One of the words that’s become utterly void of meaning in the last few years because of its overuse and misuse is privilege. White privilege, male privilege, able-bodied privilege, gender privilege, heterosexual privilege, even hot privilege. In these contexts, privilege is a stain, a kind of original sin meant to guilt the offending party into repenting for it at every twist and turn in their life. “Check your privilege” became a common refrain of the past decade. What all of this has done is confuse and undermine the idea of real privilege—real advantage that some situations produce over others—which, of course, really exists in this country.
Let's figure out how to fix a problem that government caused with government policies.
All one has to do to understand the problem of single parent households is look at what major changes occured when this trend started in the 1960's. That's Johnson's War on Poverty, which extended its tendrils from the federal level to the local level. Via welfare and housing projects, dependency shifted from the family and community (which was centered around the church) to faceless state bureaucrats. Mothers were paid more if dad was gone.
It was a perfect storm when you factor in a vastly increased War on Drugs in the 70's, which created an enormous criminal underclass. All those dads who were pushed out of the homes were now enticed to make a quick buck in the illicit drug business. This of course led to a dramatic increase in incarceration rates among this disenchfranchise group of young men. Having a criminal record dramatically reduced upward mobility and pushed dads even further away from the moms. And being locked up for years with other criminals with limited vocational training simply encouraged that criminal mindset. Mom's don't want criminal dads around.
I found it laughable that both Kearney and Weiss seemed almost apologetic to their audience when proposing that the nuclear family was a good thing. "I'm so sorry all you progressives out there, but the old-fashioned conservative family values might actually be good for society. We wish it weren't so!" is what they seem to be saying.
There are short term and medium fixes.
Here's one cool short-term idea. Local communities could establish extensive Big Brother programs with age 50+ men and any age boys. This will help with the lack of a male roll model in the home.
Medium term fix: get rid of welfare entirely except for very short-term emergency situations. End the war on drugs, which will eliminate the violence and egregious incarceration rates. Convert government housing projects into ownership projects or get rid of them completely.
Getting rid of welfare will just lead to more hungry people.
With the rise of automation, the decrease in unionization, no longer teaching shop in high school.
The war on drugs or just the private prison system and Nixon putting pot on the schedule 1 drug list has done more to destroy or youth.
Corporate profits rule everything, Henry Ford knew that his workers needed to be able to buy one of his cars to stay in business.
More than 50% of the states have decriminalized pot but we are still putting people in jail for it. If they legalized it around half of the prison population would be freed, their records would be expunged and they would be able to find work. 3 investment firms are the largest purchasers of single family homes now.
Amazon now has over 10,000 robots to stock warehouses and has invested billions to develop a bipedal robot to take over repetitive tasks.
We are going to need a universal basic income just to survive. Welfare isn’t going to be enough.
Pot is just one aspect of the War on Drugs. I would say that prohibiting drugs like cocaine, heroin, meth are far worse when it comes to generating crime and violence. It's astonishing to me that we didn't learn our lesson from the disastrous Volstead act of 1919 that created single-handedly a vast organized crime network. How can anyone say that addiction is somehow a worse effect than crime and violence? The drug war has decimated communities. Any time you prohibit something the unintended consequence is a black market in that thing, increased crime and an overall disrespect for the "rule of law". The Rule of Law is a mainstay of Western civilization.
The continued prohibition of narcotics that are on the schedule 2 list implies protectionism for the established manufacturers rather than an outright ban because of harm. Just like we combine pain medication with Tylenol is a guarantee of the toxicity of the medication because it’s better for you to die from liver failure than to abuse your prescribed medication.
The drug testing of any job before you are hired just further adds to the pool of individuals that add to the criminal element increasing incarceration rates with the further effect of pushing people into the mass of unemployable that then feeds the growing criminal enterprises. The amount of money this generates destabilizes governments further and undermines any attempts at democracy when the cartels are better armed than the official standing armies and enforcement forces that are supposed to protect the individuals they are harming and has a larger cash flow that the countries that the prey on.
The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging.
The media exacerbates this with the “ If it bleeds it leads” story coverage. The political narrative that crime is rampant and that things are getting worse is constantly escalating even though even basic statistics show this to be a false narrative.
The billions spent on border protection rather than a rational work visa program that allows individuals to preform low wage stoop labor takes further advantage of a broken system providing a distraction from the egregious behavior of corruptions on the people that run them. So they get away with fines if they are caught and convicted rather than treating them as the criminals they are while we imprison those that just want steady employment. This continues the cash flow into the private prison companies that benefit from the quantity that is shoved into their cages, with a indeterminate ending in a court room that has years long backlogs of people who’s crime was crossing and arbitrary job looking for work. Now that we have made them criminals they then join the increasingly growing ranks of the cartels. It’s like we grow this class to perpetuate the cycle to ensure that the prisons stay full, the politicians stay elected by parroting the same slogans that have been used for over a century.
If we can ever brake this cycle we could then focus on the massive war machine that is the largest part of our budget that continues the process.
Prior to the late 60s, most people refused to take advantage of government programs, even though they were eligible. It was considered shameful.
There was a Marxist movement in the late 60s that encouraged everyone to take advantage of government assistance programs. They knew that the government was overpromising. These Marxists hoped that the overload of people making demands on the government would cause the system to collapse so that the Marxists could then take over.
30 years later it turns out Vice President Dan Quayl was right about Murphy Brown and unmarried Moms. And ten years ago this was pointed out in the Washington Post’s opinion page by journalist Isabel Sawhill
Bari: (I preface this with, I LOVE your interviews and commend you and the Free Press – HUGE fan) That said, this interview was borderline ready for The Onion or The Babylon Bee. Is this breaking news? Hello! McFly?! Children benefit from having two parents!? Stop the press!
And your poor guest, who on more than one occasion had to spit out the unthinkable – Conservatives may have had this right all along - A structured, traditional family, with two parents (ideally one male, one female) creates economic opportunities and a stable society.
As Dennis Prager has said on more than one occasion about ‘studies’. Either they confirm the obvious, or they’re wrong
Shocking news! Kids need two parents! Stop the presses! And of course, the solutions presented were really not solutions. Do more! What a concept. Of course no one looks back on who was right and who was wrong when the Right said the Great Society was destroying the family.
Steven - you're echoing my thoughts, while shaking your head at the same observations of the obvious. The only reason Ms. Kearney's report has any meaning, is to confirm what is common sense in most conservatives minds.
No surprise to me. I was a hearing officer for child support in 1992 to 1993 and even back then, I saw the decline in marriage. Why do women need to marry a man who is less than perfect, when they can get the government to provide support and take over the man's role of providing financial support?
Prior to the late 60s, most people refused to take advantage of government programs, even though they were eligible. It was considered shameful. There was a Marxist movement in the late 60s, Cloward–Piven strategy, that encouraged everyone to take advantage of government assistance programs. They knew that the government was overpromising. These Marxists hoped that the overload of people making demands on the government would cause the system to collapse so that a new system could be imposed: guaranteed minimum income. [EDIT - my original description of this strategy was incorrect; however I think some radicals seized on this strategy as a way of bringing about social collapse].
Well, we are almost there. Society is breaking down and the Marxists (and fellow travelers) are in control of major corporations, media, and academia.
Good post. The real crisis which was pretty much ignored by Kearney, is that this dependency you write about has become multi-generational. Once that sets in it's really hard to shake it; it becomes entrenched in the lifestyle and the expectations for the man is set. It's made still worse by the housing projects that concentrate this sub-culture, this mentality. It also creates a deep-seated corruption of values. Very sad.
Great interview. Anybody who has raised children knows it is blatantly obvious and pure common sense that a two parent household is much better for children than a one parent situation (excepting abusive situations of course). Yet the Left went ahead and condemned that belief, as it does with so many other truths. Why do we let them get away with it?
The thing that gets me is this is so obvious. If it wasn't so sad I would say this could be another episode of "Gen Z discovers". Maybe the easiest thing to hand across for the idea of two parents is redundancy. Two parents isn't just twice as good as one, it is a totally different category of value. If you lose one parent in a two parent home, through illness / injury, employment, or just a simple thing like being away from the home for work, it is a hardship, but it can be managed. If that happens in a single parent home, you are now in a situation where just about every option is a significant detriment to the child / children. In the catastrophic scenario, with no back up available the child will just be taken on by whatever family member or institution CAN take up the effort, regardless of whether it is a good situation or not. People can't seem to shut up about how much value there is in health insurance (or the system it supports) yet this simple thing, insurance that SOMEONE is there when a problem occurs seems to be just ignored.
Not any comments on my biggest take away from this article. Globalists sent all the good paying blue-collar jobs overseas leaving an entire generation (or two) of men without jobs thereby making them unattractive partners in parenting. This coincided with women's empowerment and equal footing in white-collar jobs. (surprise, women don't actually want blue-collar jobs.)
It's very much out of favor to judge politicians and others by their fidelity to their spouses. We are to believe that the obligations of one spouse to another is privately negotiated, can be of infinite variety and is none of my business. I am allowed to have no expectations on a person based on his or her marital status. There is one group of people for whom marriage is binding: all the rest of us. The taxpayer and the regulated employer is legally required to provide and structure benefits for spouses, and his objection to a marriage for any reason does not relieve him of this obligation. In short, marriage bind everyone except the married.
In the medical community, it's taken as fact that disparities in health outcomes are due to the stress of racism. I've always felt that conclusion was based on flimsy evidence, and none of the research controls for two parent households. I would be incredibly interested for this researcher to apply her work in the healthcare field. I think she would have something very important to contribute.
I'll just note that the economist Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse was arguing exactly all of this in the early 2000s: https://ruthinstitute.org/product/love-and-economics-it-takes-a-family-to-raise-a-village/. But she's Catholic and conservative, so she was ignored. Glad to see that someone who cannot be labelled and ignored in the same way is now showing what everyone knew all along. I really appreciate Dr. Kearney's honesty and bravery. Barring a continued movement to cancel the cancellers, her career is probably in jeopardy now.
Now, one thing that was not discussed: Is it just a matter of having "two parents"? Or is it a matter of having a mother and a father? And is it a matter of having a biological mother and father? All of these questions will impact in turn the questions of same-sex adoption and surrogacy. Investigating such would involve defining what are "good outcomes" for children, and that is going to get into some very touchy value-laden realms of inquiry.
Wisdom from my father>> you don't get respect, you earn respect, you don't make money you earn money. What happens to a human when he is just given something he did not earn, he begins to feel he is owned or has earned it. Slowly we have devolved back to class warfare explained by some to mean if you have more than me I deserve to get some of it. We have become a simplistic writhing mass of people divided into the oppressed and the oppressor. It is a much easier life for some to exist as an oppressed. What happens to creativity when they are the majority?
Kearney is typical of progressives everywhere.
Let's figure out how to fix a problem that government caused with government policies.
All one has to do to understand the problem of single parent households is look at what major changes occured when this trend started in the 1960's. That's Johnson's War on Poverty, which extended its tendrils from the federal level to the local level. Via welfare and housing projects, dependency shifted from the family and community (which was centered around the church) to faceless state bureaucrats. Mothers were paid more if dad was gone.
It was a perfect storm when you factor in a vastly increased War on Drugs in the 70's, which created an enormous criminal underclass. All those dads who were pushed out of the homes were now enticed to make a quick buck in the illicit drug business. This of course led to a dramatic increase in incarceration rates among this disenchfranchise group of young men. Having a criminal record dramatically reduced upward mobility and pushed dads even further away from the moms. And being locked up for years with other criminals with limited vocational training simply encouraged that criminal mindset. Mom's don't want criminal dads around.
I found it laughable that both Kearney and Weiss seemed almost apologetic to their audience when proposing that the nuclear family was a good thing. "I'm so sorry all you progressives out there, but the old-fashioned conservative family values might actually be good for society. We wish it weren't so!" is what they seem to be saying.
There are short term and medium fixes.
Here's one cool short-term idea. Local communities could establish extensive Big Brother programs with age 50+ men and any age boys. This will help with the lack of a male roll model in the home.
Medium term fix: get rid of welfare entirely except for very short-term emergency situations. End the war on drugs, which will eliminate the violence and egregious incarceration rates. Convert government housing projects into ownership projects or get rid of them completely.
Getting rid of welfare will just lead to more hungry people.
With the rise of automation, the decrease in unionization, no longer teaching shop in high school.
The war on drugs or just the private prison system and Nixon putting pot on the schedule 1 drug list has done more to destroy or youth.
Corporate profits rule everything, Henry Ford knew that his workers needed to be able to buy one of his cars to stay in business.
More than 50% of the states have decriminalized pot but we are still putting people in jail for it. If they legalized it around half of the prison population would be freed, their records would be expunged and they would be able to find work. 3 investment firms are the largest purchasers of single family homes now.
Amazon now has over 10,000 robots to stock warehouses and has invested billions to develop a bipedal robot to take over repetitive tasks.
We are going to need a universal basic income just to survive. Welfare isn’t going to be enough.
✌️
Pot is just one aspect of the War on Drugs. I would say that prohibiting drugs like cocaine, heroin, meth are far worse when it comes to generating crime and violence. It's astonishing to me that we didn't learn our lesson from the disastrous Volstead act of 1919 that created single-handedly a vast organized crime network. How can anyone say that addiction is somehow a worse effect than crime and violence? The drug war has decimated communities. Any time you prohibit something the unintended consequence is a black market in that thing, increased crime and an overall disrespect for the "rule of law". The Rule of Law is a mainstay of Western civilization.
The continued prohibition of narcotics that are on the schedule 2 list implies protectionism for the established manufacturers rather than an outright ban because of harm. Just like we combine pain medication with Tylenol is a guarantee of the toxicity of the medication because it’s better for you to die from liver failure than to abuse your prescribed medication.
The drug testing of any job before you are hired just further adds to the pool of individuals that add to the criminal element increasing incarceration rates with the further effect of pushing people into the mass of unemployable that then feeds the growing criminal enterprises. The amount of money this generates destabilizes governments further and undermines any attempts at democracy when the cartels are better armed than the official standing armies and enforcement forces that are supposed to protect the individuals they are harming and has a larger cash flow that the countries that the prey on.
The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging.
The media exacerbates this with the “ If it bleeds it leads” story coverage. The political narrative that crime is rampant and that things are getting worse is constantly escalating even though even basic statistics show this to be a false narrative.
The billions spent on border protection rather than a rational work visa program that allows individuals to preform low wage stoop labor takes further advantage of a broken system providing a distraction from the egregious behavior of corruptions on the people that run them. So they get away with fines if they are caught and convicted rather than treating them as the criminals they are while we imprison those that just want steady employment. This continues the cash flow into the private prison companies that benefit from the quantity that is shoved into their cages, with a indeterminate ending in a court room that has years long backlogs of people who’s crime was crossing and arbitrary job looking for work. Now that we have made them criminals they then join the increasingly growing ranks of the cartels. It’s like we grow this class to perpetuate the cycle to ensure that the prisons stay full, the politicians stay elected by parroting the same slogans that have been used for over a century.
If we can ever brake this cycle we could then focus on the massive war machine that is the largest part of our budget that continues the process.
Drug-testing the residents of govt housing might also help.
Prior to the late 60s, most people refused to take advantage of government programs, even though they were eligible. It was considered shameful.
There was a Marxist movement in the late 60s that encouraged everyone to take advantage of government assistance programs. They knew that the government was overpromising. These Marxists hoped that the overload of people making demands on the government would cause the system to collapse so that the Marxists could then take over.
this actually goes back even further to the new deal. Marvin Olasky’s book “The tragedy of American compassion” spells this out very clearly
Data supports common sense and they still can't seem to internalize it.
30 years later it turns out Vice President Dan Quayl was right about Murphy Brown and unmarried Moms. And ten years ago this was pointed out in the Washington Post’s opinion page by journalist Isabel Sawhill
"Traditions" are solutions to problems we forgot. When we renounce a tradition (and mock and ridicule it), the problem it solved will reappear.
Bari: (I preface this with, I LOVE your interviews and commend you and the Free Press – HUGE fan) That said, this interview was borderline ready for The Onion or The Babylon Bee. Is this breaking news? Hello! McFly?! Children benefit from having two parents!? Stop the press!
And your poor guest, who on more than one occasion had to spit out the unthinkable – Conservatives may have had this right all along - A structured, traditional family, with two parents (ideally one male, one female) creates economic opportunities and a stable society.
As Dennis Prager has said on more than one occasion about ‘studies’. Either they confirm the obvious, or they’re wrong
Shocking news! Kids need two parents! Stop the presses! And of course, the solutions presented were really not solutions. Do more! What a concept. Of course no one looks back on who was right and who was wrong when the Right said the Great Society was destroying the family.
Steven - you're echoing my thoughts, while shaking your head at the same observations of the obvious. The only reason Ms. Kearney's report has any meaning, is to confirm what is common sense in most conservatives minds.
No surprise to me. I was a hearing officer for child support in 1992 to 1993 and even back then, I saw the decline in marriage. Why do women need to marry a man who is less than perfect, when they can get the government to provide support and take over the man's role of providing financial support?
Prior to the late 60s, most people refused to take advantage of government programs, even though they were eligible. It was considered shameful. There was a Marxist movement in the late 60s, Cloward–Piven strategy, that encouraged everyone to take advantage of government assistance programs. They knew that the government was overpromising. These Marxists hoped that the overload of people making demands on the government would cause the system to collapse so that a new system could be imposed: guaranteed minimum income. [EDIT - my original description of this strategy was incorrect; however I think some radicals seized on this strategy as a way of bringing about social collapse].
Well, we are almost there. Society is breaking down and the Marxists (and fellow travelers) are in control of major corporations, media, and academia.
Good post. The real crisis which was pretty much ignored by Kearney, is that this dependency you write about has become multi-generational. Once that sets in it's really hard to shake it; it becomes entrenched in the lifestyle and the expectations for the man is set. It's made still worse by the housing projects that concentrate this sub-culture, this mentality. It also creates a deep-seated corruption of values. Very sad.
Great interview. Anybody who has raised children knows it is blatantly obvious and pure common sense that a two parent household is much better for children than a one parent situation (excepting abusive situations of course). Yet the Left went ahead and condemned that belief, as it does with so many other truths. Why do we let them get away with it?
The thing that gets me is this is so obvious. If it wasn't so sad I would say this could be another episode of "Gen Z discovers". Maybe the easiest thing to hand across for the idea of two parents is redundancy. Two parents isn't just twice as good as one, it is a totally different category of value. If you lose one parent in a two parent home, through illness / injury, employment, or just a simple thing like being away from the home for work, it is a hardship, but it can be managed. If that happens in a single parent home, you are now in a situation where just about every option is a significant detriment to the child / children. In the catastrophic scenario, with no back up available the child will just be taken on by whatever family member or institution CAN take up the effort, regardless of whether it is a good situation or not. People can't seem to shut up about how much value there is in health insurance (or the system it supports) yet this simple thing, insurance that SOMEONE is there when a problem occurs seems to be just ignored.
How does a child living with a single mom and both grandparents make out? Does this situation help more often than not?
Not any comments on my biggest take away from this article. Globalists sent all the good paying blue-collar jobs overseas leaving an entire generation (or two) of men without jobs thereby making them unattractive partners in parenting. This coincided with women's empowerment and equal footing in white-collar jobs. (surprise, women don't actually want blue-collar jobs.)
This is not news. This was highlighted by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead in her cover article in the Atlantic Monthly in 1993 “Dan Quayle was Right”
It's very much out of favor to judge politicians and others by their fidelity to their spouses. We are to believe that the obligations of one spouse to another is privately negotiated, can be of infinite variety and is none of my business. I am allowed to have no expectations on a person based on his or her marital status. There is one group of people for whom marriage is binding: all the rest of us. The taxpayer and the regulated employer is legally required to provide and structure benefits for spouses, and his objection to a marriage for any reason does not relieve him of this obligation. In short, marriage bind everyone except the married.
In the medical community, it's taken as fact that disparities in health outcomes are due to the stress of racism. I've always felt that conclusion was based on flimsy evidence, and none of the research controls for two parent households. I would be incredibly interested for this researcher to apply her work in the healthcare field. I think she would have something very important to contribute.
Social Justice Fallacies by Thomas Sowell talks about some of the same issues. He has become one of my favorite writers.
I'll just note that the economist Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse was arguing exactly all of this in the early 2000s: https://ruthinstitute.org/product/love-and-economics-it-takes-a-family-to-raise-a-village/. But she's Catholic and conservative, so she was ignored. Glad to see that someone who cannot be labelled and ignored in the same way is now showing what everyone knew all along. I really appreciate Dr. Kearney's honesty and bravery. Barring a continued movement to cancel the cancellers, her career is probably in jeopardy now.
Now, one thing that was not discussed: Is it just a matter of having "two parents"? Or is it a matter of having a mother and a father? And is it a matter of having a biological mother and father? All of these questions will impact in turn the questions of same-sex adoption and surrogacy. Investigating such would involve defining what are "good outcomes" for children, and that is going to get into some very touchy value-laden realms of inquiry.
Wisdom from my father>> you don't get respect, you earn respect, you don't make money you earn money. What happens to a human when he is just given something he did not earn, he begins to feel he is owned or has earned it. Slowly we have devolved back to class warfare explained by some to mean if you have more than me I deserve to get some of it. We have become a simplistic writhing mass of people divided into the oppressed and the oppressor. It is a much easier life for some to exist as an oppressed. What happens to creativity when they are the majority?