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When Liberals Blew It. That was the title of a Nicholas Kristof column in The New York Times last week. The column commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of Daniel Patrick Moynihans famous report on the breakdown in African-American family structure. Subsequently, Moynihan wrote:

From the wild Irish slums of the 19th-century Eastern seaboard, to the riot-torn suburbs of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in American history: a community that allows large numbers of young men to grow up in broken families never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any set of rational expectations about the future that community asks for and gets chaos.

Since the time of that prophetic pronouncement, things have only gotten worse and not just in the black community. Kristof reports the latest numbers:

In 2013, 71 percent of black children in America were born to an unwed mother, as were 53 percent of Hispanic children and 36 percent of white children. At some point before they turn 18, a majority of all American children will likely live with a single mom and no dad.

[On children living without two parents, see this chart on how we compare with other countries.]

What does this have to do with liberals? Well they uniformly and viciously attacked the messenger accusing Moynihan of being a racist. While calling for a bigger and more generous welfare programs, they refused to endorse any effort to change the behavior of the people they were helping. Questioning patterns of behavior was blaming the victim in their view.

So in the face of liberal silence and indifference, things got progressively worse. Also writing in The New York Times, David Brooks describes what a fatherless society looks like:

The health of society is primarily determined by the habits and virtues of its citizens. In many parts of America there are no minimally agreed upon standards for what it means to be a father. There are no basic codes and rules woven into daily life, which people can absorb unconsciously and follow automatically.

According to Sara McLanahan of Princeton and Christopher Jencks of Harvard, a fathers absence increases antisocial behavior, such as aggression, rule-breaking, delinquency and illegal drug use especially among boys. Having only one parent reduces the chance that a child will graduate from high school by 40 percent.

Originally posted here:
Are Liberals At Fault For The Breakup Of The Family?