"But President Obama’s message, like a host of other attempts over the past several decades to ameliorate the situation of the children of lone-parents, is incomplete.

What’s missing? Or rather, Who is missing? The mother, as well as the father’s relationship to her. Advocating fathering of the children is great, but forgetting that everything related to fathering begins with the mother is foolish. From the initial sexual encounter, to his treatment of her during pregnancy, to his willingness to make the couple-commitment she so earnestly desires, to his presence at the birth, to his willingness to support the baby and the household ever after  -- all of it involves the he/she relationship. Efforts to get the prospective mother (or father) to “say no” to sex, or to employ drugs or devices to prevent conception, or even the granddaddy of all efforts – to ramp up the educational and employment chances of men (whose fortunes have suffered terribly in recent decades) in order to fashion them into better marriage prospects, -- all must take account of  the fact that sex, marriage and parenting take place in the context of the hopes and beliefs of men and women about intimate heterosexual relationships.  The personal narratives of lone mothers attest to this. Those who read them solely to imply that finances alone are impeding the move to marriage are mistaken. Or that lack of knowledge of birth control is the driving force behind their pregnancies. Or that welfare income or better educational and job opportunities for women are driving their decisions to remain single despite the hardships.  Or that all of these decisions are simply a function of males’ declining earning power. They are failing to factor in other crucial pieces of the puzzle that point toward a fundamental disruption in male-female relations as an important source of any solution.

For all of the empirical data points to no decline in male or female longings for heterosexual unions that are committed, even permanent.  This is true across races and socioeconomic classes.  Claims that young men and women are waiting longer to think in these terms may be exaggerated. In fact, if cohabitation figures are added to marriage numbers, it turns out that men and women are not entering their first perceived committed intimate relationships at ages any older than the men and women __ years ago.

  
Assertions that lone parenting is simply a reflection of couples’ greater insistence upon having their financial act together before taking the marital plunge, are true in part,  (Andrew Cherlin, The DeInstitutionalization of American Marriage,  66  J. of Marriage & Family 848 (2004) ) but fail to explain what is driving this change, given that marriage is in fact, a real boost to improving both spouses’ standard of living. The more important aspect of this redefinition of “readiness for marriage” is that it reflects a preexisting mindset, a prior move, in the direction of believing that marriage is more of a consumption good than a social good. More about receiving than about giving. This has everything to do with people’s fundamental beliefs about the meaning and purpose of heterosexual unions.

Some point to women’s longing for love in their lives as a source of out of wedlock births, from men and also from babies, when their boyfriends or their families fail them  This too is true as far as it goes. Single mothers’ personal narratives are replete with accounts of their search for real love from family, sexual partners and children. . (See Paula England and Kathryn Edin, Unmarried Couples with Children (2007)). But it fails to explain why women are willing to replace dreams of commitment with temporary sexual liaisons, or bear children without commitment or sometimes even any realistic possibility of minimal help, from the children’s fathers.   

In short, every proposed “reading” of why women are having record out of wedlock births points somehow back to the difficulties men and women are experiencing in their relationships with one another.  Law and policy makers have caught on to this in part – funding studies and promoting programs relating to getting unmarried fathers to reach out to the mothers of their children in order to improve fathers’ parenting. The government is also promoting stable marriage.  People riding the metro in Washington DC and other major cities, for example, are being treated to a poster showing a married couple in bed, he snoring, she casting a glance at him that is simultaneously annoyed and fond, bearing the headline: “He may not always be charming….but he’s always your prince.”   “For more information, log on to TwoOfUs.org, a project of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.”

At the very same time, state-sponsored language – in legislative and judicial sources concerning same-sex marriage and divorce,  and in public sex-education programs – is sending the message that heterosexual pairings are either none of the government’s interest, or important  to the government chiefly because of the emotional or expressive functions that romantic relationships play in individuals’ lives.

The good efforts are not complete, as they fail to address the root of the problem: the essential relationship between intimate male-female couples, and the good of the  individual and society.  The bad messages undermine the good in principle.

What can be done to improve the situation? The answers are neither simple nor readily apparent.  The state, and even religions, are understandably gun-shy about speaking in any normative fashion about male-female relations. This is due to the influence of feminism which has generally discouraged talk of sex differences or any irreplaceable contributions by men. It is also due to the economic and intellectual influences of the  scientific community; scientists encourage us to think solely in terms of “technological” solutions to human problems. Necessary state and even private action is also increasingly hampered by the rising political power of homosexual-rights groups.  They actively seek out and condemn efforts to institutionalize “heteronormativity.”   Quite recently, they have begun explicitly to threaten the Democratic Party and the Obama administration with financial and political penalties for failing to pursue their agenda to the hilt.  Finally, even religions might be gun-shy given how frequently leading intellectual figures and institutions claim that religions hold deeply “sexist” ideas regarding heterosexual relationships and marriage.

None of these obstacles alters the pressing need to help repair male-female relations, as a significant piece of the puzzle of out of wedlock births. My next column will attempt several proposals. I can already predict that they will be seen to be more “prophetic” than “practical” in our current environment.  But they need to be said because of what is at stake.  Furthermore, revolutions have to get started somewhere.

(c) Culture of Life Foundation 2009.  Reproduction granted with attribution required.