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February 16, 2011

What Our Welfare State Hath Rot Wrought

Monique Chartier

Writes Michael Morse at Rescuing Providence:

“I know-lets hook up, you get pregnant, I’ll show up when it’s convenient for me, maybe once a week, maybe twice, maybe not at all, you can be my baby momma, I’ll be the baby daddy, we’ll get RITE care for the baby, and you until the baby is eighteen, or if you have more illegitimate kids, until they are eighteen, I’ll stop by for a booty call now and then, unless I’m with my other baby mommas, but I’ll text you if that’s the case, we’ll drop the kid off at your mom’s house on the weekends and hit the club, or I’ll hang with my boys and you can hit the club and hook up, it’s okay as long as I don’t know.”

Fatherhood. It’s a piece of cake. What are all these old guys bitching about.

I wish I was making this stuff up.

Providence is full of single mothers. EMS is used to tak[ing] children from single parent homes to emergency rooms for free medical care. I have no idea what happened, but we need to turn it around before it’s too late.


Comments

This issue is not specific to any one race, but what Michael is getting at is exactly what Bill Cosby gave a speech about and was denounced in much of the black community. He decried the irresponsibility of so many men (not calling them "fathers"). I have no idea how to fix it, but maybe some community organizers might have an idea.

Certainly a good start is to shut off RITE care with the number of children you have when you go on it. You go on with 1, you only ever get coverage for one. You want more children, I'm not going to stop you, I'm just not going to pay for it either.

Posted by: Patrick at February 16, 2011 10:25 AM

We love to blame the baby mamas, but the same politicians, commentators, etc. have no problem letting those who spread the seeds off the hook. At least Michael realizes that these children don't spring whole from the loins of women looking for a few kicks.

Posted by: bella at February 16, 2011 12:21 PM

I haven't seen or heard anyone excusing the boys who share equally in the shame and the blame. But unless all these baby mamas are rape victims, there is no excuse for them either.

Posted by: BobN at February 16, 2011 2:01 PM

Again bella-do you have a child-if not,just shut up and go skin dive in the toilet

Posted by: joe bernstein at February 16, 2011 5:19 PM

Joe should only those who have kids be able to comment on this. Stop being so grumpy and thinking that you are the king of the blogs and go p*ss in your hat for that matter.

Posted by: Triplerichard at February 16, 2011 6:15 PM

I'm not going to stop you, I'm just not going to pay for it either.
Posted by Patrick at February 16, 2011 10:25 AM

Oh, yes you are.

Posted by: Tommy Cranston at February 16, 2011 7:33 PM

"We love to blame the baby mamas, but the same politicians, commentators, etc. have no problem letting those who spread the seeds off the hook."

More genius from this Bella creature. What are you a Brown student? You seem to have no common sense.
Just as marriage has always been between the sexes because NO child has 2 mommies or 2 daddies, females are blamed for kids because no male has yet become pregnant.
Idiot progressives-they are anti-math, anti nature and anti-biology.

Posted by: Tommy Cranston at February 16, 2011 7:40 PM

Girls have to be taught to say no. It's a waste of time to rationalize an equality argument (what about the fathers?) when it comes to unwed mothers and the babies they make.

This social experiment of unwed teenage motherhood has been going on for at least three decades, and it has done nothing but create a class of people who are uneducated, non-working, drains on society. This class keeps increasing as these babies, who have a chance in hell of getting out of the class their thoughtless and loose mothers have brought them into, have and make babies themselves. More uneducated, non-working mouths to feed, burdens on society.

Welfare is created out of noble principles - help those less fortunate. But are the majority of people in this welfare class less fortunate? They don't think so. They wait for "pay day" (welfare check arrives), they wear nice clothes, have big screen tvs, go to clubs and spend money on cigarettes, and have lots of free time b/c they don't work. They don't do anything to help themselves.

I think we need to go farther than Patrick suggests. If you have a baby, you get nothing. No housing, no welfare, no food, no free tuition at CCRI where you just take up space b/c you have no intention of ever working. If you can't take care of yourself and that baby, don't work, don't have the father supporting the baby, don't live with family so that you can work and support the baby, then you get nothing. The state takes the baby into custody for its own protection, strips you of parental rights, and the baby is adopted by a family who can afford to raise it. Even an orphanage would be a better life for these babies, a place with people who could instill in them the will to do better, to lead a productive life. What does a child learn living with a single parent who never works, just waits for the "pay day" from Mama Government? That's what life is - that's what he or she aspires to do. Are there exceptions? Sometimes, but the majority of these babies are lost from the start.

When are the liberals going to give it up? Their social experiments of the 70s failed. Children do better with two parent families, with married parents who have some sort of commitment to each other. Letting these people have children that they cannot raise wihtout Mama Government paying the entire way did not work. It's not okay to be a single mother. It's not okay to get pregnant when you're 14. It is absolutely 100% the girls' responsibility to prevent the pregnancy. To argue otherwise is to push a lie.

Giving handouts to those who won't lift a finger to help themselves, enabling them to bear baby after baby (it's never just one is it?) to be more uneducated, non-working burdens on society, to bring them up with no hopes or dreams, to think of multiple baby-daddys as the norm, unwed motherhood as the norm, not working and living on welfare for generations as the norm - this has to be one of the costliest mistakes in governmental social policy ever made.

Start teaching girls self respect and personal responsibility. Teach them to say no to sex. Teach them that there is more to life than being used as a sexual object.

Posted by: riborn at February 16, 2011 8:13 PM

I usually say 'go p*ss up a rope'.P*ssing in my hat would be easier,but I seldom wear one.however,I would be happy to p*ss in your hat.

Posted by: joe bernstein at February 16, 2011 8:57 PM

Tommy, do you have any idea what "context" is? Clearly you don't when you wrote:

"Oh, yes you are."

The context was I was offering a solution and said that under my solution, I'm not going to pay for it. I know sometimes people have 30 seconds to breeze onto a blog, skim through and throw down a comment or two, but come on, read what people are actually writing before offering such snark.

Then you did it again to bella. Bella is saying that the baby mommas get all the blame for the single-parenthood and for all the children being born and put on RITE-care. 100% of the blame. That's what I read bella to be saying. Why should the women get all the blame and scorn and these guys who go around dropping their seed anywhere that'll take them should get off scot free? Do you really think the men deserve none of the blame in this whole scam? That's what you insinuated with your comments. Sure, the women should learn how to stop procreating unless they're ready to financially and emotionally support a child, but at the same time if a guy is going to create a child with a woman, he should be around to help raise the child as well, not going all Antonio Cromartie and Shawn Kemp on them.

And riborn, I agree with much of what you say, except for:
"It is absolutely 100% the girls' responsibility to prevent the pregnancy"

No. Again, you're letting the men off with zero responsibility. The men bear the responsiblity to not get the girls/women pregnant too. Sure, the girls should and could "just say no" or use contraception or any variety of ways, but there are ways for the guys to prevent this all too. To say that the guys bear no responsibility in this is to me, short-sighted.

Posted by: Patrick at February 17, 2011 9:27 AM

My girlfriend works in a supportive housing program in Central Falls. She spends a LOT of time trying to explain to disabled (mostly mentally), addicted, and abused women that having a baby might not be a good idea. A whole lot of women don't 'accidentally' end up with a kid, nor do they even begin to contemplate how to pay for it. They're looking for someone to love them.

Schools are graduating people who can't do basic math, the idea of putting a budget together and seeing how a car or a baby would impact it is beyond them.

Posted by: mangeek at February 17, 2011 5:20 PM

I agree that the boys/men should be held responsible, but they aren't, and our current legal system has not proven successful in making them pay support, let alone stopping them from continuing to breed any and every female they can. Perhaps if there was a significant penalty for fathering a child he could not support, chemical castration for instance, the males might use those free condoms. Currently there's no downside for the baby-daddys.

In the long run, by teaching girls from the earliest age that it is 100% their responsibility to prevent pregnancy, that they alone are 100% personally responsible for their own bodies, we will provide them with a chance to be more than the circumstances they come from. Respect themselves, demand respect from others.

I don't see why it is short-sighted to teach girls not to make babies unless you and its father have the means to support it, with no help from the government for food, shelter, clothes, etc, because that government help no longer exists.

Clearly stated expectations (personal responsibility - don't get pregnant) and consistent consequences (no government handouts - no job, can't support it, baby taken away and you go hungry) are effective in training just about anything.



Posted by: riborn at February 17, 2011 6:38 PM

Riborn, I agree that young women should be taught to respect themselves and that babies shouldn't be meal tickets. I also think young men should be taught responsibility. We do have a way to impose consequences for fathers - make DNA tests mandatory and then dock their paychecks for child support. I would be fine with having my tax money go towards DNA tests to determine paternity and force the guys to step up. I draw the line, however, at your suggestion that people should have their babies taken away because they are poor and single. I do not believe that reasons other than direct child endagerment (e.g., having a child in a car during a driveby, having a child in a home from which you deal drugs) or abuse should be grounds for stripping parents of their rights. Stealing the babies of the poor to give to infertile rich couples is not okay. A person has a fundamental right to care for his/her own child. I am okay with very limited short-term help for poor parents to get on their feet but it should be a hand up, not hand out. It might consist of helping the person to find a job, providing some training for a job in a high-demand area, and providing income-based housing and child care. The goal should be to help these folks become productive citizens. There is a happy medium and it is neither supporting people for generations on welfare so they can do nothing nor is it allowing the state to steal people's children because they happen to be poor.

Posted by: Tabetha at February 18, 2011 10:57 PM

Tabetha, the solution you seek is very simple, but because the disease has festered for so long it will be difficult to implement: End welfare for all.

Voila - with no more government checks coming in, those young, single girls will impose their own sexual discipline on the young men.

When people are "protected" from the real-world consequences of their own irresponsible behavior, we get more of it. The only way to change their behavior is to allow them to live in reality.

Posted by: BobN at February 19, 2011 8:12 AM

Joe and Tommy remind me of the boys in high school who felt entitled to the sexual favors of any girls they wanted. I can only hope they confine that side of their personas to their testosterone-fueled rants here - I would prefer to believe they act like adults when away from a keyboard.

Posted by: bella at February 19, 2011 10:17 AM

"Joe and Tommy remind me of the boys in high school who felt entitled to the sexual favors of any girls they wanted."

Bella, what is the basis for this observation? What statement(s) in their comments have led you to come to this conclusion?

Posted by: Monique at February 20, 2011 8:10 AM

bella-GO F88K YOURSELF
I have never treated a woman disrespectfully(sexually),whether it was someone I was involved with or someone I arrested.
Where the hell do you get off saying that?Maybe you give BJ's in Kennedy Plaza for extra cash.Gee,did I have a basis to say that?No,but how does it feel?
Personally,I wouldn't treat a prostitute like a piece of crap because she's a person also.
There are people I would and have,but they had it coming.

Posted by: joe bernstein at February 20, 2011 1:55 PM