root causes?

Political analysts like to refer to “root causes,” when they are dealing with issues. Now, taking into consideration what I wrote about yesterday, what is a key “root cause” to child poverty?

Not being married when you have children.

There is a 70% drop in the poverty rate if mothers are married when they have a baby. From 55% poverty for children in a single mother household to 17% poverty rate for married couples. But what if the man or woman do not want to get married? As I reported yesterday, 75% of the mothers and fathers-to-be are linked romantically at the time of birth.

There is no way around it, root causes will warrant a moral conclusion here. Is having a baby without being married values neutral? Major religious teachings say it is wrong. For the sake of argument, let’s just say there are sexual connotations to religious pressure to prevent unwed births. Is it wrong for any other reason?

An atheist would have to conclude it is not in the best interest of the average child to have unmarried parents. A logical atheist would have to conclude it is in the states best interest that children are born into families where the parents are married.

How do you teach this? Can the state teach in a values neutral approach that it is wrong to have babies if you aren’t married?

Another alternative, of course, for prevention of poverty purposes, is to encourage abortion. Let’s see how that would fly in teaching. Remember yesterday’s statistics for children born out of wedlock?

Asian 15%
Anglo (white) 35%
Latino 45%
African-American 70%

Logically, the atheist might conclude that a great challenge to child poverty in America is the majority of African-American children born out of wedlock. Then does state education include classes that encourage African-Americans to abort their babies? That would be racist to the extreme.

Think on this some more.