One conservative commentator, Frederica Mathewes-Green writing a guest commentary in The National Review [link via garret], states that having babies young is a good thing and the way things were until the last few decades. As I began reading this essay I thought Mathewes-Green (doesn’t even her name have an old-time feel to it?) was going to come down on the American educational system. After all, she points out that a high school education used to be sufficient for the average job and college was intended for specialized, professional careers.
However, instead she spins off into a magical world where family and members of one’s church form a support system. Strong enough, she claims, so that with prudent planning a couple can marry right after high school, both can attend college while working at night, and perhaps even start having babies before earning their diploma. The essay does get into the rising numbers of out of wedlock births (supplemented by abortions) and this, she says, is caused by trying to force randy young folks to wait for that little gold band before getting biz-zay. In particular Mathewes-Green cites Baltimore, her hometown, as having the highest percentage of out of wedlock births in the nation.
Baltimore, though, is probably as good a city as any to hold up as a model (in the negative sense) of a place where so many of the residents believe they have no hope of ever improving their circumstances. I know it was just a TV series but I still think the portrayal of it in the recent HBO series The Wire was fairly close to the reality as felt by these people. Other than drugs and violent crime there’s little money for these people and fewer jobs. No positive role models for boys other than distant professional athletes and misogynistic rap stars. So they should deprive themselves of the little pleasure to be had from sex?
BillSaysThis 