It is difficult enough for stable couples to raise a child. For single, young women it is nearly impossible for them to imagine the impact of having a child depend on them.
Young girls view pregnancy as proof that they are worthy and needed. What they do not realize is that children need a fair chance at having a good life and, most often, young people who are pregnant cannot give them that.
In William Bennett’s book, “The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators: Facts and Figures of the State of American Society,” he cites studies showing that single, young women are having children more frequently and the consequences are devastating to them and their children. In Detroit, more than 70 percent of the children being born are illegitimate and most of these mothers are practically children themselves. In California, slightly more than 20 percent of babies are born to teen-aged moms, which is a little lower than the national average of 29.5 percent.
Besides the social backlash these young people will face, it should also be said that it is a financial tragedy to young moms and the children who depend solely on them. A never-married mom has an average yearly income of $8,700. More than half of all teen moms will go onto the welfare doles within one year after their child’s birth and a staggering 80 percent of teen moms will depend on welfare within the first five years after giving birth.
A young mother does not realize how imperative it is for children to live in a two-parent family. Yes, there are some exceptional women who were single and have been able to do it well enough alone, but they are the exceptions. Is it not fair for a child to have the best shot he possibly can at birth by being born into a two-parent, heterosexual family?
The problem of single parents crosses racial barriers, but is extremely unfair to blacks. A black child born in 1980 has only a 6 percent chance of living with both his parents through his 18th birthday, compared to 30 percent of white children.
What happens to these children? Some of them will grow up in foster families, as wards of the state because their egg and sperm donors cannot raise them. There are more than 500,000 children in the foster care system today.
A tiny fraction of these children, only 7 percent, will be adopted and rescued from the foster care network.
It is unimaginable that so many children are living with strangers whom they call paid parents. In a short 10 years, the number of foster children jumped from 262,000 to more than half a million lost souls living in anxiety, never knowing where or when they will be sent along the way to another makeshift family. The facts show that the jump in the number of foster children correlates with the continual rise in young, immature girls who are barely able to support themselves, but think it is a smart idea give birth.
There need to be laws in effect that will protect the innocent, not the irresponsible. Women of child-bearing age on welfare should not be encouraged to procreate by receiving a larger welfare check.
Parents on welfare should be able to show that they are drug-free and can prove it by taking periodic drug tests. Parents who are using drugs, or neglecting or beating their children, should have one year to clean up their acts and prove to the world that they are capable and good parents or they will permanently lose their parental rights.
Young, single women need to grow up and mature before they give another a life. It should be a given that children be allowed the best possible chance of a healthy life as anyone. It is time that children be protected, even if it is from their own parents.
Lori Cruz, a senior political science major, is features editor of the Campus Times. She can be reached by e-mail at cruzl@ulvacs.ulaverne.edu.
