Should we think the unthinkable

If you missed it, you should retrieve the Newsweek of a few weeks ago (Aug. 30) and read the story in U.S. AFFAIRS. Called "Endangered Family," it explores the breakdown of the two-parent black family. It reminds us unsparingly of realities that we'd all, blacks and whites prefer to ignore. A young black child now has only a one-in-five chance of growing up with two parents. Nearly two thirds of black children are now bom to single mothers, up from one fifth in 1960. This is, of course, a social disaster. By that, 1 don't mean that single-parenthood inevitably fai Is. It doesn't Plenty of children will not only survive, they will thrive, because they have a loving and committed parent One good parent is better than two lousy parents. But two good parents are better than one. They typically have more money. In 1991 median family income for black married couples was S33300: for a single mother, median income was SI 1,400. Parenting is also as trying as it is joyous. Two bodies simply improve the chances of success.

What's most disastrous about present trends is the explosion of un­wed teenage mothers. One fifth of all black children are now bom to unwed teens. These children of children start life with the odds against them. Their parents haven't developed job skills. Many aren't ready for the time- consuming burdens of parenting. Teenagers want to have fun, and although children arc firn, raising (hem is no party. Ош schools and social institutions can't compensate for children born before their time.

We resist talking about these issues. Every discussion risks slipping into a debate over racism, which - for different reasons makes both blacks and whites seethe. Whites tend to think that blacks resort too easily to racism as an explanation for any difficult problem; blacks tend to think that whites can never understand the barriers they face. All this plays to the worst racial stereotypes on both sides of the color line. But there’s also another cause of our mutual reluc­tance, and it is that no one really knows what to do.

As the story made clear, we don't understand why black families have fared so badly. The causes seem to be a mixture of general societal trends (earlier and easier sex, less stigma to unwed motherhood), economic changes (loss of well-paying factory jobs for black men) and the family patterns of American black culture. Some of these trends also affect whites. Between 1960 and 1990, births to unwed mothers have gone from 2 to 21 percent of total white births: and two thirds of these white mothers are now under 24. They’re not Murphy Browns. But the trends have been more devastating for blacks.

What we don't understand isn't easy to change. Among teenagers, it may not simply be a matter of inadequate sex education or lack of condoms. In the mid-1980s, Leon Dash, a black reporter for The Washington Post, spent more than a year living in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods in an effort to understand why unmarried teens had babies. He initially be­lieved that the big problems were ignorance about birth control and boys victimizing girls. Afler exhaustive interviews he changed his mind.

Teenagers knew about birth control, be found. Girls were often "equal-or greater-actors than their boyfriends in exploring sexuality and becoming pregnant," be wrote later in "When Children Want Children." For many girls in poverty-stricken areas, having "a baby' is a tangible achieve­ment in an otherwise dreary and empty future. It’s one way of announcing: I am a woman. For many boys..., the birth of a baby represents an identical rite of passage. The boy is saying: 1 am a man."

You can read Dash's conclusions optimistically or pessimistically. Iliey arc optimistic in the sense that teenagers and young adults are making more or less deliberate choices and. however bad these choices may now be. they could change. It is pessimistic in the sense that the choices are shaped by a sense of social isolation and failure that may be hard, perhaps impossi­ble, to change by government policy.

Puny payments: Welfare is one leverage point. Within a year after giving birth, roughly half of unmarried teenage mothers wind up on welfare (the rate is similar for both blacks and whites). The idea that girls have ba­bies to get welfare checks is aabsurd. The monthly payments (1992 average: ЗЯХ per family) are too small and haven't kept расе with inflation. Blit welfare may have made out-of-wedlock birth more possible. Government sup­ports unwed mothers. Fathers get an escape hatch. They are allowed not to take responsibility for their children.

Should we, then, simply abolish welfare for women under, say, (he age of 20 or 24? This is a cruel suggestion that, a decade ago, 1 judged un­thinkable when a similar proposal was advanced by writer Charles Murray. Now, 1 think such proposals have to be taken more seriously. Ending wel­fare for teenagers and young adults would still leave a safety net for mothers who lose their incomes through divorce: unemployment or a husband's death. (Many women, in fact, receive welfare for brief periods.) But an age limit might force teenage mothers to fall back on fathers-or not to have children. Some social stigma might reattach 10 impulsive or ill-considered pregnancy.

Granted, any constructive change faces huge obstacles. Everyone knows the practical problems: young Ыаск men have high unemployment rates; depriv­ing some mothers of welfare would cause hardship; and any poor mother who wants a job needs adequate child care. Hut we need at least to discuss things that were once undiscussable. The point of welfare reform -now being debated within the Clinton administration - should go beyond getting people off welfare rolls. The real point should be preventing people from getting on in the first place and more important, emphasizing the moral principle that people shouldn't have babies before they’re ready to take care of them.

Everyone agrees on this principle, and the differences lie in how, if at all, it can be reinforced by government policies. We need to thrash out these differences. Debate may do us good. It may illuminate areas of agreement and make this sensi­tive subject a little less sensitive. We can't understand what we won't talk about - and the ultimate victims of our silence are our children.

Checking comprehension:

What does the author call “social disaster”?

What is more disastrous about modern trends among youngsters?

What odds are against those children who were born to teenage mothers?

What is the reason of mutual reluctance to discuss this issue openly?

Is the white family pattern similar to the black one? How has it changed

Where does the reason of unwed teens' having babies lie?

What docs the author suggest as for the welfare for teen mothers is concerned?

What kind of hope does the author cherish?

In favour of whom docs he advocate?