Baby Daddies Aren't Fathers... They Are Irresponsible Cowards

Baby Daddy: the father of one or more of a woman’s children, especially one who is not her husband or current partner. (Dictionary.com)

Let these troubling statistics from Dads for Boys International and the National Fatherless Awareness Campaign sink in for a minute (or two)…

1 in 4 children in the U.S. – over 17.6 million – are growing up without their father.

Fatherless boys are 4x more likely to live in poverty, 2x more likely to drop out of school, 7x more likely to attempt suicide, and are overrepresented in prisons and drug and alcohol rehab centers.

Out-of-wedlock birth is the leading predictor of future incarceration and lifelong poverty.

That last statistic was the finding of a landmark – and very extensive – study conducted by Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1965 while he was serving as Undersecretary of Labor in the Johnson administration. It was further reinforced in 2010 when Robert Rector, a Senior Research Fellow at the DeVos Center for Human Flourishing, wrote the following for The Heritage Foundation…

“Child poverty is an ongoing national concern, but few are aware that its principal cause is the absence of married fathers in the home. Marriage remains America’s strongest anti-poverty weapon, yet it continues to decline. As husbands disappear from the home, poverty and welfare dependence will increase, and children and parents will suffer as a result.”

In a lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, Professor James Q. Wilson said that the empirical data regarding the importance of family structure is “so strong that even some sociologists believe it.” For instance: Children in one-parent families are twice as likely to drop out of school as those in two-parent homes; boys in one-parent families are much more likely to be both out of school and out of work; and girls in one-parent families are twice as likely to have an out-of-wedlock birth. Professor Wilson also cited a Department of Health and Human Services study of 30,000 American households, which found that for whites, blacks, and Hispanics at every income level except for the very highest, children raised in single-parent homes were more likely to be suspended from school, to have emotional problems, and to behave badly.

In 1965, when Moynihan released his report, the out-of-wedlock birthrate in the black community stood at just 24% and only 3.1% of white infants were born to single mothers. By 1990, those numbers had increased to 64% and 18%, respectively. As of 2018, those figures had soared even higher to 69.3% for non-Hispanic blacks and 21.9% for non-Hispanic whites.

According to The Center for Equal Opportunity, the out-of-wedlock birthrate for Hispanics currently stands at 41.6%, and for American Indians it is 59.3%. For Asians and Pacific Islanders, the overall number is 15.6%, but this varies from 51.1% for Hawaiians to 6.4% and 9.7% for Chinese and Japanese Americans, respectively.

Why the vast difference in illegitimacy birthrates by race and ethnicity? There may be no simple answer, but the emphasis on education – as well as family and personal responsibilities – is unquestionable greater in certain cultures than others.

Here are some more alarming statistics…

Half of all births in New York City are illegitimate, and in some neighborhoods the proportion reaches as high as 80%. And a 1997 survey by the federal government found that the percentage of black high-school students who said they have had sex was 73%, versus 44% for whites and 52% for Hispanics.

That’s a ticking timebomb that is now 28 years closer to exploding in our collective faces.

Blame the secularization of our society and our schools, the moral decadence and oversized influence of Hollywood and pop/rap music, the sexual revolution of the 1960s and the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision… or all of the above.

However, much of the blame still rests on the sloping shoulders of the selfish men who continue to impregnate young woman and then abandon them, allowing Uncle Sam to raise their offspring with taxpayers’ dollars paying for everything from prenatal care, to labor and delivery, to free daycare.

No father in the home? No problem!

TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), WIC (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children), Medicaid, and CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) to the rescue!

Still not enough? There’s always Head Start, the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program, and utility assistance from LIHEAP (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program).

After all, it’s not the child’s fault that their dad is a selfish lowlife.

Meanwhile, in some cases, part of the blame can also be placed at the feet (and the bed) of single women who are not only promiscuous, but who also know how to expertly manipulate the system.

Frederick Douglas famously said that “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” I have spent four decades ministering to prisoners and at-risk youth and can personally attest to the veracity of his statement. In fact, studies show that every year spent without a father in the home increases the odds of future incarceration by 5%.

I don’t know about you, but I am sick and tired of footing the bill for other people’s lack of morals, discipline, and personal responsibility. It is high time we forced absentee dads to raise their own kids or pay to have someone else do it for them by garnishing their wages and/or seizing and selling off their assets.

And yes, the same goes for unwed baby mamas.

(Editor’s Note: Professor William Galston has pointed out that you only need to do three things to avoid poverty in this country: finish high school, marry before having a child, and produce that child after the age of 20. And of the three, the second would seem to be the key, since if you violate it, you are also more likely to violate the first and third. Only 8% of children from families who do these three things are poor, versus 79% from families who don’t.)