who went into a blaze of bullets from a school where their children were held hostage. Do American children deserve less? Inner city children? Appelachian children? Just yesterday a man chased a car down who had kidnapped his daughter, and he got her back. You lose that whole level of protection, and could possibly live in a neighborhood where protection is very adviseable.

And it is not insignificant that someone is called names. It is an act of violence ...you do not know if they are going to follow it up with a whack from a baseball bat. It is not a minor thing to do have adolescents roaming the streets and public transportation, where there is no escape, talking foul and in intimidating ways. It is the pathway to physical violence studies are finding.

So we know how to make peoples' lives way worse...drop out of school, do not learn a trade, (which in even a fairly bad school you can often learn something..) , use drugs or alcohol and have a baby or a series of them without a father. It applies to everyone..more to some because it is worse with poverty, but there is the poverty of spirit that so many are cursed with because it is socially acceptable to have children sans fathers. It is a tragedy many times over, and not just economically. A father who is unable to work, will never ever have a hope of work, can still cook, take his kids to school, supervise them, take them to the library etc. etc. mg