Tiny
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Post by Tiny on Oct 17, 2016 10:09:37 GMT -5
I think I've told the story here about the young woman I worked with at my first job out of college. She was one of three girls and her parents had to cut ties with both sides of their respective families because they were both married to each other, had jobs, and insisted their daughters get educated and not pregnant out of wedlock. She said it was strange to realize that in the very same city she lived in, Detroit, she had grandparents, aunts,uncles, cousins, that she will never know about. That took guts for her parents to do that. I always have said to remove children from these parents, in one generation the ghetto mentality would be erased. It seems like that should work. Unfortunately, that has been tried in the past -- in various countries around the world and it doesn't really work. OK, it's usually because the people/government trying to "help" takes the kids and forces them into a different kind of 'segregation' or 'social class' and they are still 'looked down on' or 'second class citizens'.
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billisonboard
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Post by billisonboard on Oct 17, 2016 10:11:31 GMT -5
... Not graduating high school virtually garantees a life of poverty. ... I think it is more accurate to say that the factors which lead to one not graduating from high school also are factors which lead to an adulthood living in poverty.
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MJ2.0
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Post by MJ2.0 on Oct 17, 2016 10:12:08 GMT -5
I think I've told the story here about the young woman I worked with at my first job out of college. She was one of three girls and her parents had to cut ties with both sides of their respective families because they were both married to each other, had jobs, and insisted their daughters get educated and not pregnant out of wedlock. She said it was strange to realize that in the very same city she lived in, Detroit, she had grandparents, aunts,uncles, cousins, that she will never know about. That took guts for her parents to do that. I always have said to remove children from these parents, in one generation the ghetto mentality would be erased. and who is going to take them in? I don't think being raised in the system is going to produce a better adult than crappy (but not abusive) parenting. Also, if you think taxes are high now, how high do you think they will be if we ramp up social services and government-run orphanages?
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Oct 17, 2016 10:21:35 GMT -5
It would be high for awhile but then it would end mostly. But we do need to bring jobs back to this country that high school graduates can do.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Oct 17, 2016 10:24:26 GMT -5
... Not graduating high school virtually garantees a life of poverty. ... I think it is more accurate to say that the factors which lead to one not graduating from high school also are factors which lead to an adulthood living in poverty. Which is why birth control should be mandatory. It would at least give the young girls a chance to make something of themselves other than another generation of baby mommas with no future but to raise more of them. The young men? You'd have to physically remove them from the gang and drug culture but to where?
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Tiny
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Post by Tiny on Oct 17, 2016 10:35:48 GMT -5
Dad, who worked in the steel industry and had to have a security clearance to work on government projects, drilled it into us that you do not do anything that would impede your ability to get a security clearance. (My brother, a mechanical engineer, eventually did need one to work on making components for submarines.) Just another one of the subtle ways we were brought up with greater expectations. It was assumed that we'd get a college education and a responsible job, and that might entail a security clearance. Sometimes I take it for granted. It's normal for me and you and most of the people here.
It's not the norm in a lot of families, including some branches of my own family.
A couple of mornings ago NPR had piece that touched on this... the "luck" part of getting and staying out of poverty. It's not just all 'hard work' or following the rules - there's a lot of "luck" in the form of having opportunities, having the push from one's peer group (be it parents/friends/mentor) to succeed, and having the resources available. If a 'poor' family could make the move to a place with more opportunities - they would be better off and their kids would more than likely move up out of poverty as they became adults. It was something like going from a 3% chance to work their way out of poverty to a 15% chance (they'd still be living in poverty - but there was some chance for something better). That was an example of the "Luck" part of where you/your family wind up in society.
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MJ2.0
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Post by MJ2.0 on Oct 17, 2016 10:39:02 GMT -5
It would be high for awhile but then it would end mostly. But we do need to bring jobs back to this country that high school graduates can do. carpentry, sheet metal work, roofing, etc. have training programs that don't require additional schooling. Auto repair, allied health professions, and paralegal jobs require around 2-3 years of specialized schooling. In my area there are warehouse/distribution center jobs that only require a HS education. They're out there, but they don't pay well and you have to work for a few years and/or get more education to make decent pay.
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Tiny
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Post by Tiny on Oct 17, 2016 10:41:07 GMT -5
I think it is more accurate to say that the factors which lead to one not graduating from high school also are factors which lead to an adulthood living in poverty. Which is why birth control should be mandatory. It would at least give the young girls a chance to make something of themselves other than another generation of baby mommas with no future but to raise more of them. The young men? You'd have to physically remove them from the gang and drug culture but to where? You do realize that birthrates in the US have been dropping for the last couple of decades and that teenagers aren't really having kids at the same rate as they had in the past. Having kids as a teen isn't the main driving force of poverty - which maybe it once was - since the numbers of teens having kids has dropped - but poverty still seems to be a problem.
I think there are different kinds of 'poverty' there's what happens in urban areas and then what happens in areas where the main employer(s)/jobs have gone away. So someplace where there's only one major employer. when those jobs go away - all the other jobs go away... and you have thousands of people without any job opportunities. They either need to move away or stay and wait for things to change (which could be decades).
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Tiny
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Post by Tiny on Oct 17, 2016 10:43:19 GMT -5
It would be high for awhile but then it would end mostly. But we do need to bring jobs back to this country that high school graduates can do. carpentry, sheet metal work, roofing, etc. have training programs that don't require additional schooling. Auto repair, allied health professions, and paralegal jobs require around 2-3 years of specialized schooling. In my area there are warehouse/distribution center jobs that only require a HS education. They're out there, but they don't pay well and you have to work for a few years and/or get more education to make decent pay. AND the workers may have to move away from family/friends their "traditions". I think that plays a big part - the "move away to find work" - no one wants to really do that. Which is weird because America was pretty much (re)populated by people who "moved away to find work/better life". You'd think that 'trait" would have filtered down thru the generations.
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MJ2.0
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Post by MJ2.0 on Oct 17, 2016 10:48:06 GMT -5
I guess I'm weird because I grew up in a very white lower-middle class suburb and could not wait to move away from home and make something of myself, lol! But it was also a given that I'd go to college and get a professional career.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Oct 17, 2016 10:50:19 GMT -5
carpentry, sheet metal work, roofing, etc. have training programs that don't require additional schooling. Auto repair, allied health professions, and paralegal jobs require around 2-3 years of specialized schooling. In my area there are warehouse/distribution center jobs that only require a HS education. They're out there, but they don't pay well and you have to work for a few years and/or get more education to make decent pay. AND the workers may have to move away from family/friends their "traditions". I think that plays a big part - the "move away to find work" - no one wants to really do that. Which is weird because America was pretty much (re)populated by people who "moved away to find work/better life". You'd think that 'trait" would have filtered down thru the generations. Well, if you can survive without having to really work a job, and it seems for the most part it's possible, then why bother? You'd think decent parents would want better for their children but they don't.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Oct 17, 2016 10:52:51 GMT -5
This article is based on this list of 10 myths about poverty:
1. Single moms are the problem. Only 9 percent of low-income, urban moms have been single throughout their child's first five years. Thirty-five percent were married to, or in a relationship with, the child's father for that entire time.*
2. Absent dads are the problem. Sixty percent of low-income dads see at least one of their children daily. Another 16 percent see their children weekly.*
3. Black dads are the problem. Among men who don't live with their children, black fathers are more likely than white or Hispanic dads to have a daily presence in their kids' lives.
4. Poor people are lazy. In 2004, there was at least one adult with a job in 60 percent of families on food stamps that had both kids and a nondisabled, working-age adult.
5. If you're not officially poor, you're doing okay. The federal poverty line for a family of two parents and two children in 2012 was $23,283. Basic needs cost at least twice that in 615 of America's cities and regions.
6. Go to college, get out of poverty. In 2012, about 1.1 million people who made less than $25,000 a year, worked full time, and were heads of household had a bachelor's degree.**
7. We're winning the war on poverty. The number of households with children living on less than $2 a day per person has grown 160 percent since 1996, to 1.65 million families in 2011.
8. The days of old ladies eating cat food are over. The share of elderly single women living in extreme poverty jumped 31 percent from 2011 to 2012.
9. The homeless are drunk street people. One in 45 kids in the United States experiences homelessness each year. In New York City alone, 22,000 children are homeless.
10. Handouts are bankrupting us. In 2012, total welfare funding was 0.47 percent of the federal budget.
*Source: Analysis by Dr. Laura Tach at Cornell University. Let's talk about point #1. 35% married to Dad. 9% single the whole time. Let's start with the 56%. How many of them were with one man during that time, versus a cycle of men? How many of them lived with men? How many of those men contributed to the household on an on going regular basis? How many times during those 5 years did a woman move to be with a man? I'm thinking that I would rather help a woman who is single and trying to pull herself together and provide for her kids, than to enable a desperate, lonely woman who will make her kid's life hell to 'find a man.' Meanwhile, using her resources to help that man, instead of her kid. Let's talk about the 35%. Did they live together the whole time? Was the relationship stable and healthy? I would rather help a woman run from an abuser than have another generation grow up thinking that is okay. I know that poor people are not all abusive and they are not all unstable and what-not. But as we are looking at the stats listed I just think there is so much more to the story. Single motherhood is so much more than married or not married. And I'm not sure a series of short relationships (less than 5 years) is a drastically different reality when I think of single, poor mothers. In reality, there are women out there who could provide a better life for their kid if they embraced being single and used all their energy to make something of themselves. I was never a young single mom, but my 20s were filled with a series of pathetic attempts to be loved. If they are running their lives as stupid as I was, their kids are suffering.
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vonna
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Post by vonna on Oct 17, 2016 11:13:52 GMT -5
This article is based on this list of 10 myths about poverty:
1. Single moms are the problem. Only 9 percent of low-income, urban moms have been single throughout their child's first five years. Thirty-five percent were married to, or in a relationship with, the child's father for that entire time.*
2. Absent dads are the problem. Sixty percent of low-income dads see at least one of their children daily. Another 16 percent see their children weekly.*
3. Black dads are the problem. Among men who don't live with their children, black fathers are more likely than white or Hispanic dads to have a daily presence in their kids' lives.
4. Poor people are lazy. In 2004, there was at least one adult with a job in 60 percent of families on food stamps that had both kids and a nondisabled, working-age adult.
5. If you're not officially poor, you're doing okay. The federal poverty line for a family of two parents and two children in 2012 was $23,283. Basic needs cost at least twice that in 615 of America's cities and regions.
6. Go to college, get out of poverty. In 2012, about 1.1 million people who made less than $25,000 a year, worked full time, and were heads of household had a bachelor's degree.**
7. We're winning the war on poverty. The number of households with children living on less than $2 a day per person has grown 160 percent since 1996, to 1.65 million families in 2011.
8. The days of old ladies eating cat food are over. The share of elderly single women living in extreme poverty jumped 31 percent from 2011 to 2012.
9. The homeless are drunk street people. One in 45 kids in the United States experiences homelessness each year. In New York City alone, 22,000 children are homeless.
10. Handouts are bankrupting us. In 2012, total welfare funding was 0.47 percent of the federal budget.
*Source: Analysis by Dr. Laura Tach at Cornell University. Let's talk about point #1. 35% married to Dad. 9% single the whole time. Let's start with the 56%. How many of them were with one man during that time, versus a cycle of men? How many of them lived with men? How many of those men contributed to the household on an on going regular basis? How many times during those 5 years did a woman move to be with a man? I'm thinking that I would rather help a woman who is single and trying to pull herself together and provide for her kids, than to enable a desperate, lonely woman who will make her kid's life hell to 'find a man.' Meanwhile, using her resources to help that man, instead of her kid. Let's talk about the 35%. Did they live together the whole time? Was the relationship stable and healthy? I would rather help a woman run from an abuser than have another generation grow up thinking that is okay. I know that poor people are not all abusive and they are not all unstable and what-not. But as we are looking at the stats listed I just think there is so much more to the story. Single motherhood is so much more than married or not married. And I'm not sure a series of short relationships (less than 5 years) is a drastically different reality when I think of single, poor mothers. In reality, there are women out there who could provide a better life for their kid if they embraced being single and used all their energy to make something of themselves. I was never a young single mom, but my 20s were filled with a series of pathetic attempts to be loved. If they are running their lives as stupid as I was, their kids are suffering. This is such an awesome post, Thyme!
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Tiny
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Post by Tiny on Oct 17, 2016 11:33:48 GMT -5
AND the workers may have to move away from family/friends their "traditions". I think that plays a big part - the "move away to find work" - no one wants to really do that. Which is weird because America was pretty much (re)populated by people who "moved away to find work/better life". You'd think that 'trait" would have filtered down thru the generations. Well, if you can survive without having to really work a job, and it seems for the most part it's possible, then why bother? You'd think decent parents would want better for their children but they don't. Sometimes, you <-- generic you , just get use to the status quo. "surviving" and getting by may have simply become their new normal and they just live with it and figure a change would be too horrible to make (it might be worse!!!). I see people get 'stuck in a rut' because 'it's the way it is' or they would rather deal with the 'devil they know than the one they don't' or they don't want to 'make waves and upset the status quo'.
I sometimes think the train of thought that goes something like "this is the way it always was" (even when it hasn't always been that way) followed by "this is the way it will always be, I'm use to it, it's not so bad" (even when they COULD attempt to make a change) stops a lot of people - cold in their tracks. And as things deteriorate around them they just keep applying the "this is the way it's been, this is the way it will be into future forever!! it's not that bad. I can get use to it". Like dinosaurs in a tar pit - sinking and thinking it's "Ok" even as they sink deeper and deeper.
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milee
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Post by milee on Oct 17, 2016 11:42:48 GMT -5
Agreed. A few other overriding concepts that are part of the "marriage orientation" are delayed gratification, the idea that your choices can greatly impact your future (cause/effect, not just luck) and that good results are possible. Those sound really basic, but they are often lacking in families that get locked into the poverty cycle. If you're surrounded by people who think everything is just luck or can't even picture how their choices impact their lives and futures, it's unlikely you'll ever learn those things.
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billisonboard
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Post by billisonboard on Oct 17, 2016 12:00:11 GMT -5
I think it is more accurate to say that the factors which lead to one not graduating from high school also are factors which lead to an adulthood living in poverty. Which is why birth control should be mandatory. It would at least give the young girls a chance to make something of themselves other than another generation of baby mommas with no future but to raise more of them. The young men? You'd have to physically remove them from the gang and drug culture but to where? Pregnancy is a problem (and I have no problem with your solution) but it is rarely the root cause either. There is a reason why young girls get pregnant. There are mental health and lack of academic capability issues that create the inability to avoid self destructive behaviors. On the positive side, there has been a large drop in teen birth rates. I think one of the reasons for that is we have more girls who have opportunities to do so much more with their lives than in the past. Two great role models for them have been the first female Speaker of the House and the first female major party candidate for POTUS.
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milee
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Post by milee on Oct 17, 2016 12:01:57 GMT -5
Agreed. A few other overriding concepts that are part of the "marriage orientation" are delayed gratification, the idea that your choices can greatly impact your future (cause/effect, not just luck) and that good results are possible. Those sound really basic, but they are often lacking in families that get locked into the poverty cycle. If you're surrounded by people who think everything is just luck or can't even picture how their choices impact their lives and futures, it's unlikely you'll ever learn those things. We have a weird mix of people who are extremely successful and others living in poverty in my family and one of the single biggest differences between those in the two camps is the belief in self determination. The family members that ended up in poverty were without exception the ones that were constantly talking about what others had "done" to them or about their "bad luck", always about how things were happening to them; they truly believed that their life course was outside their control and usually didn't make much of an effort to change anything probably because they didn't think that their actions were the cause of any problems. On the other hand the successful ones were the opposite - very focused on what they could do to change things.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Oct 17, 2016 12:08:30 GMT -5
Agreed. A few other overriding concepts that are part of the "marriage orientation" are delayed gratification, the idea that your choices can greatly impact your future (cause/effect, not just luck) and that good results are possible. Those sound really basic, but they are often lacking in families that get locked into the poverty cycle. If you're surrounded by people who think everything is just luck or can't even picture how their choices impact their lives and futures, it's unlikely you'll ever learn those things. We have a weird mix of people who are extremely successful and others living in poverty in my family and one of the single biggest differences between those in the two camps is the belief in self determination. The family members that ended up in poverty were without exception the ones that were constantly talking about what others had "done" to them or about their "bad luck", always about how things were happening to them; they truly believed that their life course was outside their control and usually didn't make much of an effort to change anything probably because they didn't think that their actions were the cause of any problems. On the other hand the successful ones were the opposite - very focused on what they could do to change things. I often wonder if the Christian message (or some bastardized version of it) contributes, or at least dies not prevent that thinking. Bad things happen for a reason. Ask God to help. Wait for your mission to become clear, etc.
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billisonboard
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Post by billisonboard on Oct 17, 2016 12:25:16 GMT -5
Agreed. A few other overriding concepts that are part of the "marriage orientation" are delayed gratification, the idea that your choices can greatly impact your future (cause/effect, not just luck) and that good results are possible. Those sound really basic, but they are often lacking in families that get locked into the poverty cycle. If you're surrounded by people who think everything is just luck or can't even picture how their choices impact their lives and futures, it's unlikely you'll ever learn those things. We have a weird mix of people who are extremely successful and others living in poverty in my family and one of the single biggest differences between those in the two camps is the belief in self determination. The family members that ended up in poverty were without exception the ones that were constantly talking about what others had "done" to them or about their "bad luck", always about how things were happening to them; they truly believed that their life course was outside their control and usually didn't make much of an effort to change anything probably because they didn't think that their actions were the cause of any problems. On the other hand the successful ones were the opposite - very focused on what they could do to change things. I really like this Attribution Theory model (What do you attribute success or failure to?): The only square that is internal and changeable is "Effort". I always attempt to get kids to see that it is the work that they put in to be successful. I have had people argue that "Ability" is a good thing to rely on but I respond with, "Is 'I am no good at math' acceptable as a reason for failure?" and while ability might not actually be stable, I contend it is changeable through effort. "That was easy". "No, it was a difficult task. What did you do to make the difficult task seem easy?" "It was luck/God's will that made me successful/unsuccessful" is a tough one to overcome.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Oct 17, 2016 12:33:50 GMT -5
I'm no good at math either but I found careers that didn't require huge math skills. I still knew at an early age if I got pregnant my life would be over as well as that child's. But then again, there were not tons of girls that did and those that did paid for it. No thanks. Right or wrong it's the woman that pays.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Oct 17, 2016 12:36:37 GMT -5
I was thinking about marriage, or future, orientation this morning in the car with DS. We talk about the future a lot, about how picking the right person to marry matters, about how having less choices now in education and free time means he'll have more choices as an adult. Essentially I'm brainwashing him every day, trying to instill my values in him the same way a fundamental religious group would try to instill their values in their children. OTOH, my brother is married, with a child, but is completely oriented in the now. Every time I try to talk to him about the future he brushes it off. He's turned down good job and educational opportunities because having free time now matters more. From what I've read his daughter will have life outcomes more similar to those growing up in single parent homes because they live in poverty and are surrounded by dysfunctional families. As it turns out the your child's friends are more indicative of your child's outcome than you are. Single parents who live in neighborhoods full of married couples have children who have outcomes more similar to the children of married couples. That makes total sense. If you're surrounded by ghetto mentality then no matter what you're being told by whatever passes for your caregiver, isn't going to mean a thing. My kids went to high school with kids that talked about what college they were going to not if they even would.
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milee
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Post by milee on Oct 17, 2016 12:38:27 GMT -5
We have a weird mix of people who are extremely successful and others living in poverty in my family and one of the single biggest differences between those in the two camps is the belief in self determination. The family members that ended up in poverty were without exception the ones that were constantly talking about what others had "done" to them or about their "bad luck", always about how things were happening to them; they truly believed that their life course was outside their control and usually didn't make much of an effort to change anything probably because they didn't think that their actions were the cause of any problems. On the other hand the successful ones were the opposite - very focused on what they could do to change things. I often wonder if the Christian message (or some bastardized version of it) contributes, or at least dies not prevent that thinking. Bad things happen for a reason. Ask God to help. Wait for your mission to become clear, etc. Hm. Not sure. There's also a mix of religious and non-religious in the family and it doesn't seem to break cleanly down the self-determined vs. everything is done to me mindset. In my family I think religion hasn't been the cause of those beliefs but sometimes is used to justify whichever of the beliefs that the particular individual has. No idea if that's true of the general population or not.
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Tiny
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Post by Tiny on Oct 17, 2016 13:28:11 GMT -5
Which is why birth control should be mandatory. It would at least give the young girls a chance to make something of themselves other than another generation of baby mommas with no future but to raise more of them. The young men? You'd have to physically remove them from the gang and drug culture but to where? Pregnancy is a problem (and I have no problem with your solution) but it is rarely the root cause either. There is a reason why young girls get pregnant. There are mental health and lack of academic capability issues that create the inability to avoid self destructive behaviors. On the positive side, there has been a large drop in teen birth rates. I think one of the reasons for that is we have more girls who have opportunities to do so much more with their lives than in the past. Two great role models for them have been the first female Speaker of the House and the first female major party candidate for POTUS. Becarerul you don't fall into a trap.... What do you mean by "self destructive behavior"? Let's not forget that parthenogenesis doesn't seem to occur in humans.... boys/men are part of the problem.
Do you mean a girl's/woman's right and ability to say "No, thank you" AND to have that accepted by boys/men? How come birth control is 100% of a girls/womans responsibility? Trust me, it is. 100% a girls/womans responsibity. That's why when talking about preganancy it's the girls/womans fault she got pregnant (if she didn't want to be pregnant). It's NEVER the guys fault. What about the social convention that since there is BC and it is a girls/womans domain - it's OK to expect sex from girls/women with no strings attached. After all they wouldn't give in to the pressure for sex from guys if they weren't 'protected' from pregnancy....
you do realize that there are plenty of woman who CAN"T say "No" without potentially suffering some consequence they'd rather avoid. (fear of loosing a boyfriend who pays the rent or getting hit for example).
Maybe there's a bit of a behavior problem with boys/men - if they expect sex from girls/women... which goes back to their home life/pressure from friends/expectations. Birth control alone won't doesn't solve the pregnancy problem.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Oct 17, 2016 13:38:03 GMT -5
Pregnancy is a problem (and I have no problem with your solution) but it is rarely the root cause either. There is a reason why young girls get pregnant. There are mental health and lack of academic capability issues that create the inability to avoid self destructive behaviors. On the positive side, there has been a large drop in teen birth rates. I think one of the reasons for that is we have more girls who have opportunities to do so much more with their lives than in the past. Two great role models for them have been the first female Speaker of the House and the first female major party candidate for POTUS. Becarerul you don't fall into a trap.... What do you mean by "self destructive behavior"? Let's not forget that parthenogenesis doesn't seem to occur in humans.... boys/men are part of the problem.
Do you mean a girl's/woman's right and ability to say "No, thank you" AND to have that accepted by boys/men? How come birth control is 100% of a girls/womans responsibility? Trust me, it is. 100% a girls/womans responsibity. That's why when talking about preganancy it's the girls/womans fault she got pregnant (if she didn't want to be pregnant). It's NEVER the guys fault. What about the social convention that since there is BC and it is a girls/womans domain - it's OK to expect sex from girls/women with no strings attached. After all they wouldn't give in to the pressure for sex from guys if they weren't 'protected' from pregnancy....
you do realize that there are plenty of woman who CAN"T say "No" without potentially suffering some consequence they'd rather avoid. (fear of loosing a boyfriend who pays the rent or getting hit for example).
Maybe there's a bit of a behavior problem with boys/men - if they expect sex from girls/women... which goes back to their home life/pressure from friends/expectations. Birth control alone won't doesn't solve the pregnancy problem.
So you can have sex without having babies. If you're trading your body for shelter, then you have more problems and should not bring a child into the mix.
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Tiny
Senior Associate
Joined: Dec 29, 2010 21:22:34 GMT -5
Posts: 13,494
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Post by Tiny on Oct 17, 2016 13:49:47 GMT -5
Becarerul you don't fall into a trap.... What do you mean by "self destructive behavior"? Let's not forget that parthenogenesis doesn't seem to occur in humans.... boys/men are part of the problem.
Do you mean a girl's/woman's right and ability to say "No, thank you" AND to have that accepted by boys/men? How come birth control is 100% of a girls/womans responsibility? Trust me, it is. 100% a girls/womans responsibity. That's why when talking about preganancy it's the girls/womans fault she got pregnant (if she didn't want to be pregnant). It's NEVER the guys fault. What about the social convention that since there is BC and it is a girls/womans domain - it's OK to expect sex from girls/women with no strings attached. After all they wouldn't give in to the pressure for sex from guys if they weren't 'protected' from pregnancy....
you do realize that there are plenty of woman who CAN"T say "No" without potentially suffering some consequence they'd rather avoid. (fear of loosing a boyfriend who pays the rent or getting hit for example).
Maybe there's a bit of a behavior problem with boys/men - if they expect sex from girls/women... which goes back to their home life/pressure from friends/expectations. Birth control alone won't doesn't solve the pregnancy problem.
So you can have sex without having babies. If you're trading your body for shelter, then you have more problems and should not bring a child into the mix. My bad. I keep forgetting that BC ALWAYS works and that when a woman says "No" (maybe because she was unable to take/use her BC that day) a guy will automatically back off with no bad feelings. I keep forgetting that it's only in books/TV/movies that men and women use sex as a 'bargaining' chip or as 'weapon' in their relationships.
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billisonboard
Community Leader
Joined: Dec 20, 2010 22:45:44 GMT -5
Posts: 38,246
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Post by billisonboard on Oct 17, 2016 13:53:14 GMT -5
Pregnancy is a problem (and I have no problem with your solution) but it is rarely the root cause either. There is a reason why young girls get pregnant. There are mental health and lack of academic capability issues that create the inability to avoid self destructive behaviors. On the positive side, there has been a large drop in teen birth rates. I think one of the reasons for that is we have more girls who have opportunities to do so much more with their lives than in the past. Two great role models for them have been the first female Speaker of the House and the first female major party candidate for POTUS. Becarerul you don't fall into a trap.... What do you mean by "self destructive behavior"? Let's not forget that parthenogenesis doesn't seem to occur in humans.... boys/men are part of the problem.
Do you mean a girl's/woman's right and ability to say "No, thank you" AND to have that accepted by boys/men? How come birth control is 100% of a girls/womans responsibility? Trust me, it is. 100% a girls/womans responsibity. That's why when talking about preganancy it's the girls/womans fault she got pregnant (if she didn't want to be pregnant). It's NEVER the guys fault. What about the social convention that since there is BC and it is a girls/womans domain - it's OK to expect sex from girls/women with no strings attached. After all they wouldn't give in to the pressure for sex from guys if they weren't 'protected' from pregnancy....
you do realize that there are plenty of woman who CAN"T say "No" without potentially suffering some consequence they'd rather avoid. (fear of loosing a boyfriend who pays the rent or getting hit for example).
Maybe there's a bit of a behavior problem with boys/men - if they expect sex from girls/women... which goes back to their home life/pressure from friends/expectations. Birth control alone won't doesn't solve the pregnancy problem.
The issue is non-completion of high school and how it effects an individual's future. A female becoming pregnant might be a contributing factor but it is usually a symptom of problems, not the cause of dropping out. There are plenty of programs to assist teen mothers who have the desire to complete their schooling.
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thyme4change
Community Leader
Joined: Dec 26, 2010 13:54:08 GMT -5
Posts: 40,784
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Post by thyme4change on Oct 17, 2016 13:53:18 GMT -5
I was thinking about marriage, or future, orientation this morning in the car with DS. We talk about the future a lot, about how picking the right person to marry matters, about how having less choices now in education and free time means he'll have more choices as an adult. Essentially I'm brainwashing him every day, trying to instill my values in him the same way a fundamental religious group would try to instill their values in their children. OTOH, my brother is married, with a child, but is completely oriented in the now. Every time I try to talk to him about the future he brushes it off. He's turned down good job and educational opportunities because having free time now matters more. From what I've read his daughter will have life outcomes more similar to those growing up in single parent homes because they live in poverty and are surrounded by dysfunctional families. As it turns out the your child's friends are more indicative of your child's outcome than you are. Single parents who live in neighborhoods full of married couples have children who have outcomes more similar to the children of married couples. I have said many times the peer pressure had a huge positive impact on my life. After being told time and again how bad peer pressure was, I look back and have several very key accomplishments in my life that peer pressure made happen. When I graduated high school, I was absolutely NOT going to be the only person who didn't go to college. When I was in college, I was absolutely NOT going to be the only one of my friends who didn't graduate. When I graduated, I was absolutely NOT going to be the friend who got a non-professional job while all my friends climbed the ladder. I also remember realizing many of my friends were out of debt and saving for retirement. When I met my husband and introduced him to all my successful friends and family, he had an ah-ha moment and went back to college, and onto law school, because he knew he wouldn't last long if he didnt. Thank dog my friends all had goals, or I might have a very different life right now.
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Chocolate Lover
Distinguished Associate
Joined: Dec 17, 2010 15:54:19 GMT -5
Posts: 23,200
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Post by Chocolate Lover on Oct 17, 2016 13:55:21 GMT -5
Pregnancy is a problem (and I have no problem with your solution) but it is rarely the root cause either. There is a reason why young girls get pregnant. There are mental health and lack of academic capability issues that create the inability to avoid self destructive behaviors. On the positive side, there has been a large drop in teen birth rates. I think one of the reasons for that is we have more girls who have opportunities to do so much more with their lives than in the past. Two great role models for them have been the first female Speaker of the House and the first female major party candidate for POTUS. Becarerul you don't fall into a trap.... What do you mean by "self destructive behavior"? Let's not forget that parthenogenesis doesn't seem to occur in humans.... boys/men are part of the problem.
Do you mean a girl's/woman's right and ability to say "No, thank you" AND to have that accepted by boys/men? How come birth control is 100% of a girls/womans responsibility? Trust me, it is. 100% a girls/womans responsibity. That's why when talking about preganancy it's the girls/womans fault she got pregnant (if she didn't want to be pregnant). It's NEVER the guys fault. What about the social convention that since there is BC and it is a girls/womans domain - it's OK to expect sex from girls/women with no strings attached. After all they wouldn't give in to the pressure for sex from guys if they weren't 'protected' from pregnancy....
you do realize that there are plenty of woman who CAN"T say "No" without potentially suffering some consequence they'd rather avoid. (fear of loosing a boyfriend who pays the rent or getting hit for example).
Maybe there's a bit of a behavior problem with boys/men - if they expect sex from girls/women... which goes back to their home life/pressure from friends/expectations. Birth control alone won't doesn't solve the pregnancy problem.
Huh, I read your bolded quote way differently than you did. I took it as saying sometimes these girls (and boys) act against their own best interests because they have mental health issues or lower intelligence issues and can't understand the repercussions.
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zibazinski
Community Leader
Joined: Dec 24, 2010 16:12:50 GMT -5
Posts: 47,912
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Post by zibazinski on Oct 17, 2016 14:31:35 GMT -5
The school social worker said the Girls she talked to wanted someone to love them. First some guy but when he moves on there's a baby left to "love her." So sad.
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tskeeter
Junior Associate
Joined: Mar 20, 2011 19:37:45 GMT -5
Posts: 6,831
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Post by tskeeter on Oct 17, 2016 15:45:46 GMT -5
Which is why birth control should be mandatory. It would at least give the young girls a chance to make something of themselves other than another generation of baby mommas with no future but to raise more of them. The young men? You'd have to physically remove them from the gang and drug culture but to where? You do realize that birthrates in the US have been dropping for the last couple of decades and that teenagers aren't really having kids at the same rate as they had in the past. Having kids as a teen isn't the main driving force of poverty - which maybe it once was - since the numbers of teens having kids has dropped - but poverty still seems to be a problem.
I think there are different kinds of 'poverty' there's what happens in urban areas and then what happens in areas where the main employer(s)/jobs have gone away. So someplace where there's only one major employer. when those jobs go away - all the other jobs go away... and you have thousands of people without any job opportunities. They either need to move away or stay and wait for things to change (which could be decades).
I beg to differ. Teen parents raising a family struggle to complete their education while also raising a family and trying to pay the bills with a low skill job. This creates a life of struggles stacked upon struggles. When you are overwhelmed by all the struggles in your young life, I'm sure that the alternative of relying on social programs to provide for your needs, at whatever minimal level, becomes pretty attractive.
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