While I believe that stigmatizing single women with children is wrong, I also believe that a child does best with two parents. This is not to say that a child with only one parent is damaged goods in some way, or that there aren't some too parent families where the kids would be better off without one or the other (sometimes both) parents.
Some of the hardest working, toughest women I know I single parents; my grandmother, who 30 years after her passing is still one of the people in life that I admire the most, was a single mother in the 30's and 40's.
I saw today's Dear Margo column (Click HERE!) and was dismayed by her advice. She seems to be saying that marriage is totally optional for single women wanting to have children. While I agree that branding unmarried single moms with a scarlet letter is wrong I don't go so far as to say its just hunky dory either.
Dear Margo seems to be in step with the current American culture, though. Pick up most any edition of People magazine and see the fawning over all the Hollywood starlets who are having children out of wedlock. The stigma does indeed seem to be completely gone.
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There are many ways to look at this, and many things to consider. I don't know that it's any worse than a woman marrying a horrible man who is abusive because she wants a family. Nor is it any worse than staying in a bad relationship because of the kids. However, I do agree that in most cases it's not a good thing. Kids are better off with two good parents and a strong extended family. It's just that in reality, you can't always provide that. As far as celebrities are concerned, even when they get married the couple doesn't have time to spend with the kids, so it probably doesn't make much difference.
I saw today's Dear Margo column (Click HERE!) and was dismayed by her advice. She seems to be saying that marriage is totally optional for single women wanting to have children. While I agree that branding unmarried single moms with a scarlet letter is wrong I don't go so far as to say its just hunky dory either.
Dear Margo seems to be in step with the current American culture, though. Pick up most any edition of People magazine and see the fawning over all the Hollywood starlets who are having children out of wedlock. The stigma does indeed seem to be completely gone.
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It's tough enough to raise a child when BOTH parents are working. How does the average single mother (sans a huge bank account and entourage of assistants) give a child the life they deserve? Now, I know quite a few who have done this out of necessity, not by choice. I salute them for a selfless dedication I'm sure I would have a tough time equaling. This woman's situation, however, differs from the typical single mother's situation in two ways. First, she has stated she has plans to marry in the near future. Secondly, she has a professional career to look forward to. (After she manages to pay off the huge educational debts she most likely has incurred.) My hat is off to single moms everywhere who, due to unfortunate circumstances, give of themselves for the betterment of their children.
Reykjavic, Iceland, May 2008: City Councillor Oddny Sturludottir tells us why Iceland is the best place in the World. Photograph: Ari Magg
Highest birth rate in Europe + highest divorce rate + highest percentage of women working outside the home = the best country in the world in which to live. There has to be something wrong with this equation. Put those three factors together - loads of children, broken homes, absent mothers - and what you have, surely, is a recipe for misery and social chaos. But no. Iceland, the block of sub-Arctic lava to which these statistics apply, tops the latest table of the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) Human Development Index rankings, meaning that as a society and as an economy - in terms of wealth, health and education - they are champions of the world. To which one might respond: Yes, but - what with the dark winters and the far from tropical summers - are Icelanders happy? Actually, in so far as one can reliably measure such things, they are. According to a seemingly serious academic study reported in the Guardian in 2006, Icelanders are the happiest people on earth. (The study was lent some credibility by the finding that the Russians were the most unhappy.)
Oddny Sturludottir, a 31-year-old mother of two, told me she had a good friend who was 25 and had three children by a man who had just left her. 'But she has no sense of crisis at all,' Oddny said. 'She's preparing to get on with her life and her career in a perfectly optimistic frame of mind.' The answer to why the friend perceives no crisis in what any woman in a similar predicament anywhere else in the western world might consider a full-blown catastrophe goes a long way towards explaining why Iceland's 313,000 inhabitants are such a sane, cheerful, successful lot.
There are plenty of other, more obvious factors. Statistics abound. It is the country with the sixth highest GDP per capita in the world; where people buy the most books; where life expectancy for men is the highest in the world, and not far behind for women; it's the only country in Nato with no armed forces (they were banned 700 years ago); the highest ratio of mobile telephones to population; the fastest-expanding banking system in the world; rocketing export business; crystal-pure air; hot water delivered to all Icelandic households straight from the earth's volcanic bowels; and so on and so forth.
But none of this happiness would be possible without the hardy self-confidence that defines individual Icelanders, which in turn derives from a society that is culturally geared - as its overwhelming priority - to bring up happy, healthy children, by however many fathers and mothers. A lot of it comes from their Viking ancestors, whose males were rampant looters and rapists, but had the moral consistency at least not to be jealous of the dalliances of their wives - tough women who kept their families fed in the semi-tundra harshness of this north Atlantic island while their husbands forayed, for years at a time, far and wide. As a grandmother I met on my first visit to Iceland, two years ago, explained it: 'The Vikings went abroad and the women ran the show, and they had children with their slaves, and when the Vikings returned they accepted it, in the spirit of the more the merrier.'
Oddny - a slim, attractive pianist who speaks fluent German, translates English books into Icelandic and works as a city councillor in the capital, Reykjavik - offers a contemporary case in point. Five years ago, when she was studying in Stuttgart, she became pregnant by a German man. During her pregnancy she broke up with the German and reconnected with an old love, a prolific Icelandic writer and painter called Hallgrimur Helgason. The two returned to Iceland where they lived together with the new baby and in due course had a child of their own. Hallgrimur is devoted to both children but Oddny considers it important for her first-born to retain a close link to her biological father. This happens on a regular basis. The German flies over and stays at Oddny and Hallgrimur's far-from-spacious home for a week, sometimes two, at a time.
'Patchwork families are a tradition here,' explained Oddny, who was off work, at home, on the Thursday morning we met, looking after her youngest child. 'It is common for women to have kids with more than one man. But all are family together.'
I found this time and again with people I met in Iceland. Oddny's case was not atypical. When a child's birthday comes around, not only do the various sets of parents turn up for the party, the various sets of grandparents - and whole longboats of uncles and aunts - come too. Iceland, lodged in the middle of the North Atlantic with Greenland as its nearest neighbour, was too far from the remit of any but the more zealously obstinate of the medieval Christian missionaries. It is a largely pagan country, as the natives like to see it, unburdened by the taboos that generate so much distress elsewhere. That means they are practical people. Which, in turn, means lots of divorces.
'That is not something to be proud of,' said Oddny, with a brisk smile, 'but the fact is that Icelanders don't stay in lousy relationships. They just leave.' And the reason they can do so is that society, starting with the parents and grandparents, does not stigmatise them for making that choice. Icelanders are the least hung-up people in the world. Thus the incentive, for example, 'to stay together for the sake of the kids' does not exist. The kids will be just fine, because the family will rally round them and, likely as not, the parents will continue to have a civilised relationship, based on the usually automatic understanding that custody for the children will be shared.
Reykjavic, Iceland, May 2008: City Councillor Oddny Sturludottir tells us why Iceland is the best place in the World. Photograph: Ari Magg
The comfort of knowing that, come what may, the future for the children is safe also helps explain why Icelandic women, modern as they are (Iceland elected the world's first female president, Vigdis Finnbogadottir, a single mother, 28 years ago), persist in the ancient habit of bearing children very young. 'Not unwanted teen pregnancies, you understand,' said Oddny, 'but women of 21, 22 who willingly have children, very often while they are still at university.' At a British university a pregnant student would be an oddity; in Iceland, even at the business-oriented Reykjavik University, it is not only common to see pregnant girls in the student cafeteria, you see them breast-feeding, too. 'You extend your studies by a year, so what?' said Oddny. 'No way do you think when you have a kid at 22, "Oh my God, my life is over!" Definitely not! It is considered stupid here to wait till 38 to have a child. We think it's healthy to have lots of kids. All babies are welcome.'
All the more so because if you are in a job the state gives you nine months on fully paid child leave, to be split among the mother and the father as they so please. 'This means that employers know a man they hire is just as likely as a woman to take time off to look after a baby,' explained Svafa Grönfeldt, currently rector of Reykjavik University, previously a very high-powered executive. 'Paternity leave is the thing that made the difference for women's equality in this country.'
Svafa has embraced the opportunity with both arms. For her first child, she took most of the parental leave. For her second, her husband did. 'I had a job in which I was travelling 300 days a year,' she said. She had her misgivings, but these were alleviated partly by the knowledge that her husband was at home, partly because of the top-class state education that Iceland provides, starting with all-day pre-schools, rendering private schools practically nonexistent. ('I think there is one, but 99 per cent of kids, be their parents plumbers or billionaires, use the state system,' Svafa said.)
The 300 days' travelling job was as deputy CEO in charge of mergers and acquisitions for a generic pharmaceutical company called Actavis, where Svafa worked for six years. During this period the company rose from global minnowhood to become the third largest of its kind in the world, buying up 23 foreign companies along the way. A propagandist not just for her former firm, which she left when she could no longer fight the guilt she felt over her maternal absences, she listed some of the more notable feats of entrepreneurial prowess her country had achieved in the past 10 years, boom-time in what had traditionally been a fish-based economy. Icelandic banks now operate in 20 countries, and the Reykjavik-based company deCODE is a world leader in biotechnological genome research. Icelandic firms are gobbling up food and telecommunications firms in Britain, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, further evidence of the island's economic growth.
Svafa is a lively, wiry woman with a sassy haircut and a sharp, humorous mind. And she has a corner office to match. Spacious, minimalist (so much so she does not even have a desk) and modern in the clean Nordic style, it has the feel of a lounge and views to kill for. From one window you see over Reykjavik's red and green rooftops to the fishing port and the dark blue sea; from another you look on to a ridge of low, snow-capped mountains. It's a beautiful landscape to look at but a hard one in which to live, especially in the 1,000 years Iceland was inhabited prior to the invention of electricity and the combustion engine. 'You have to be not only tough but inventive to survive here,' said Svafa. 'If you don't use your imagination, you're finished; if you stand still, you die.'
As the Vikings showed, part of that imagination means getting out into the world. That is what Svafa did (she studied for a PhD at the London School of Economics, lived in the US, spending a total of 10 years abroad) and what practically all Icelanders do. Very few do not speak excellent English. But now that Iceland has become prosperous the invitation is out to the world to come to Iceland. Reykjavik University has staff from 23 countries and the idea, after a planned move in two years to what Svafa describes as a new space-age campus, is to expand the foreign presence both in terms of teaching staff and students, and convert the university into a hub of global business education. Reykjavik University is already entirely bilingual. 'Students who only speak English can come and do postgraduate studies here.' Does nobody worry about losing the Icelandic language, when, after all, so few people speak it? 'Not at all,' declares Svafa. 'Our language is safe.' Not prey to the nationalist neuroses of other small countries (though practically none are smaller than Iceland), Iceland's obsession is with embracing the world, not fearing it. 'We are into brain gain, not brain drain. We want to do what the Americans have done to great effect, in our specific case to create an elite campus in Europe that attracts the best in the world.'
Icelanders know how to identify the best and incorporate it into their society. I talked about this to the Icelandic prime minister, Geir Haarde, whom I met at an official event at a steamy public swimming bath, a popular meeting place for Icelanders, like pubs for the British. Easygoing as everybody else I met, and without anything dimly resembling a bodyguard anywhere near him (there is almost no crime in Iceland), he agreed on the spot to sit down and do a quick interview.
'I believe we have blended the best of Europe and the United States here, the Nordic welfare system with the American entrepreneurial spirit,' he said, pointing out that Iceland, unlike the other Nordic countries, had exceptionally low personal and corporate tax rates. 'This has meant not only that Icelandic companies stay and foreign ones come, but that we have increased by 20 per cent our tax revenue owing to increased turnover.' Which is not to say that Iceland has been immune to the financial panic affecting the rest of the world right now. Icelandic banks being, in the US manner, aggressive and optimistic global players, there are worries they may have over-extended themselves. The rise in food and oil prices is generating the same sort of headlines in Iceland's papers as we are seeing elsewhere. Yet there is no suggestion that the economic system itself is under threat. Icelanders will continue to receive not just free, top-class education but free, top-class healthcare, private medicine being limited in Iceland chiefly to luxury procedures, such as cosmetic surgery.
Dagur Eggertsson, until recently the mayor of Reykjavik and every inch a future prime minister of Iceland, made the point to me that what has happened in Iceland has defied economic logic. 'In the Eighties and Nineties right wingers in the US and UK were saying that the Scandinavian system was unworkable, that high state investment in public services would kill business,' said Dagur, a boyish, super-bright 35-year-old who, like most Icelanders, is a furiously hard-working multi-tasker - as well as a politician, he is a doctor. 'Yet here we are, in 2008,' he continues, 'and you look at the hard economic statistics and you see that these last 12 years we and the Scandinavian countries have been roaring ahead. Someone called it bumblebee economics: scientifically, aerodynamically, you cannot figure out how it flies, but it does, and very nicely, too.'
Iceland's spectacular success comes from that capacity for hard work Dagur exemplifies, plus that imperative for creativity Svafa spoke of, plus an American faith in the feasibility of big ideas. 'Many of us have lived in the US, studied there,' said Geir Haarde, 'and what we have both taken from them and found that naturally we share is that can-do attitude - that if you work hard, anything can be done.' Svafa seemed to be the living expression of what Haarde was describing. She rejoiced in the civilised generosity of the Icelandic state but worked in pursuit of her own private goals with tireless optimism.
A similar spirit lies behind the success of Reykjavik Energy, the company that provides Icelanders with most of their hot water and electricity. Pipes dug deep into the earth's icy crust extract not oil, but water, which one kilometre down reaches temperatures of 200C. In 1940, 85 per cent of Iceland's energy came from coal and oil. Today, 85 per cent comes from underground volcanic water, which supplies half the country's electricity needs at a price just two-thirds of the European average. Iceland has the world's largest geothermal heating system, and the world is coming to have a look. The prime ministers of China and India have visited Iceland in recent years to see what they can learn about clean, cheap renewable energy and Reykjavik Energy is engaged in joint projects to replicate the Icelandic model in places as far flung as Djibouti, El Salvador, Indonesia and China.
The success of Reykjavik Energy is a metaphor for Iceland's broader achievement: harnessing the harshness of nature and transforming it, through invention and hard toil, into rich, fruitful energy. Artists have done much the same. The country is crawling with writers, painters, film makers and - like Oddny - accomplished musicians. Iceland has Björk, its cool answer to Madonna, but also a national symphony orchestra that plays to the highest standards all over the world; it has its own opera company (while I was there, La Traviata was being performed at the Reykjavik Opera House, entirely by Icelanders).
Baltasar Kormakur, a former TV soap opera heart-throb, is a successful local film director whose films have been shown in 80 countries, and is about to make his first Hollywood film this year. He has also directed a play at the Barbican, where he will soon be staging a production of Shakespeare's Othello. As for writers, half the population appears to have written a book, as if inspired by the single greatest cultural legacy Iceland has so far given the world - the 13th-century Viking sagas, which Jorge Luis Borges, the greatest writer never to receive a Nobel prize, described as the first novels, 400 years ahead of Cervantes. As a consequence, the one thing Icelanders could do that many in richer countries could not, even in the 19th century, was read - and the abundance of bookshops in Reykjavik is testament to this. Painting as an art form did not exist in Iceland until 100 years ago, but a large sector of the population dabbles in it now and at least 100 Icelanders live off their art full time.
Haraldur Jonsson, who studied in Paris and whose father was a champion multi-tasker (he was both an architect and a dentist) is an abstract painter, sculptor and video and performance artist who describes his task as 'making the invisible world visible', transforming emotions into things you can see and touch. He has exhibited all over the world, including London, Barcelona, Berlin and Los Angeles. Why is there such an abundance of artists in Iceland? What drives them? 'We do it so as not to become mad,' replied Haraldur, who is tall, nervy and thin with eyes that have the concentrated energy of a laser beam. Not to become mad? 'Yes, to keep the beast at bay.' The beast? 'The beast is Iceland, this island on which we live with its terrifyingly harsh nature, its bitter ever-changing weather. It's Goya's dark nightmare world, beautiful but grotesque. This is the moody beast of Iceland. We cannot escape it. So we find ways to live with it, to tame it. I do it through my art,' said Haraldur, whose attempts to pacify the monster have also included the writing of three books in which 'there are no animals, no trees. We have to have a rich internal life to fill the empty spaces, to fill the silence with our own noise.'
There is another beast to which Iceland owes a debt: the Second World War. The Icelanders must be the only people in the world to whom Adolf Hitler bequeathed a legacy of value. Before the war, Iceland was Europe's poorest country. Suddenly, in 1939, it became a strategic location of immense value. The British and the Germans raced for it, and the British got there first. They established a military base on a finger of land near the Reykjavik coast. 'Suddenly there was an abundance of jobs that were, for the first time ever, unrelated to fishing or farming,' recalled Asvaldur Andresson. 'I remember that before the war we barely had roads, and those we had we had to build with picks and shovels. The British and Americans came and then it was Caterpillar trucks and tar roads and all sorts of wonderful new tools with which to work.'
Asvaldur, who was born in 1928 in a fishing town in Iceland's wild far east called Seydisfjordur, emigrated west to Reykjavik at the end of the war and found a job as a bus driver at the US base. After that, following long hours of hard night-time study, he spent most of his life as a refurbisher of bashed-up cars. His life was always tough, but especially when he was growing up, when Iceland was that worst of possible mixes, a Developing World country with brutally cold weather. He left school at 12 and went to work on a fishing boat amid the icy storms of the Arctic circle's southern edge. His sister died of whooping cough at the age of three, and when his father died, Asvaldur, then 16, was out at sea, so he did not find out about it until after the burial. He worked 16-hour days all his life to keep his family fed. Today, he has a full-time job looking after his invalid wife. The blessing is that he receives money from the state to do so, a big reason (consistent with the culture of family cohesion) why most old people in Iceland live not in residences but at home. 'I look back at my life and I see how this country has changed and I can hardly believe my eyes,' said Haraldur.
The most remarkable thing is what has become of three of his grand-daughters, all grown up now. One makes documentary films in Paris; one is a bio-technology whizz who assists surgeons in a Reykjavik hospital; the eldest, at 26, has a flying licence from the United States and is undergoing training to become a pilot with Ryanair. Icelandic women being the early reproducers that they are, Asvaldur and his wife have not one or two but five great-grandchildren.
They are all sure to be receiving a fine education, especially should any of them happen to go to a school I visited in Reykjavik called Hateigsskol. The principal, a quietly passionate man called Asgeir Beinteinsson, showed me around. The children range from the ages of six to 16, and every classroom, which we visited unannounced, was a picture of cheerful industry. Apart from the wide variety of subjects obligatory to all, from cookery to carpentry via all the traditional lessons, what was striking was the ingenuity in the teaching and the degree of liaison with the parents. One method of teaching for younger children involved the use of drama to explain history and science. The story of the first settlers who left Norway in 874, for example, is learnt by acting out how they would have navigated to Iceland using the sun and the stars, and how they survived when they first arrived on Iceland's barren rocks. As for the parents, there is one member of staff whose job it is to compile detailed data on internal assessment exercises conducted with a view to keeping the school on its toes, and standards high. After consultation with pupils, teachers and parents, progress is rated on everything from the quality of maths teaching for nine-year-olds to the satisfaction levels of the teachers with their colleagues to the pupils' feelings about the school buildings. The information is then made available to the parents on the internet.
'The philosophy behind everything we do,' said Asgeir, 'is that we must challenge the children with a broad educational foundation, teach them in a warm, creative environment where we respect everyone equally. All are equal.' Asgeir and his staff have, like many other Icelanders, looked abroad for ideas and inspiration. Two teachers I met had just returned from England, where they had spent time at a school in Birmingham with a reputation for doing an especially good job. Asgeir himself has been to Denmark, Scotland, the United States and Singapore, and he was off to New Orleans the week after I met him. For good measure, all teachers have the opportunity to take a year off to study a subject of their choice on full pay.
If the bumblebee flies, if Iceland is the world's best place in which to live, and one of the richest, it is because of the way governments have added enlightened policies to the island's pragmatic, inventive human raw material. 'I as a medical doctor and as a politician believe that there is an intimate link between the country's health and the quality of political decisions that are made,' said Dagur Eggertsson, Reykjavik's former mayor. 'We were the poorest of nations 100 years ago, but we all could read and we had strong women. On that we have now built strong policies. My point is that more important for the health of a country than not smoking and eating well are the social phenomena we stress here: equality, peace, democracy, clean water, education, renewable energy, women's rights.'
Dagur, like the many people I spoke to in Iceland who were proud of their country, was confident but not complacent; content but ambitious - and open to the world in all its diversity. That was manifest even at Asgeir's school, where I came across children from China, Vietnam, Colombia, even Equatorial Guinea.
When I was talking to Svafa about the better influences from the rest of the world that Iceland seemed to have wisely plucked, or just happened to have, we mentioned, as the prime minister had done, the humaneness of Scandinavia and the drive of the United States. We also discussed how the Icelanders - who have excellent restaurants these days and whose stamina for late night partying must come from the Viking DNA - seemed to have much of southern Europe's savoir vivre. Then I put it to her that there was an African quality to Iceland that the rest of Europe lacked. This was to be found in the 'patchwork' family structures Oddny had spoken of. The sense that, no matter whether the father lived in the same home or the mother was away working, the children belonged to, and were seen to belong by, the extended family, the village. Svafa liked that. 'Yes!' the pale-skinned power executive exclaimed, in delighted recognition. 'We are Africans, too!'
Partly by dint of travel, partly by accident, Iceland, we agreed, was a melting pot that had contrived to combine humanity's better qualities, offering a lesson for the rest of the world on how to live sensibly and cheerfully, free from cant and prejudice and taboo. Iceland could not be less like Africa on the surface; could not be further removed from the lowest country in the UNDP's Human Development Index, Sierra Leone. Yet the Icelanders have had the wisdom to take, or accidentally to replicate, the best of what's there, too. Without any hang-ups at all.
That is pretty interesting Bramble ... and it does seem socialism (or more socialized support) could work great, given a certain set of circumstances. A population of 300K on an island ... no military, I'm guessing a tiny "underclass" ... it also said there were some WW2 factors that benefited Iceland
Much of their happiness may be that they are a small island of higher educated people, probably removed from some of the crime and problems of the lower class. So maybe they are shirking their "duties" of helping the "world's" poor. Or is it OK to be more isolationist?
The first article I found on them though, said their economy is in a lot of trouble, they borrowed heavily to buy foreign assets, interest rates there are now at 15%, inflation between 10% and 28%, depending on the time frame.
Your article also stated they are into brain gain, not brain drain ... on a world wide basis, that is a zero sum game. But the US has mostly been having brain gain ... though now we may be importing a lower class to do field work and menial labor.
It would seem the US and most of the world is in a different situation. But I was raised by a single Mom. It was difficult for her, but extended family helped a lot. There are additional stresses that influence the Mom's life though, and that can get translated to the child. Hopefully it makes them stronger ...
I think the key to raising kids is having enough time to give them enough love and attention and a nurturing, supportive, safe environment so they can grow and learn and pursue their interests and enjoy life. I don't think that requires a husband and wife, but it is hard enough for a husband and wife to raise kids on their own. I don't know that "it takes a village" but having broader support outside of mom and dad is a huge help.
I think there are greater cultural problems facing families and children today than the unwed mother. We live in a society that seems to be less and less family centered. Even married women (or parents in general) have a hard time taking much time off after having a child. That early connection is key in raising a child. Family time gets replaced with classes and camps for toddlers to teenagers. Careers have us chasing our jobs around the country or world leaving family networks behind, while making it harder to create new ones in new places. Good cheap child care can be hard to find in many areas. Critical school curricula has been being cut for decades. Then there is a lot of the stuff Bramble's article talked about. The list goes on. Unmarried moms is not the problem.
Of course, given the above, I would not advise someone to have a kid on their own. You make due though. Most good people do. Still, no one is totally prepared for the stresses and responsibilities of being a parent. No matter how much you prepare, how many classes you sit through, how much you babysat as a teenager, nothing can totally prepare you. It is on the job training.
The first line in that article set off my BS meter so I did a short Google search. Lookie.. HERE!. I found it hard to believe that you'd have the happiest people with lots of broken homes. But that really wasn't what dismayed me about the Dear Margo column. Single women raise kids all the time and generally do a great job as Oak and Lindy pointed out. That's not what was bothering me.
My concerns were with the practice of young people living together (and of course, then, getting pregnant) on our culture. Its non-stigmatized totally. Children are then brought into the world growing up thinking this is just fine. Is it really just fine in our country? When there is no real commitment on the guy's end because he can just up and leave.... is this just as good as a child brought into the world with married parents?
It would be interesting to know how many of todays twenty something single moms grew up in stable married couple families? Not many, I would think.
I'm one of the few people I know through work who is still in their first marriage, and all my children have the same father.
Most of the young single moms I know through work came from broken homes, and trying to find a man who would be there for them is pretty much what led to the pregnancies. It's not like low cost effective birth control is not readily available, even my small town has a planned parent hood that dispenses the shots and pills for little or no cost.
Young women are not getting pregnant because of the enormous failure rate of birth control.
I think many of them are trying to build family, but they don't know how--neither do the young guys they hook up with. A baby does not make a man stick around, or make an instant family.
If I was a young working single mom without a lucrative career, I'd probably pop out baby #two, also, so
I could have a little more financial stability. Once the first baby is born it becomes a survival game if they are on their own without family support. And dads who completely bail out is very common. While the state is hunting them down to garnish the pay check, mom has to figure something out.
Programs handled through DFS to help single mothers are pretty demeaning and intrusive, requiring home visits etc, but they have to be accepted in order to receive help with rent, childcare and food. Nobody can raise a family well on one income of about $11 dollars an hour,(and how nmany non college grad twentysomethings make way more than that? In my area, that's a good job.) So once baby comes along, they are in the system to survive. Plus, did you know that it is much easier to survive if you have two children in the system?--then you qualify for all sorts of benefits, while with one they are living on the hard edge of poverty. Having two children then looks like the sensible thing to do, because they're not making it with one.
I think that nowdays, among young people, even living together is seen as a big commitment. Lots of young couples don't even date--they party and hook up, virtually stangers.
I think the oddest thing that stuck out for me in Margo's column was this:
DEAR WEN: Not only does your mother have a heart the size of a navy bean, she is certainly behind the times. Federal statistics show that 45 percent of all pregnancies are among women who are not married. You read that right: 45 percent.Without meaning this as an endorsement,
Yeah Wendy, don't want to endorse this type of lifestyle, BUT......Your Mom is really behind the times!
I think she did just endorse it!
But then she topped herself off with even more pee poor advice:
In other words, the stigma is gone. You mention having had problems with your parents your whole life. This is just another one.The very idea of offering condolences in this situation is appalling.They don't sound supportive or loving, so ignore the noise. And maybe ignore them.
--- MARGO, DISREGARDINGLY
Oh yeah, Wendy, dump your support system. Not sure if Wendy just wants to whine because Mom doesn't back up her poor choice or this entire article is fabricated so that Margo can foist her views on the unsuspecting public. I mean if you look at the letter, Wendy states that she doesn't have time to "I don't have the energy to look for a house, go to work and plan a wedding." Hmmm...didn't she say she was getting married in the summer anyway. And who necessarily needs a house just because you're pregnant. The baby will not take up that much more space, at least not for a while. And if she is a dentist, I doubt she is living in a hole in the corner apartment. Then she has to go to work. No big deal, who doesn't? But then look at her supposed last comment....she doesn't have time to plan for a wedding???? Wait a minute...wasn't the wedding in the summer anyway? What gives?
As far as I know, there are 4 pregnant girls graduating this year from my son's highschool. There are 2 nineth graders that had babies this year. Four girls graduating this year already have babies. I know of two girls that already had babies when they graduated last year. One had two babies when she graduated. With tongue in cheek, I asked my son if it is a rule that you have to have a baby in order to graduate highschool.
That's very sad to me. On different levels. The babies being raised by grandparents. The mothers whose lives could have been college and sororities instead of midnight feedings and dirty diapers. And Dear Margo (Ann landers' daughter) thinks this is fine. I'm glad to see I'm not the only dinosaur around here.
And if these girls were rich like Britanny Spears younger sister, People magazine would be fawning over them, in line to get the first baby pics and NOT A WORD of any kind of disapproval.
That's very sad to me. On different levels. The babies being raised by grandparents. The mothers whose lives could have been college and sororities instead of midnight feedings and dirty diapers. And Dear Margo (Ann landers' daughter) thinks this is fine. I'm glad to see I'm not the only dinosaur around here.
And if these girls were rich like Britanny Spears younger sister, People magazine would be fawning over them, in line to get the first baby pics and NOT A WORD of any kind of disapproval.
sudo
Margo is Ann Lander's daughter? Well that explains everything! After going deeper with the Lord Jesus Christ, I stopped reading Ann and Abbie as well.
I found I was already in the company of the perfect advisor.
Having seen this from a distance in our own family, my own children have a perspective.
Let me explain.
But first let me say I am not a huge supporter of abortion and yet don't think it should be illegal. I don't want to derail but mention this because i is a factor in pregnancies that might otherwise be terminated.
We have 2 sets of cousins in our family..my side and my husband's side (cousin's to our children).
1 from each side graduated from high school the same year. 3 months later 1 was entering William and Mary college in Virginia. 9 months later the other one was having a baby....with no husband.
Babies unfortunately cannot pick their parents.
my children saw this play out over the last several years (by the way ---that neice is on baby number 3 with a different guy now and now marrigae is in sight) Other nephew is now an inspector with MSC Cruise Lines and lives between Naples and Paris.
I am glad ( not for the babies) but that my children have seen the huge difference that life's decision's can bring.
I tried to be nice about baby #1 -- bought my niece a gold charm bracelet with the first charm being a boy's head with his name and birthdate, when number 2 came along...I almost sent the second charm I had already ordered until my sister-in-law (her mother) told me she wanted to put a pot leaf charm on her bracelet. I still have baby#2 charm in my box (the kid is 4 now) and I am not buying one for baby #3.
My own daughter has seen what is going on. Can I guarantee she will not become pregnant, but have we explicitly addressed this? -- YOU BETCHYA!!!!!
I wonder what makes these girls want babies in their teens and early twenties. I know accidents do happen, but they'd happen alot less if girls were on effective birth control and practiced safe sex. When I was that age I didn't want a baby, neither did any of my college friends--almost everyone was on the pill.
Single twenty somehting moms I know~
Two young single moms I know through work are really good moms, but they are on their second baby with a second father, and none of the fathers are involved, despite all the deadbeat dad laws on the books. They both recieve housing, food, and child care state support. The dad stories are pitiful--sperm donars with no n custody rights. Neither expect to ever marry. Luckily, both have family support, both have sisters who are also single moms.
Another single mom I know has her exhusband in jail, he owes years of child support for their 9 year old. He will have visitation rights when he gets out if he stays in state, but in the meanwhile, the young mom is alone, raising a child with such severe asthma he misses about a third of every school year.
She at least took measures so she would not have another child, and had to fight to get her tubes tied at age 23, because she was so afraid of having a second child with a severe asthma problems. Her son has nearly died twice due to breathing issues, she has her hands full.
She manages to keep a job--she is very good at her job--due to FMLA leave, but her absence rate keeps her from moving up to a higher paying job since in our company that is a factor in promotions. She cannot even contemplate going back to college.
She is leary of ever marrying again because she has some degree of stability right now, but another broken marriage would put her back to the beginning of the DFS system, which is too high a risk. Her housing is supported and she waited a long time to get into a nice 2 bed condo, she doesn't want to lose that.
I also know a lesbian couple, one is a single mom but they raise the child together. Both work, one is also in college. They are not in the DFS system because one of the women has a really good job in the medical field, so they have financial stability that the others don't have, plus two incomes. They are more afraid of DFS than the others, afraid they would lose the child. Having more money gives them options like college and home ownership the others don't have.
I also know a lesbian couple, one is a single mom but they raise the child together. Both work, one is also in college.
They are more afraid of DFS than the others, afraid they would lose the child. Having more money gives them options like college and home ownership the others don't have.
It doesn't seem to hurt the lesbian couple to not be married ... is there some standard that says a single mom can't be a lesbian or live as a lesbian couple?
It does seem though, that besides learning about safe sex and being provided with condoms, that if somewhere these other young women had acquired more appreciation of the value of marriage and family in raising a child, it might have helped them.
It seems instead there is more emphasis on making sure kids know how hip all the alternative lifestyles are, and "married with children" is cast as old fashioned or fundamentalist. For every one successful lesbian couple with child, there are what, 50 single heterosexual moms under 25?
It doesn't seem to hurt the lesbian couple to not be married ... is there some standard that says a single mom can't be a lesbian or live as a lesbian couple?
How would you possibly know if it does or does not hurt them? If the purpose of marriage, or at least the financial benefits of marriage, is to assist in supporting the family unit, then not being married may very well hurt them. For instance, if the one with the better paying job also has better healthcare benefits, but the child they are raising cannot have access to those benefits because the women are not allowed to be married, then yes it may be hurting them.
If the purpose of marriage is to provide stability within the family unit, then not allowing these two women to marry hurts them and the child.
It does seem though, that besides learning about safe sex and being provided with condoms, that if somewhere these other young women had acquired more appreciation of the value of marriage and family in raising a child, it might have helped them.
I have to wonder, given how high the divorce rate is, if marriage truly is of such high value or if we simply idealize and romanticize it. Now, I am in no way in favor of teen preganancy, but I have no problem with a financially and emotionally stable ADULT deciding to raise a child without a spouse. I think a partner is tremendously beneficial for the parents and the children, but the partner does not have to be a spouse, does not have to be of the opposite gender, and does not even have to include a romantic relationship.
It seems instead there is more emphasis on making sure kids know how hip all the alternative lifestyles are, and "married with children" is cast as old fashioned or fundamentalist. For every one successful lesbian couple with child, there are what, 50 single heterosexual moms under 25?
I don't think I understand what point you are trying to make with this last part???
Edited to add . . . .
I wonder which of the following is actually more difficult for a child:
1. Growing up with a financially and emotionally stable single parent from birth into adulthood.
2. Being born into a family with married parents who at some point during your childhood, get divorced.
3. Being born into a family with married parents who are constantly fighting and shouting at each other, because they can't stand each other anymore but are unwilling to end the marriage.
Now, are there other options? Of course there are. There are parents who get married, and stay happily married for their entire lives. However, those families are very few and far between. Heck, by the time I graduated high school I only had one friend whose parents were still married, and her parents got divorced as soon as their last kid was done with school.
How would you possibly know if it does or does not hurt them? If the purpose of marriage, or at least the financial benefits of marriage, is to assist in supporting the family unit, then not being married may very well hurt them. For instance, if the one with the better paying job also has better healthcare benefits, but the child they are raising cannot have access to those benefits because the women are not allowed to be married, then yes it may be hurting them.
If the purpose of marriage is to provide stability within the family unit, then not allowing these two women to marry hurts them and the child.
I have to wonder, given how high the divorce rate is, if marriage truly is of such high value or if we simply idealize and romanticize it. Now, I am in no way in favor of teen preganancy, but I have no problem with a financially and emotionally stable ADULT deciding to raise a child without a spouse. I think a partner is tremendously beneficial for the parents and the children, but the partner does not have to be a spouse, does not have to be of the opposite gender, and does not even have to include a romantic relationship.
I don't think I understand what point you are trying to make with this last part???
Edited to add . . . .
I wonder which of the following is actually more difficult for a child:
1. Growing up with a financially and emotionally stable single parent from birth into adulthood.
2. Being born into a family with married parents who at some point during your childhood, get divorced.
3. Being born into a family with married parents who are constantly fighting and shouting at each other, because they can't stand each other anymore but are unwilling to end the marriage.
Now, are there other options? Of course there are. There are parents who get married, and stay happily married for their entire lives. However, those families are very few and far between. Heck, by the time I graduated high school I only had one friend whose parents were still married, and her parents got divorced as soon as their last kid was done with school.
The lesbian couple does have more financial stability.
However in other ways they are not so stable, which is why gay couples want to marry legally.
If the bio mother dies, the lesbian spouse may not get custody of the child she loves like her own--and who the child sees as a parent. Bio mom's family hates the lesbian thing and would probably get the child through the court system, since they are bio family/next of kin.
Also, if one of the lesbian couple gets seriously ill or injured, their lesbian spouse will not necessarily be the one making the medical decisions--it will be a bio family member.
If one dies, the other does not inherit like a married spouse would--she is not next of kin. Wills can be challenged by next of kin. Also, they have to carry separate health insurance, which is a burden married couple doesn't have.
If they could have those rights some other way, they would not need a legal marriage--but that is how you get those rights in USA.
Another lesbian couple I know were a little more wily. One, Deana, has a supportive family. They have one child, born to the other woman. The child's bio father is Deana's brother(yup, they got the idea from Friends and used a turkey baster, I'm not kidding.) The child has three parental figures, plenty of extended family, and both the moms are nurses, so they are financially stable. However, there could still be issues if the mom dies, with her bio family.
People can say legal marriage won't affect gays, but they must not really know any gay people.
I don't think I understand what point you are trying to make with this last part???
My point is the big problem is with so many young single people having children, as seen in Bramble's examples even. Yet there seems more emphasis (as I see it) on kids or society being told they have to accept all the alternatives, and seemingly even pushing the more liberal life style.
And as Sudo noted, there is no stigma to having babies without being married. Safe sex and condoms seem a big issue in schools, but is there much emphasis on the importance of a whole family?
Most of the kids I knew growing up had Mom and Dad, so what changed if now that is not the norm? I'm not sure Bramble's sample is representative ... several heterosexual moms in troubled situations, one solid lesbian couple with child.
The radical left seems on a mission to push a standard that does not include married with children. That does not seem to be good for society, or something that should be "promoted" in schools.
There are parents who get married, and stay happily married for their entire lives. However, those families are very few and far between.
Most parents I knew stayed together ... so maybe I think it can still work. That seems to be what Sudo is saying, that it is now almost a standard to not get married ... is that somehow better ... let the teachers raise the children? Or the state .. or the village?
I don't see why the lesbian couple could not give each other power of attorney for health care. I don't think the bio family could challenge that. In the case of death ... I don't know, but if the bio father wanted the child and had also been part of his life, I would think the other bio father would have rights also ... maybe even if bio-mom had remarried a man instead of a woman.
As for health insurance, why do couples get a better deal than singles? And as to wills being challenged, any decent will would not be overturned.
My point is the big problem is with so many young single people having children, as seen in Bramble's examples even. Yet there seems more emphasis (as I see it) on kids or society being told they have to accept all the alternatives, and seemingly even pushing the more liberal life style.
Accept? I dunno, but respect, yes. I don't have to agree with someone's choices in order to respsect that they are an individual with a right to make a choice. For instance, I don't have to agree with your relgious beliefs, to respect the fact that you have a right to worship the God you believe in.
Similarly, you don't have to agree with the lifestyle, but if someone else's fist is not connecting with your nose (so to speak) then I think you have to respec their right to choose.
And as Sudo noted, there is no stigma to having babies without being married. Safe sex and condoms seem a big issue in schools, but is there much emphasis on the importance of a whole family?
It is not the school system's job to teach moral values, nor (IMO) safe sex and abstinence. Likewise, I do not believe the school is the place to emphasis the importance of the "whole family."
BTW, just what is the "whole family"? Is it mom and dad under one roof, does it include grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc? Because I know many famlies these days who seem to have no interest in the extended aspect, which is something I highly value. So, because I highly value the extended family, do I have a right to force that value on another?
Some states now have laws forcing parents to allow grandparents access to the children. So, again, I wonder just how far we want to allow the government into our family lives. Do we really want them telling us who can and cannot get married? Who can and cannot have access to our children?
Most of the kids I knew growing up had Mom and Dad, so what changed if now that is not the norm? I'm not sure Bramble's sample is representative ... several heterosexual moms in troubled situations, one solid lesbian couple with child.
Many, many, many things have changed since then. Women have fought for and pretty much won equality. No longer is it acceptable for a man to beat and rape his wife. No longer must a woman live her entire life financially dependant upon another.
Add to that, movies and tv's, which have a huge influence on our culture. Movies that make marriage look like a fairytale where a couple becomes sexually attracted to one another and call it love, then ride happily ever after into the sunset. Movies like "Juno" which seem to romanticize teen pregnancy - make it cute and funny.
The radical left seems on a mission to push a standard that does not include married with children. That does not seem to be good for society, or something that should be "promoted" in schools.
And the radical right would still have women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, completely dependant upon the mood and whim of her husband. So what? I think most people are neither radical right, nor radical left, but somewhere in the middle - as it should be.
Most parents I knew stayed together ... so maybe I think it can still work. That seems to be what Sudo is saying, that it is now almost a standard to not get married ... is that somehow better ... let the teachers raise the children? Or the state .. or the village?
And yet, there are couples who would like to get married and raise children together, who cannot, because they are of the same gender. hmmmmmmmmm.
As for health insurance, why do couples get a better deal than singles? And as to wills being challenged, any decent will would not be overturned.
For the same reason that large corporations get better rates than mom and pop businesses do. The insurance business is a game of odds. The larger the pool of people on the policy, the more likely you stand to make a profit off the premiums from the majority of them, to off-set the loss on the few.
If you have 10 people on 1 policy and 9 are healthy and 1 isn't - you still make a profit.
If you have 20 people on a policy and 18 are healthy and 2 aren't - you make a bigger profit.
If you have one person on a policy, and that person isn't healthy, you take a loss.
Bramble, precisely. In other words, children and society could actually benefit by allowing homosexual couples to marry.
Maybe, the single parent homes are demographic. Also, I think they are a sign of the (proverbial) times, i. e. the break down of the family unit. Where I live in the sunny south, in my sunny town, in my sunny neighborhood all of the children come from a two parent family except one. There are twelve families with children that are my sons friends his age. There are many homes that have college age children and the parents are still together. There are 60 plus homes of folks that are retired and still married to the same spouse for all those years.
I have a revolutionary idea. How about no sex outside of the benefit of marriage. Did I just say that?!?!? I wonder where I read that.
Some much is the family culture you are raised in. Remember the days when it was a disgrace for an unwed girl/woman to become pregnant. I was raised that way. I raised my children, boys included, that there is something higher to attain to and that is marriage and the family unit. Sex and children are meant for marriage. Sex is God's wedding gift. Those values are still very much alive with many, many folks in our country. There are many non-Christian cultures where this is the absolute norm. Shame on us.
UK Parliament has just had big debates all about issues like abortion (how many weeks must a fetus be before it can't be aborted?) and assisted reproduction (when allowable, including for "savior siblings" to be best match for a child suffering serious illness).
With the assisted reproduction - big issue was whether it was permissible for single women, unmarried couples and lesbian couples as well as married couples.
They concluded that it would be a breach of human rights to decline assisted reproduction to single women and lesbian couples.
It sure is different from the values instilled in me at adolescence - and my parents' and grandparents' generations.
As there is a legal right for one or two such attempts on the National Health Service (ie, free), I just wonder about the breach of MY human rights in supporting such behavior which runs counter to what I consider best.
But then, I guess that goes along with my taxes that pay for bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Yes, it is all very different than the way I was raised, in Parochial schools, Mass six days a week. All the kids I grew up with came from two parent families except my cousin whos father died in a car accident--but they were far from poverty stricken. That is not so for my children's friends. Many many of them come from broken homes or single parent families, so much so that in grade school hubby and I were one of the few married couples in my kid's classes.
Young women could prevent pregnancies with birth control and/or abortion if they wanted to. Why they don't want to may be the real issue.
Almost every girl I knew in college( CATHOLIC COLLEGE) was on the pill, because they really really didn't wan to get pregnant, but then I ran with a wilder crowd. Having a baby wasn't part of the plan.
Whether or not any one 'accepts' it, they are having babies outside of marriage, unlike when we were young, and often without even a live in boyfriend. Once the babies are on the way, how can you stop it? Poverty and shame haven't done it, just raise those children with even greater needs. Warehouse them in orphanages? Force sterilization?
Real children need real care that costs real money, starting during the pregnancy. Even if no one likes it or how the child arrived in the world, or thinks it is immoral or against their religion or what have you. The child still needs all the same things children need.
But then, some communities don't want to support their public schools, either. Seems like we are going back in time to the respectable 'haves', and the not respectable lower classes, in some ways. I personally see prosperity theology like in TWI as a factor--if they are poor it is because they are not worthy.
I'm trying to raise my kids to understand the responsibility involved in caring for a child, and how hard being a young single parent can be. Hopefully they will make good choices, they have good track records so far. The teens I know who are getting pregnant seem to have far less supervision than mine do, less after school activities etc, later curfews etc. But if one of my kids has a baby, we're not forcing a marriage and will do what we can to support.
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Oakspear
While I believe that stigmatizing single women with children is wrong, I also believe that a child does best with two parents. This is not to say that a child with only one parent is damaged goods in some way, or that there aren't some too parent families where the kids would be better off without one or the other (sometimes both) parents.
Some of the hardest working, toughest women I know I single parents; my grandmother, who 30 years after her passing is still one of the people in life that I admire the most, was a single mother in the 30's and 40's.
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Mister P-Mosh
There are many ways to look at this, and many things to consider. I don't know that it's any worse than a woman marrying a horrible man who is abusive because she wants a family. Nor is it any worse than staying in a bad relationship because of the kids. However, I do agree that in most cases it's not a good thing. Kids are better off with two good parents and a strong extended family. It's just that in reality, you can't always provide that. As far as celebrities are concerned, even when they get married the couple doesn't have time to spend with the kids, so it probably doesn't make much difference.
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waysider
It's tough enough to raise a child when BOTH parents are working. How does the average single mother (sans a huge bank account and entourage of assistants) give a child the life they deserve? Now, I know quite a few who have done this out of necessity, not by choice. I salute them for a selfless dedication I'm sure I would have a tough time equaling. This woman's situation, however, differs from the typical single mother's situation in two ways. First, she has stated she has plans to marry in the near future. Secondly, she has a professional career to look forward to. (After she manages to pay off the huge educational debts she most likely has incurred.) My hat is off to single moms everywhere who, due to unfortunate circumstances, give of themselves for the betterment of their children.
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Bramble
Here's an article that has been floating around the cyberspace areas I wander in, dealing with single moms. Food for thought.
<H1 id=heading-alone>No wonder Iceland has the happiest people on earth</H1>
<LI class=MsoNormal style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo5">Special report by John Carlin <LI class=MsoNormal style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo5">The Observer, <LI class=MsoNormal style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo5">Sunday May 18 2008
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This article appeared in the Observer on Sunday May 18 2008 on p14 of the <A title=http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2008/may/18/magazine/features href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2008/may/18/magazine/features">Comment & features section. It was last updated at 14:31 on May 18 2008.
Reykjavic, Iceland, May 2008: City Councillor Oddny Sturludottir tells us why Iceland is the best place in the World. Photograph: Ari Magg
Highest birth rate in Europe + highest divorce rate + highest percentage of women working outside the home = the best country in the world in which to live. There has to be something wrong with this equation. Put those three factors together - loads of children, broken homes, absent mothers - and what you have, surely, is a recipe for misery and social chaos. But no. Iceland, the block of sub-Arctic lava to which these statistics apply, tops the latest table of the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) Human Development Index rankings, meaning that as a society and as an economy - in terms of wealth, health and education - they are champions of the world. To which one might respond: Yes, but - what with the dark winters and the far from tropical summers - are Icelanders happy? Actually, in so far as one can reliably measure such things, they are. According to a seemingly serious academic study reported in the Guardian in 2006, Icelanders are the happiest people on earth. (The study was lent some credibility by the finding that the Russians were the most unhappy.)
Oddny Sturludottir, a 31-year-old mother of two, told me she had a good friend who was 25 and had three children by a man who had just left her. 'But she has no sense of crisis at all,' Oddny said. 'She's preparing to get on with her life and her career in a perfectly optimistic frame of mind.' The answer to why the friend perceives no crisis in what any woman in a similar predicament anywhere else in the western world might consider a full-blown catastrophe goes a long way towards explaining why Iceland's 313,000 inhabitants are such a sane, cheerful, successful lot.
There are plenty of other, more obvious factors. Statistics abound. It is the country with the sixth highest GDP per capita in the world; where people buy the most books; where life expectancy for men is the highest in the world, and not far behind for women; it's the only country in Nato with no armed forces (they were banned 700 years ago); the highest ratio of mobile telephones to population; the fastest-expanding banking system in the world; rocketing export business; crystal-pure air; hot water delivered to all Icelandic households straight from the earth's volcanic bowels; and so on and so forth.
But none of this happiness would be possible without the hardy self-confidence that defines individual Icelanders, which in turn derives from a society that is culturally geared - as its overwhelming priority - to bring up happy, healthy children, by however many fathers and mothers. A lot of it comes from their Viking ancestors, whose males were rampant looters and rapists, but had the moral consistency at least not to be jealous of the dalliances of their wives - tough women who kept their families fed in the semi-tundra harshness of this north Atlantic island while their husbands forayed, for years at a time, far and wide. As a grandmother I met on my first visit to Iceland, two years ago, explained it: 'The Vikings went abroad and the women ran the show, and they had children with their slaves, and when the Vikings returned they accepted it, in the spirit of the more the merrier.'
Oddny - a slim, attractive pianist who speaks fluent German, translates English books into Icelandic and works as a city councillor in the capital, Reykjavik - offers a contemporary case in point. Five years ago, when she was studying in Stuttgart, she became pregnant by a German man. During her pregnancy she broke up with the German and reconnected with an old love, a prolific Icelandic writer and painter called Hallgrimur Helgason. The two returned to Iceland where they lived together with the new baby and in due course had a child of their own. Hallgrimur is devoted to both children but Oddny considers it important for her first-born to retain a close link to her biological father. This happens on a regular basis. The German flies over and stays at Oddny and Hallgrimur's far-from-spacious home for a week, sometimes two, at a time.
'Patchwork families are a tradition here,' explained Oddny, who was off work, at home, on the Thursday morning we met, looking after her youngest child. 'It is common for women to have kids with more than one man. But all are family together.'
I found this time and again with people I met in Iceland. Oddny's case was not atypical. When a child's birthday comes around, not only do the various sets of parents turn up for the party, the various sets of grandparents - and whole longboats of uncles and aunts - come too. Iceland, lodged in the middle of the North Atlantic with Greenland as its nearest neighbour, was too far from the remit of any but the more zealously obstinate of the medieval Christian missionaries. It is a largely pagan country, as the natives like to see it, unburdened by the taboos that generate so much distress elsewhere. That means they are practical people. Which, in turn, means lots of divorces.
'That is not something to be proud of,' said Oddny, with a brisk smile, 'but the fact is that Icelanders don't stay in lousy relationships. They just leave.' And the reason they can do so is that society, starting with the parents and grandparents, does not stigmatise them for making that choice. Icelanders are the least hung-up people in the world. Thus the incentive, for example, 'to stay together for the sake of the kids' does not exist. The kids will be just fine, because the family will rally round them and, likely as not, the parents will continue to have a civilised relationship, based on the usually automatic understanding that custody for the children will be shared.
Reykjavic, Iceland, May 2008: City Councillor Oddny Sturludottir tells us why Iceland is the best place in the World. Photograph: Ari Magg
The comfort of knowing that, come what may, the future for the children is safe also helps explain why Icelandic women, modern as they are (Iceland elected the world's first female president, Vigdis Finnbogadottir, a single mother, 28 years ago), persist in the ancient habit of bearing children very young. 'Not unwanted teen pregnancies, you understand,' said Oddny, 'but women of 21, 22 who willingly have children, very often while they are still at university.' At a British university a pregnant student would be an oddity; in Iceland, even at the business-oriented Reykjavik University, it is not only common to see pregnant girls in the student cafeteria, you see them breast-feeding, too. 'You extend your studies by a year, so what?' said Oddny. 'No way do you think when you have a kid at 22, "Oh my God, my life is over!" Definitely not! It is considered stupid here to wait till 38 to have a child. We think it's healthy to have lots of kids. All babies are welcome.'
All the more so because if you are in a job the state gives you nine months on fully paid child leave, to be split among the mother and the father as they so please. 'This means that employers know a man they hire is just as likely as a woman to take time off to look after a baby,' explained Svafa Grönfeldt, currently rector of Reykjavik University, previously a very high-powered executive. 'Paternity leave is the thing that made the difference for women's equality in this country.'
Svafa has embraced the opportunity with both arms. For her first child, she took most of the parental leave. For her second, her husband did. 'I had a job in which I was travelling 300 days a year,' she said. She had her misgivings, but these were alleviated partly by the knowledge that her husband was at home, partly because of the top-class state education that Iceland provides, starting with all-day pre-schools, rendering private schools practically nonexistent. ('I think there is one, but 99 per cent of kids, be their parents plumbers or billionaires, use the state system,' Svafa said.)
The 300 days' travelling job was as deputy CEO in charge of mergers and acquisitions for a generic pharmaceutical company called Actavis, where Svafa worked for six years. During this period the company rose from global minnowhood to become the third largest of its kind in the world, buying up 23 foreign companies along the way. A propagandist not just for her former firm, which she left when she could no longer fight the guilt she felt over her maternal absences, she listed some of the more notable feats of entrepreneurial prowess her country had achieved in the past 10 years, boom-time in what had traditionally been a fish-based economy. Icelandic banks now operate in 20 countries, and the Reykjavik-based company deCODE is a world leader in biotechnological genome research. Icelandic firms are gobbling up food and telecommunications firms in Britain, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, further evidence of the island's economic growth.
Svafa is a lively, wiry woman with a sassy haircut and a sharp, humorous mind. And she has a corner office to match. Spacious, minimalist (so much so she does not even have a desk) and modern in the clean Nordic style, it has the feel of a lounge and views to kill for. From one window you see over Reykjavik's red and green rooftops to the fishing port and the dark blue sea; from another you look on to a ridge of low, snow-capped mountains. It's a beautiful landscape to look at but a hard one in which to live, especially in the 1,000 years Iceland was inhabited prior to the invention of electricity and the combustion engine. 'You have to be not only tough but inventive to survive here,' said Svafa. 'If you don't use your imagination, you're finished; if you stand still, you die.'
As the Vikings showed, part of that imagination means getting out into the world. That is what Svafa did (she studied for a PhD at the London School of Economics, lived in the US, spending a total of 10 years abroad) and what practically all Icelanders do. Very few do not speak excellent English. But now that Iceland has become prosperous the invitation is out to the world to come to Iceland. Reykjavik University has staff from 23 countries and the idea, after a planned move in two years to what Svafa describes as a new space-age campus, is to expand the foreign presence both in terms of teaching staff and students, and convert the university into a hub of global business education. Reykjavik University is already entirely bilingual. 'Students who only speak English can come and do postgraduate studies here.' Does nobody worry about losing the Icelandic language, when, after all, so few people speak it? 'Not at all,' declares Svafa. 'Our language is safe.' Not prey to the nationalist neuroses of other small countries (though practically none are smaller than Iceland), Iceland's obsession is with embracing the world, not fearing it. 'We are into brain gain, not brain drain. We want to do what the Americans have done to great effect, in our specific case to create an elite campus in Europe that attracts the best in the world.'
Icelanders know how to identify the best and incorporate it into their society. I talked about this to the Icelandic prime minister, Geir Haarde, whom I met at an official event at a steamy public swimming bath, a popular meeting place for Icelanders, like pubs for the British. Easygoing as everybody else I met, and without anything dimly resembling a bodyguard anywhere near him (there is almost no crime in Iceland), he agreed on the spot to sit down and do a quick interview.
'I believe we have blended the best of Europe and the United States here, the Nordic welfare system with the American entrepreneurial spirit,' he said, pointing out that Iceland, unlike the other Nordic countries, had exceptionally low personal and corporate tax rates. 'This has meant not only that Icelandic companies stay and foreign ones come, but that we have increased by 20 per cent our tax revenue owing to increased turnover.' Which is not to say that Iceland has been immune to the financial panic affecting the rest of the world right now. Icelandic banks being, in the US manner, aggressive and optimistic global players, there are worries they may have over-extended themselves. The rise in food and oil prices is generating the same sort of headlines in Iceland's papers as we are seeing elsewhere. Yet there is no suggestion that the economic system itself is under threat. Icelanders will continue to receive not just free, top-class education but free, top-class healthcare, private medicine being limited in Iceland chiefly to luxury procedures, such as cosmetic surgery.
Dagur Eggertsson, until recently the mayor of Reykjavik and every inch a future prime minister of Iceland, made the point to me that what has happened in Iceland has defied economic logic. 'In the Eighties and Nineties right wingers in the US and UK were saying that the Scandinavian system was unworkable, that high state investment in public services would kill business,' said Dagur, a boyish, super-bright 35-year-old who, like most Icelanders, is a furiously hard-working multi-tasker - as well as a politician, he is a doctor. 'Yet here we are, in 2008,' he continues, 'and you look at the hard economic statistics and you see that these last 12 years we and the Scandinavian countries have been roaring ahead. Someone called it bumblebee economics: scientifically, aerodynamically, you cannot figure out how it flies, but it does, and very nicely, too.'
Iceland's spectacular success comes from that capacity for hard work Dagur exemplifies, plus that imperative for creativity Svafa spoke of, plus an American faith in the feasibility of big ideas. 'Many of us have lived in the US, studied there,' said Geir Haarde, 'and what we have both taken from them and found that naturally we share is that can-do attitude - that if you work hard, anything can be done.' Svafa seemed to be the living expression of what Haarde was describing. She rejoiced in the civilised generosity of the Icelandic state but worked in pursuit of her own private goals with tireless optimism.
A similar spirit lies behind the success of Reykjavik Energy, the company that provides Icelanders with most of their hot water and electricity. Pipes dug deep into the earth's icy crust extract not oil, but water, which one kilometre down reaches temperatures of 200C. In 1940, 85 per cent of Iceland's energy came from coal and oil. Today, 85 per cent comes from underground volcanic water, which supplies half the country's electricity needs at a price just two-thirds of the European average. Iceland has the world's largest geothermal heating system, and the world is coming to have a look. The prime ministers of China and India have visited Iceland in recent years to see what they can learn about clean, cheap renewable energy and Reykjavik Energy is engaged in joint projects to replicate the Icelandic model in places as far flung as Djibouti, El Salvador, Indonesia and China.
The success of Reykjavik Energy is a metaphor for Iceland's broader achievement: harnessing the harshness of nature and transforming it, through invention and hard toil, into rich, fruitful energy. Artists have done much the same. The country is crawling with writers, painters, film makers and - like Oddny - accomplished musicians. Iceland has Björk, its cool answer to Madonna, but also a national symphony orchestra that plays to the highest standards all over the world; it has its own opera company (while I was there, La Traviata was being performed at the Reykjavik Opera House, entirely by Icelanders).
Baltasar Kormakur, a former TV soap opera heart-throb, is a successful local film director whose films have been shown in 80 countries, and is about to make his first Hollywood film this year. He has also directed a play at the Barbican, where he will soon be staging a production of Shakespeare's Othello. As for writers, half the population appears to have written a book, as if inspired by the single greatest cultural legacy Iceland has so far given the world - the 13th-century Viking sagas, which Jorge Luis Borges, the greatest writer never to receive a Nobel prize, described as the first novels, 400 years ahead of Cervantes. As a consequence, the one thing Icelanders could do that many in richer countries could not, even in the 19th century, was read - and the abundance of bookshops in Reykjavik is testament to this. Painting as an art form did not exist in Iceland until 100 years ago, but a large sector of the population dabbles in it now and at least 100 Icelanders live off their art full time.
Haraldur Jonsson, who studied in Paris and whose father was a champion multi-tasker (he was both an architect and a dentist) is an abstract painter, sculptor and video and performance artist who describes his task as 'making the invisible world visible', transforming emotions into things you can see and touch. He has exhibited all over the world, including London, Barcelona, Berlin and Los Angeles. Why is there such an abundance of artists in Iceland? What drives them? 'We do it so as not to become mad,' replied Haraldur, who is tall, nervy and thin with eyes that have the concentrated energy of a laser beam. Not to become mad? 'Yes, to keep the beast at bay.' The beast? 'The beast is Iceland, this island on which we live with its terrifyingly harsh nature, its bitter ever-changing weather. It's Goya's dark nightmare world, beautiful but grotesque. This is the moody beast of Iceland. We cannot escape it. So we find ways to live with it, to tame it. I do it through my art,' said Haraldur, whose attempts to pacify the monster have also included the writing of three books in which 'there are no animals, no trees. We have to have a rich internal life to fill the empty spaces, to fill the silence with our own noise.'
There is another beast to which Iceland owes a debt: the Second World War. The Icelanders must be the only people in the world to whom Adolf Hitler bequeathed a legacy of value. Before the war, Iceland was Europe's poorest country. Suddenly, in 1939, it became a strategic location of immense value. The British and the Germans raced for it, and the British got there first. They established a military base on a finger of land near the Reykjavik coast. 'Suddenly there was an abundance of jobs that were, for the first time ever, unrelated to fishing or farming,' recalled Asvaldur Andresson. 'I remember that before the war we barely had roads, and those we had we had to build with picks and shovels. The British and Americans came and then it was Caterpillar trucks and tar roads and all sorts of wonderful new tools with which to work.'
Asvaldur, who was born in 1928 in a fishing town in Iceland's wild far east called Seydisfjordur, emigrated west to Reykjavik at the end of the war and found a job as a bus driver at the US base. After that, following long hours of hard night-time study, he spent most of his life as a refurbisher of bashed-up cars. His life was always tough, but especially when he was growing up, when Iceland was that worst of possible mixes, a Developing World country with brutally cold weather. He left school at 12 and went to work on a fishing boat amid the icy storms of the Arctic circle's southern edge. His sister died of whooping cough at the age of three, and when his father died, Asvaldur, then 16, was out at sea, so he did not find out about it until after the burial. He worked 16-hour days all his life to keep his family fed. Today, he has a full-time job looking after his invalid wife. The blessing is that he receives money from the state to do so, a big reason (consistent with the culture of family cohesion) why most old people in Iceland live not in residences but at home. 'I look back at my life and I see how this country has changed and I can hardly believe my eyes,' said Haraldur.
The most remarkable thing is what has become of three of his grand-daughters, all grown up now. One makes documentary films in Paris; one is a bio-technology whizz who assists surgeons in a Reykjavik hospital; the eldest, at 26, has a flying licence from the United States and is undergoing training to become a pilot with Ryanair. Icelandic women being the early reproducers that they are, Asvaldur and his wife have not one or two but five great-grandchildren.
They are all sure to be receiving a fine education, especially should any of them happen to go to a school I visited in Reykjavik called Hateigsskol. The principal, a quietly passionate man called Asgeir Beinteinsson, showed me around. The children range from the ages of six to 16, and every classroom, which we visited unannounced, was a picture of cheerful industry. Apart from the wide variety of subjects obligatory to all, from cookery to carpentry via all the traditional lessons, what was striking was the ingenuity in the teaching and the degree of liaison with the parents. One method of teaching for younger children involved the use of drama to explain history and science. The story of the first settlers who left Norway in 874, for example, is learnt by acting out how they would have navigated to Iceland using the sun and the stars, and how they survived when they first arrived on Iceland's barren rocks. As for the parents, there is one member of staff whose job it is to compile detailed data on internal assessment exercises conducted with a view to keeping the school on its toes, and standards high. After consultation with pupils, teachers and parents, progress is rated on everything from the quality of maths teaching for nine-year-olds to the satisfaction levels of the teachers with their colleagues to the pupils' feelings about the school buildings. The information is then made available to the parents on the internet.
'The philosophy behind everything we do,' said Asgeir, 'is that we must challenge the children with a broad educational foundation, teach them in a warm, creative environment where we respect everyone equally. All are equal.' Asgeir and his staff have, like many other Icelanders, looked abroad for ideas and inspiration. Two teachers I met had just returned from England, where they had spent time at a school in Birmingham with a reputation for doing an especially good job. Asgeir himself has been to Denmark, Scotland, the United States and Singapore, and he was off to New Orleans the week after I met him. For good measure, all teachers have the opportunity to take a year off to study a subject of their choice on full pay.
If the bumblebee flies, if Iceland is the world's best place in which to live, and one of the richest, it is because of the way governments have added enlightened policies to the island's pragmatic, inventive human raw material. 'I as a medical doctor and as a politician believe that there is an intimate link between the country's health and the quality of political decisions that are made,' said Dagur Eggertsson, Reykjavik's former mayor. 'We were the poorest of nations 100 years ago, but we all could read and we had strong women. On that we have now built strong policies. My point is that more important for the health of a country than not smoking and eating well are the social phenomena we stress here: equality, peace, democracy, clean water, education, renewable energy, women's rights.'
Dagur, like the many people I spoke to in Iceland who were proud of their country, was confident but not complacent; content but ambitious - and open to the world in all its diversity. That was manifest even at Asgeir's school, where I came across children from China, Vietnam, Colombia, even Equatorial Guinea.
When I was talking to Svafa about the better influences from the rest of the world that Iceland seemed to have wisely plucked, or just happened to have, we mentioned, as the prime minister had done, the humaneness of Scandinavia and the drive of the United States. We also discussed how the Icelanders - who have excellent restaurants these days and whose stamina for late night partying must come from the Viking DNA - seemed to have much of southern Europe's savoir vivre. Then I put it to her that there was an African quality to Iceland that the rest of Europe lacked. This was to be found in the 'patchwork' family structures Oddny had spoken of. The sense that, no matter whether the father lived in the same home or the mother was away working, the children belonged to, and were seen to belong by, the extended family, the village. Svafa liked that. 'Yes!' the pale-skinned power executive exclaimed, in delighted recognition. 'We are Africans, too!'
Partly by dint of travel, partly by accident, Iceland, we agreed, was a melting pot that had contrived to combine humanity's better qualities, offering a lesson for the rest of the world on how to live sensibly and cheerfully, free from cant and prejudice and taboo. Iceland could not be less like Africa on the surface; could not be further removed from the lowest country in the UNDP's Human Development Index, Sierra Leone. Yet the Icelanders have had the wisdom to take, or accidentally to replicate, the best of what's there, too. Without any hang-ups at all.
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washn'wear
That was really interesting
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rhino
That is pretty interesting Bramble ... and it does seem socialism (or more socialized support) could work great, given a certain set of circumstances. A population of 300K on an island ... no military, I'm guessing a tiny "underclass" ... it also said there were some WW2 factors that benefited Iceland
Much of their happiness may be that they are a small island of higher educated people, probably removed from some of the crime and problems of the lower class. So maybe they are shirking their "duties" of helping the "world's" poor. Or is it OK to be more isolationist?
The first article I found on them though, said their economy is in a lot of trouble, they borrowed heavily to buy foreign assets, interest rates there are now at 15%, inflation between 10% and 28%, depending on the time frame.
Your article also stated they are into brain gain, not brain drain ... on a world wide basis, that is a zero sum game. But the US has mostly been having brain gain ... though now we may be importing a lower class to do field work and menial labor.
It would seem the US and most of the world is in a different situation. But I was raised by a single Mom. It was difficult for her, but extended family helped a lot. There are additional stresses that influence the Mom's life though, and that can get translated to the child. Hopefully it makes them stronger ...
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lindyhopper
That was a good article, Bramble.
I think the key to raising kids is having enough time to give them enough love and attention and a nurturing, supportive, safe environment so they can grow and learn and pursue their interests and enjoy life. I don't think that requires a husband and wife, but it is hard enough for a husband and wife to raise kids on their own. I don't know that "it takes a village" but having broader support outside of mom and dad is a huge help.
I think there are greater cultural problems facing families and children today than the unwed mother. We live in a society that seems to be less and less family centered. Even married women (or parents in general) have a hard time taking much time off after having a child. That early connection is key in raising a child. Family time gets replaced with classes and camps for toddlers to teenagers. Careers have us chasing our jobs around the country or world leaving family networks behind, while making it harder to create new ones in new places. Good cheap child care can be hard to find in many areas. Critical school curricula has been being cut for decades. Then there is a lot of the stuff Bramble's article talked about. The list goes on. Unmarried moms is not the problem.
Of course, given the above, I would not advise someone to have a kid on their own. You make due though. Most good people do. Still, no one is totally prepared for the stresses and responsibilities of being a parent. No matter how much you prepare, how many classes you sit through, how much you babysat as a teenager, nothing can totally prepare you. It is on the job training.
My hat is off to single parents.
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Sudo
Bramble,
The first line in that article set off my BS meter so I did a short Google search. Lookie.. HERE!. I found it hard to believe that you'd have the happiest people with lots of broken homes. But that really wasn't what dismayed me about the Dear Margo column. Single women raise kids all the time and generally do a great job as Oak and Lindy pointed out. That's not what was bothering me.
My concerns were with the practice of young people living together (and of course, then, getting pregnant) on our culture. Its non-stigmatized totally. Children are then brought into the world growing up thinking this is just fine. Is it really just fine in our country? When there is no real commitment on the guy's end because he can just up and leave.... is this just as good as a child brought into the world with married parents?
sudo
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Bramble
It would be interesting to know how many of todays twenty something single moms grew up in stable married couple families? Not many, I would think.
I'm one of the few people I know through work who is still in their first marriage, and all my children have the same father.
Most of the young single moms I know through work came from broken homes, and trying to find a man who would be there for them is pretty much what led to the pregnancies. It's not like low cost effective birth control is not readily available, even my small town has a planned parent hood that dispenses the shots and pills for little or no cost.
Young women are not getting pregnant because of the enormous failure rate of birth control.
I think many of them are trying to build family, but they don't know how--neither do the young guys they hook up with. A baby does not make a man stick around, or make an instant family.
If I was a young working single mom without a lucrative career, I'd probably pop out baby #two, also, so
I could have a little more financial stability. Once the first baby is born it becomes a survival game if they are on their own without family support. And dads who completely bail out is very common. While the state is hunting them down to garnish the pay check, mom has to figure something out.
Programs handled through DFS to help single mothers are pretty demeaning and intrusive, requiring home visits etc, but they have to be accepted in order to receive help with rent, childcare and food. Nobody can raise a family well on one income of about $11 dollars an hour,(and how nmany non college grad twentysomethings make way more than that? In my area, that's a good job.) So once baby comes along, they are in the system to survive. Plus, did you know that it is much easier to survive if you have two children in the system?--then you qualify for all sorts of benefits, while with one they are living on the hard edge of poverty. Having two children then looks like the sensible thing to do, because they're not making it with one.
I think that nowdays, among young people, even living together is seen as a big commitment. Lots of young couples don't even date--they party and hook up, virtually stangers.
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brideofjc
I think the oddest thing that stuck out for me in Margo's column was this:
DEAR WEN: Not only does your mother have a heart the size of a navy bean, she is certainly behind the times. Federal statistics show that 45 percent of all pregnancies are among women who are not married. You read that right: 45 percent. Without meaning this as an endorsement,
Yeah Wendy, don't want to endorse this type of lifestyle, BUT......Your Mom is really behind the times!
I think she did just endorse it!
But then she topped herself off with even more pee poor advice:
In other words, the stigma is gone. You mention having had problems with your parents your whole life. This is just another one. The very idea of offering condolences in this situation is appalling. They don't sound supportive or loving, so ignore the noise. And maybe ignore them.
--- MARGO, DISREGARDINGLY
Oh yeah, Wendy, dump your support system. Not sure if Wendy just wants to whine because Mom doesn't back up her poor choice or this entire article is fabricated so that Margo can foist her views on the unsuspecting public. I mean if you look at the letter, Wendy states that she doesn't have time to "I don't have the energy to look for a house, go to work and plan a wedding." Hmmm...didn't she say she was getting married in the summer anyway. And who necessarily needs a house just because you're pregnant. The baby will not take up that much more space, at least not for a while. And if she is a dentist, I doubt she is living in a hole in the corner apartment. Then she has to go to work. No big deal, who doesn't? But then look at her supposed last comment....she doesn't have time to plan for a wedding???? Wait a minute...wasn't the wedding in the summer anyway? What gives?
I think perhaps readers should DISREGARD MARGO.
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kimberly
As far as I know, there are 4 pregnant girls graduating this year from my son's highschool. There are 2 nineth graders that had babies this year. Four girls graduating this year already have babies. I know of two girls that already had babies when they graduated last year. One had two babies when she graduated. With tongue in cheek, I asked my son if it is a rule that you have to have a baby in order to graduate highschool.
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Sudo
Kimberly,
That's very sad to me. On different levels. The babies being raised by grandparents. The mothers whose lives could have been college and sororities instead of midnight feedings and dirty diapers. And Dear Margo (Ann landers' daughter) thinks this is fine. I'm glad to see I'm not the only dinosaur around here.
And if these girls were rich like Britanny Spears younger sister, People magazine would be fawning over them, in line to get the first baby pics and NOT A WORD of any kind of disapproval.
sudo
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brideofjc
Margo is Ann Lander's daughter? Well that explains everything! After going deeper with the Lord Jesus Christ, I stopped reading Ann and Abbie as well.
I found I was already in the company of the perfect advisor.
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washn'wear
Having seen this from a distance in our own family, my own children have a perspective.
Let me explain.
But first let me say I am not a huge supporter of abortion and yet don't think it should be illegal. I don't want to derail but mention this because i is a factor in pregnancies that might otherwise be terminated.
We have 2 sets of cousins in our family..my side and my husband's side (cousin's to our children).
1 from each side graduated from high school the same year. 3 months later 1 was entering William and Mary college in Virginia. 9 months later the other one was having a baby....with no husband.
Babies unfortunately cannot pick their parents.
my children saw this play out over the last several years (by the way ---that neice is on baby number 3 with a different guy now and now marrigae is in sight) Other nephew is now an inspector with MSC Cruise Lines and lives between Naples and Paris.
I am glad ( not for the babies) but that my children have seen the huge difference that life's decision's can bring.
I tried to be nice about baby #1 -- bought my niece a gold charm bracelet with the first charm being a boy's head with his name and birthdate, when number 2 came along...I almost sent the second charm I had already ordered until my sister-in-law (her mother) told me she wanted to put a pot leaf charm on her bracelet. I still have baby#2 charm in my box (the kid is 4 now) and I am not buying one for baby #3.
My own daughter has seen what is going on. Can I guarantee she will not become pregnant, but have we explicitly addressed this? -- YOU BETCHYA!!!!!
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Bramble
I wonder what makes these girls want babies in their teens and early twenties. I know accidents do happen, but they'd happen alot less if girls were on effective birth control and practiced safe sex. When I was that age I didn't want a baby, neither did any of my college friends--almost everyone was on the pill.
Single twenty somehting moms I know~
Two young single moms I know through work are really good moms, but they are on their second baby with a second father, and none of the fathers are involved, despite all the deadbeat dad laws on the books. They both recieve housing, food, and child care state support. The dad stories are pitiful--sperm donars with no n custody rights. Neither expect to ever marry. Luckily, both have family support, both have sisters who are also single moms.
Another single mom I know has her exhusband in jail, he owes years of child support for their 9 year old. He will have visitation rights when he gets out if he stays in state, but in the meanwhile, the young mom is alone, raising a child with such severe asthma he misses about a third of every school year.
She at least took measures so she would not have another child, and had to fight to get her tubes tied at age 23, because she was so afraid of having a second child with a severe asthma problems. Her son has nearly died twice due to breathing issues, she has her hands full.
She manages to keep a job--she is very good at her job--due to FMLA leave, but her absence rate keeps her from moving up to a higher paying job since in our company that is a factor in promotions. She cannot even contemplate going back to college.
She is leary of ever marrying again because she has some degree of stability right now, but another broken marriage would put her back to the beginning of the DFS system, which is too high a risk. Her housing is supported and she waited a long time to get into a nice 2 bed condo, she doesn't want to lose that.
I also know a lesbian couple, one is a single mom but they raise the child together. Both work, one is also in college. They are not in the DFS system because one of the women has a really good job in the medical field, so they have financial stability that the others don't have, plus two incomes. They are more afraid of DFS than the others, afraid they would lose the child. Having more money gives them options like college and home ownership the others don't have.
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rhino
It doesn't seem to hurt the lesbian couple to not be married ... is there some standard that says a single mom can't be a lesbian or live as a lesbian couple?
It does seem though, that besides learning about safe sex and being provided with condoms, that if somewhere these other young women had acquired more appreciation of the value of marriage and family in raising a child, it might have helped them.
It seems instead there is more emphasis on making sure kids know how hip all the alternative lifestyles are, and "married with children" is cast as old fashioned or fundamentalist. For every one successful lesbian couple with child, there are what, 50 single heterosexual moms under 25?
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Abigail
If the purpose of marriage is to provide stability within the family unit, then not allowing these two women to marry hurts them and the child.
I have to wonder, given how high the divorce rate is, if marriage truly is of such high value or if we simply idealize and romanticize it. Now, I am in no way in favor of teen preganancy, but I have no problem with a financially and emotionally stable ADULT deciding to raise a child without a spouse. I think a partner is tremendously beneficial for the parents and the children, but the partner does not have to be a spouse, does not have to be of the opposite gender, and does not even have to include a romantic relationship.
I don't think I understand what point you are trying to make with this last part???
Edited to add . . . .
I wonder which of the following is actually more difficult for a child:
1. Growing up with a financially and emotionally stable single parent from birth into adulthood.
2. Being born into a family with married parents who at some point during your childhood, get divorced.
3. Being born into a family with married parents who are constantly fighting and shouting at each other, because they can't stand each other anymore but are unwilling to end the marriage.
Now, are there other options? Of course there are. There are parents who get married, and stay happily married for their entire lives. However, those families are very few and far between. Heck, by the time I graduated high school I only had one friend whose parents were still married, and her parents got divorced as soon as their last kid was done with school.
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Bramble
The lesbian couple does have more financial stability.
However in other ways they are not so stable, which is why gay couples want to marry legally.
If the bio mother dies, the lesbian spouse may not get custody of the child she loves like her own--and who the child sees as a parent. Bio mom's family hates the lesbian thing and would probably get the child through the court system, since they are bio family/next of kin.
Also, if one of the lesbian couple gets seriously ill or injured, their lesbian spouse will not necessarily be the one making the medical decisions--it will be a bio family member.
If one dies, the other does not inherit like a married spouse would--she is not next of kin. Wills can be challenged by next of kin. Also, they have to carry separate health insurance, which is a burden married couple doesn't have.
If they could have those rights some other way, they would not need a legal marriage--but that is how you get those rights in USA.
Another lesbian couple I know were a little more wily. One, Deana, has a supportive family. They have one child, born to the other woman. The child's bio father is Deana's brother(yup, they got the idea from Friends and used a turkey baster, I'm not kidding.) The child has three parental figures, plenty of extended family, and both the moms are nurses, so they are financially stable. However, there could still be issues if the mom dies, with her bio family.
People can say legal marriage won't affect gays, but they must not really know any gay people.
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rhino
My point is the big problem is with so many young single people having children, as seen in Bramble's examples even. Yet there seems more emphasis (as I see it) on kids or society being told they have to accept all the alternatives, and seemingly even pushing the more liberal life style.
And as Sudo noted, there is no stigma to having babies without being married. Safe sex and condoms seem a big issue in schools, but is there much emphasis on the importance of a whole family?
Most of the kids I knew growing up had Mom and Dad, so what changed if now that is not the norm? I'm not sure Bramble's sample is representative ... several heterosexual moms in troubled situations, one solid lesbian couple with child.
The radical left seems on a mission to push a standard that does not include married with children. That does not seem to be good for society, or something that should be "promoted" in schools.
Most parents I knew stayed together ... so maybe I think it can still work. That seems to be what Sudo is saying, that it is now almost a standard to not get married ... is that somehow better ... let the teachers raise the children? Or the state .. or the village?
I don't see why the lesbian couple could not give each other power of attorney for health care. I don't think the bio family could challenge that. In the case of death ... I don't know, but if the bio father wanted the child and had also been part of his life, I would think the other bio father would have rights also ... maybe even if bio-mom had remarried a man instead of a woman.
As for health insurance, why do couples get a better deal than singles? And as to wills being challenged, any decent will would not be overturned.
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Abigail
Similarly, you don't have to agree with the lifestyle, but if someone else's fist is not connecting with your nose (so to speak) then I think you have to respec their right to choose.
It is not the school system's job to teach moral values, nor (IMO) safe sex and abstinence. Likewise, I do not believe the school is the place to emphasis the importance of the "whole family."
BTW, just what is the "whole family"? Is it mom and dad under one roof, does it include grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc? Because I know many famlies these days who seem to have no interest in the extended aspect, which is something I highly value. So, because I highly value the extended family, do I have a right to force that value on another?
Some states now have laws forcing parents to allow grandparents access to the children. So, again, I wonder just how far we want to allow the government into our family lives. Do we really want them telling us who can and cannot get married? Who can and cannot have access to our children?
Many, many, many things have changed since then. Women have fought for and pretty much won equality. No longer is it acceptable for a man to beat and rape his wife. No longer must a woman live her entire life financially dependant upon another.Add to that, movies and tv's, which have a huge influence on our culture. Movies that make marriage look like a fairytale where a couple becomes sexually attracted to one another and call it love, then ride happily ever after into the sunset. Movies like "Juno" which seem to romanticize teen pregnancy - make it cute and funny.
And the radical right would still have women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, completely dependant upon the mood and whim of her husband. So what? I think most people are neither radical right, nor radical left, but somewhere in the middle - as it should be.
And yet, there are couples who would like to get married and raise children together, who cannot, because they are of the same gender. hmmmmmmmmm.For the same reason that large corporations get better rates than mom and pop businesses do. The insurance business is a game of odds. The larger the pool of people on the policy, the more likely you stand to make a profit off the premiums from the majority of them, to off-set the loss on the few.
If you have 10 people on 1 policy and 9 are healthy and 1 isn't - you still make a profit.
If you have 20 people on a policy and 18 are healthy and 2 aren't - you make a bigger profit.
If you have one person on a policy, and that person isn't healthy, you take a loss.
Bramble, precisely. In other words, children and society could actually benefit by allowing homosexual couples to marry.
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kimberly
Maybe, the single parent homes are demographic. Also, I think they are a sign of the (proverbial) times, i. e. the break down of the family unit. Where I live in the sunny south, in my sunny town, in my sunny neighborhood all of the children come from a two parent family except one. There are twelve families with children that are my sons friends his age. There are many homes that have college age children and the parents are still together. There are 60 plus homes of folks that are retired and still married to the same spouse for all those years.
I have a revolutionary idea. How about no sex outside of the benefit of marriage. Did I just say that?!?!? I wonder where I read that.
Some much is the family culture you are raised in. Remember the days when it was a disgrace for an unwed girl/woman to become pregnant. I was raised that way. I raised my children, boys included, that there is something higher to attain to and that is marriage and the family unit. Sex and children are meant for marriage. Sex is God's wedding gift. Those values are still very much alive with many, many folks in our country. There are many non-Christian cultures where this is the absolute norm. Shame on us.
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Twinky
UK Parliament has just had big debates all about issues like abortion (how many weeks must a fetus be before it can't be aborted?) and assisted reproduction (when allowable, including for "savior siblings" to be best match for a child suffering serious illness).
With the assisted reproduction - big issue was whether it was permissible for single women, unmarried couples and lesbian couples as well as married couples.
They concluded that it would be a breach of human rights to decline assisted reproduction to single women and lesbian couples.
It sure is different from the values instilled in me at adolescence - and my parents' and grandparents' generations.
As there is a legal right for one or two such attempts on the National Health Service (ie, free), I just wonder about the breach of MY human rights in supporting such behavior which runs counter to what I consider best.
But then, I guess that goes along with my taxes that pay for bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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excathedra
bramble, thanks for your posts
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Bramble
Yes, it is all very different than the way I was raised, in Parochial schools, Mass six days a week. All the kids I grew up with came from two parent families except my cousin whos father died in a car accident--but they were far from poverty stricken. That is not so for my children's friends. Many many of them come from broken homes or single parent families, so much so that in grade school hubby and I were one of the few married couples in my kid's classes.
Young women could prevent pregnancies with birth control and/or abortion if they wanted to. Why they don't want to may be the real issue.
Almost every girl I knew in college( CATHOLIC COLLEGE) was on the pill, because they really really didn't wan to get pregnant, but then I ran with a wilder crowd. Having a baby wasn't part of the plan.
Whether or not any one 'accepts' it, they are having babies outside of marriage, unlike when we were young, and often without even a live in boyfriend. Once the babies are on the way, how can you stop it? Poverty and shame haven't done it, just raise those children with even greater needs. Warehouse them in orphanages? Force sterilization?
Real children need real care that costs real money, starting during the pregnancy. Even if no one likes it or how the child arrived in the world, or thinks it is immoral or against their religion or what have you. The child still needs all the same things children need.
But then, some communities don't want to support their public schools, either. Seems like we are going back in time to the respectable 'haves', and the not respectable lower classes, in some ways. I personally see prosperity theology like in TWI as a factor--if they are poor it is because they are not worthy.
I'm trying to raise my kids to understand the responsibility involved in caring for a child, and how hard being a young single parent can be. Hopefully they will make good choices, they have good track records so far. The teens I know who are getting pregnant seem to have far less supervision than mine do, less after school activities etc, later curfews etc. But if one of my kids has a baby, we're not forcing a marriage and will do what we can to support.
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