you say
All areas of society? I missed that from your stats. It looks from your numbers that most are poor folks living in large cities. And all your stats are recent, so you didn't really show an incredible rise in anything.
apparently you missed this stat:
Recent statistics show single motherhood on the rise, at 12 million, up from 3.4 million in 1970
That's 12 million single mother household today...an increase of 8.6 million. That would repersent an "incredible" increase. And the stats on "poor people" demonstrate a high percentage of poor single mothers live in big cities, but if you do a little math, you can figure out not all single moms are in the big city, nor are all single moms poor...but a high percentage of them are.
Originally posted by cattyfan
Do you think a national morning show would be discussing an unwed mother's fashion statement 30 years ago? Hollywood actresses had plenty of money 30 years ago, but you didn't have so many of them becoming unwed mothers. What is your explanation for that?
you responded ;
There are more actresses today than 30 years ago. You know something about bias. Why not put a positive spin on the facts: "There are more actresses today that are not unwed mothers than there were 30 years ago."
Just because something on TV is less shocking today than it would have been 30 years ago doesn't make it a bad thing. Thirty years ago, it was truly shocking that a white man and a black woman kissed on a TV show. It wouldn't be so shocking today. Is that a bad change? What would you say are the implications of this change?
Are you really claiming the percentage of births to unwed mothers hasn't risen?
The comment about something being "shocking" is a red herring. Interracial dating has nothing to do with this discussion, although you make my point by confirming that as something becomes more commonplace, it no longer bothers people. In relation to unwed mothers no longer being "shocking," the implication is it that, sadly, it no longer causes a ripple. You have made my point for me by supporting when something becomes more frequent and is seen more frequently, it in turn becomes more accepted.
Originally posted by cattyfan
Do you really think that if society at large still treated single motherhood as something very sad, something irresponsible, and something to be ashamed of that over 50% of high school girls would think there is nothing wrong with it? Or that if single motherhood was something that was taken seriously that you would have people saying, "Well, she just needs sonething to love on her day off."
you responded:
Again, I'd be careful to generalize from that study to all teen girls. And I'm skeptical that they actually said they thought there is nothing wrong with it (although I of course don't know). But then again, this is all about overgeneralization. If one person says something ludicrous (as per your quote above), and it fits your soapbox, then it's appropriate to assume that everyone (well, "society at large") feels the same way.
The number of 53% of girls who think it's worth it to have a child out of wedlock comes from a study at Rutgers University (as noted in my original post.) The survey they used targeted a cross section of teenage girls covering all social strata,location, and race. As for the quote, that was something one of Calista Flockhart's contemporaries said. I suppose I could research and provide you with thousands more, but you still wouldn't be convinced that the view of society at large has changed.
You still haven't answered my question: If society still sent pregnant unwed girls or women off to their aunt's house to give birth and then put the baby up for adoption ( a common practice until the 70s) do you think we would still see so many births to unwed mothers?
Originally posted by cattyfan
If you believe teens don't take their cues from the rich and spoiled, then you're blind...they imitate fashion from 50 Cents, Brittany Spears, and Lindsey Lohan. They try the X-treme stunts they see on MTV. They pick up on the trendy language of hip hop artists. If they didn't, magazines like Teen Cosmo, Us, Entertainment Weekly, and all the rest of the fashion, fan , and teen sport magazines wouldn't exist. There is article after artilcle with titles along the lines of "How to Dress Like Your Favorite Movie Star." Why do you think these are published?
you responded:
I must keep missing the articles along the lines of "You too can have a baby without getting married!" At my kids' schools, and at the school where I teach, a minority of kids actually dress like their "idols;" I know of none that try the X-treme stunts seen on MTV; and language transmission is a lot more complex than you're giving it credit. Just because some five-year old kid makes national headlines because he gets hurt trying to imitate a stunt he saw in a movie, you can't generalize this to all kids, or even lots of kids. You also can't jump from clothes to baby-making attitudes in one fell swoop like this.
I will ask you again, if kids aren't influenced by media and entertainment figures, why are there magazines which promote these trends targeted toward them...why are there whole lines of sports equipment that are designed and marketed toward them (at a high cost,)...and if they aren't influenced by these cultural icons, where are the changes in kids coming from? What
is influencing their dress and behavior.
The kids at your school may not be carbon copies of Ms. Spears, but you can bet they're sporting the latest fashionable shorter, tighter shirts. If not at school, than out when they're socializing. And certainly they are affected when they see someone like Angelina Jolie have or adopt a kid without benefit of marriage...kids imitate the characters these people play..they quote from the movies, know all the words to the songs, and learn all the dance moves in the videos. They then see this person they want to be like who thinks it fine to have a baby sans husband. And you think it has no effect.
And, by the way, it isn't just teens. Single mother birth rates are up across all age demographics. The CDC, the Census Bureau, and just about any other study you'd like to check, will show that with women putting off marriage and living together instead of marrying having become more commonplace, older women are also becoming unmarried moms at a higher rate than ever. And the group with the highest percentage increase? Unmarried
career women who have no boyfriend or husband. But it doesn't matter what level of education or income: the same studies show that children without the benefit of a married mom and dad home are at a far greater risk for a number of pitfalls (check my original post.)
Originally posted by cattyfan
And what you're saying is Hollywood starlets are single moms because they can afford it and poor single moms are single moms because they're poor and don't know any better.
you responded:
Oversimplification of what I said, but less so than the oversimplication of your own position.
I merely summarized what you had written.
Originally posted by cattyfan
Again, 30 years ago you wouldn't have found 53% of teen girls saying unwed motherhood is okay because back then society didn't support it. There were certainly still poor people. How do you explain the change in their perspective?
you responded:
53% of teen girls surveyed doesn't mean 53% of teen girls period. That's why I'd want to know more about the sample. And in any case, you really don't know what teen girls would have said about this 30 years ago (back then there were in fact teen girls in my town who did get pregnant), and you don't really have any evidence that "society" supports it, or that this support is WHY today's teen girls in that sample think it's okay. And I'm rilly sure you don't have a clue what was going on in the worlds of "poor people" thirty years ago, so how would you know that their perspective has changed at all?
The huge rise in the percentage of births to unwed mothers speaks for itself. That and thirty years ago single motherhood was whispered about and cautioned against. Now, as I have shown, it's celebrated in the media. Even in small towns where not that long ago unwed births were an embarrassment, they are now "no big deal." In Rockford, Illinois (where I lived for 17 years, and just moved from) 8 of the last 10 "first births of the year" featured on the local newspaper's front page were to unwed moms. If you really believe those births would have been photographed and published on the front pages in 1970, you're living in an entirely different world than the rest of us.
I'm talking about all of our society...not the "world's" poor people to which you refer.
Originally posted by cattyfan
If you are unable to see connections, perhaps you should have your reading comprehension checked.
you responded:
Hey, is this really Nineveh?
more than one person has told you this? You should probably consider why.
