Marriage can be antidote to poverty

Portman (Josh Jensen/Wikimedia Commons)

Many Atlantans probably heard Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, when he appeared on the Michael Medved Show on February 28.  Huckabee and Medved discussed the Oscars and Natalie Portman’s pregnancy.  Both men agreed that the out-of-wedlock pregnancy of Portman, as well as other high profile stars, sent a “problematic message.”  Huckabee went on to say, “Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can’t get a job, and if it weren’t for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care.  And that’s the story that we’re not seeing.”  This week Huckabee, who won Georgia’s 2008 Republican presidential primary, has been taking heat for his comments. 

As it turns out, there is a lot of evidence to support Huckabee’s position.  The United States is a prosperous country by most standards, but there are always exceptions.  Consistently, just fewer than 15% of Americans are considered to live in poverty.  This number has remained relatively constant since the 1960s.  About 20% of Americans in poverty are under 18 years old.  .  Statistically, it is far more likely that members of single parent families will live in poverty than any other group.  This points to the breakdown of the family as a causative factor in child poverty.

Census data shows a dramatic increase in US divorce rates over the past half century.  The divorce rate rose sharply in the 1970s and remains high, although slightly lower than its highest point which was in 1979 and 1981.  Georgia has had a low divorce rate in the past, but it is rising because, even though the number of divorces is falling, the number of marriages is falling even more.  Three towns in Georgia (Dalton, Albany, and Warner Robins) are among the cities with the highest divorce rates in the nation.  The US divorce rate is one of the highest in the world.

The increase in divorce corresponds to the years following the implementation of President Johnson’s Great Society programs, specifically the expansion of welfare to include people who are not elderly or disabled.  Making welfare available to single parents removed a negative consequence of raising a child outside of marriage (although many other negative consequences remain).  The majority of teenage girls no longer believe that having a baby outside of marriage will cause problems in their life.

To be fair, statistics do show a decrease in the overall rate of poverty since the Great Society, at least until the current Great Recession.  This is largely due to a decrease in poverty in senior citizens.  This may be due to the implementation of Medicare, a health insurance program for the Americans age 65 and over.  By the standards of government social programs, Medicare is successful in that it did meet its goal of helping to reduce poverty of the elderly. 

On the other hand, Medicare is very expensive and getting more so.  In 2010, Medicare alone costs $452 billion, over 12% of the federal budget.  This figure alone does not reflect the true cost of Medicare because the program reimburses doctors at artificially low rates.  This means that doctors must make up those losses by charging other patients more.  More and more doctors are refusing to take Medicare patients at all.  Even charging below market rates for care, Medicare is projected to be insolvent by 2017, only six years from now.

Huckabee (David Ball/Wikimedia Commons)

Statistics show that marriage tends to be associated with lower rates of poverty.  The highest rates of poverty are in families headed by a single woman with children under eighteen.  Almost 40% of these families are under the poverty line.  One quarter of American kids are raised in single parent families and 84% of these families are headed by women.  Most of these women are divorced or separated (58%) or were never married at all (24%).  The idea that poverty is strongly linked to single parent families is borne out by statistics.

Intuitively this makes sense.  If you are a parent, you know how expensive it is to raise children.  In a two income family, both parents are working to pay for food, shelter, clothing, childcare, and other necessary expenditures.  When there are two parents but only one income, child care, a major expenditure is removed, as are costs associated with the second spouse’s job, such as transportation, business attire, and meals.  Additionally, the working spouse does not have to lose income or use sick days when a child is sick. 

On the other hand, a single parent family has only one income (although often multiple jobs) for all necessary expenditures.  This often includes childcare costs since the children cannot stay home alone while the parent earns an income.  When a child is sick, the parent often cannot work unless extended family members or friends can care for the child.  The difficulty and the costs are compounded when there is more than one child.  This is not to say that many or most single parents are not dedicated and loving parents, but they start at a tremendous disadvantage.

The societal costs of single parent families are not limited to the cost of government programs.  One of the most obvious costs involves the fact that children who are unsupervised are more likely to get into trouble.  Children from single parent families are more likely to act out and be aggressive.  They are also more likely to become unwed or divorced parents themselves, perpetuating the cycle of poverty.

It should be in the government’s interest to reduce the number of failing marriages and out-of-wedlock births because this would reduce the number of Americans that are dependent on government entitlements.  Factors that are known to affect the chances of making marriage last include the age of a woman at the time of marriage, whether she was raised in an intact two-parent family, whether religion plays an important role, and whether she had a high income or lived in an area with a high median income, low male unemployment, and low poverty.  Additionally, people who divorce once are more likely to divorce if they marry again.  Unmarried cohabitation is more than twice as likely to result in a breakup as a marriage.

The government can act to reduce the divorce rate by repealing no fault divorce laws and requiring marriage counseling prior to divorce.  In Georgia, a divorce can be granted if only one spouse can establish that refusal to live with the other and that there is no hope of reconciliation.  In approximately 55% of divorces, only one spouse wants out of the marriage and there is no clearly defined cause.  Many of these marriages could be saved.  Further, the government could launch public awareness campaigns similar to anti-smoking and anti-drug campaigns to promote marriage and marriage counseling. 

(Joe Mabel / Wikimedia Commons)

Ultimately, it is up to the spouses to fight for their own marriage and family.  Love alone is not enough to make a successful marriage.  It takes work and communication.  A series at Peachtree Community Church in Villa Rica recently covered the four communication patterns that most threaten marriage from the book Fighting for Your Marriage.  Withdrawal occurs when one spouse is unwilling to engage in important conversations.  Escalation occurs when spouses raise the stakes, making an argument more and more hostile.  Invalidation is when a spouse puts down another, either intentionally or not.  Negative interpretation occurs when one spouse sees the other’s behavior more negatively than was intended.  These communication patterns are found in over 90% of distressed marriages.  (The two-sermon series for February 13 and 20, 2011 is available for download at peachtreecc.org.)

Peachtree Community Church pastor David Reid also recently authored the book Leading to the Bedroom, a couple’s guide to more satisfying sex.  In the book, Reid points out that when faced with conflict, the result for most people is to either get angry or go passive.  Neither is good for communication in a marriage.  To strengthen a marriage, spouses must overcome these natural tendencies.  The ultimate result will be both a stronger marriage and a more intimate and exciting sexual relationship between the spouses.

It is up to the men of Georgia and the United States to step up and work for their marriages and families.  Traditionally, men are the head of the household, but over past decades there has been a tendency for men to become withdrawn and delegate their family responsibilities to women.  This is probably partly due to the fact that welfare makes it more acceptable for them to run out on their kids.  Media focus on sex and portrayals of strong women and shiftless men may also be a factor.  The fact that many boys from broken families grow up without a positive male role model undoubtedly also contributes to the vicious cycle.  All of these factors (and more) combine to make negative changes in the way society views families and parenting. 

The stability of the family is a key to America’s future stability and prosperity.  It is one of the most important issues that we face as a country and one that we must address. 

The Michael Medved Show airs weekdays in Atlanta from 3-6 p.m. on WGKA AM920.  The show can also be downloaded as a podcast on MichaelMedved.com for a small fee.  Archives of the show, including the February 28 interview with Mike Huckabee, are also available on the website.

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Reflections on Ethan's Birth Day

It is July 27, 2008. Tomorrow morning is when my daughter, Sarah Elizabeth, is going to be born. I’m currently sitting in the terminal at Baltimore-Washington International and my flight is delayed to thunderstorms here and at home in Atlanta. My experience today reminded me of when my first child, Ethan, was born.

The time was February of 2004 and we were living in Florence, Kentucky where I was a First Officer with Atlantic Coast Airlines/ Delta Connection flying from the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG). Debi and I had been going to frequent ultrasounds, and a couple of days after one of them, we received a call from the doctor’s office telling us that they thought that the most recent ultrasound showed a birth defect on the baby. We were instructed to come in for another ultrasound with a specialist at a neighboring hospital two days later and about a month prior to the due date.

I was off work when for the ultrasound, but was scheduled to work the following day. At the time, I was a reserve pilot at the airline, which meant that, even though I was on duty, I might fly and I might not. As it turned out, the company called and assigned me a trip for the day after the ultrasound. I was to leave CVG and fly through Boston to an overnight in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.

We reported for the ultrasound together with our pastor, Steve, who came for moral and spiritual support. The technician started looking at the baby, making notes, and not saying a whole lot. Finally, the medical gurus told us that they were concerned because Debi’s amniotic fluid was low. For some reason, this reminded me of Lewis Grizzard’s book, If Love Were Oil I’d Be a Quart Low. Unfortunately, their solution was not to add a quart, they wanted to keep Debi in the hospital overnight and give her an IV to bring up her fluid level.

This caused a problem. I had a limited number of sick days. I had applied for FMLA for when the baby was born, but I was a regional airline FO. Regional First Officers are poor and FMLA is unpaid leave if you run out of sick time. I could not afford to be out of work long and I might have to miss more work days after the baby was born.

We talked it over and finally decided that since Debi would be going home in the morning, I should go on to work. I felt uneasy at the prospect of leaving my pregnant wife in the hospital, alone and eight hours away from both of our families. As I was about to leave to go home and pack my bag for Canada, a nurse nonchalantly told me, “You might want to wait. I think you are going to have a baby in the morning.”

My reaction was basically, “huh?” This was quickly followed by the slightly more verbose, “are you serious?” She was.

I’m not sure who was more shocked: Steve or me.

I still really have no idea when or exactly why the doctor decided to induce labor. At the time, it really didn’t occur to me to ask. The next few hours are a blur of calling our parents and telling them that their grandson would be born the next morning, not a month from now, and, no, I wasn’t kidding. My parents had non-revenue/standby travel benefits from my company so I booked them on a flight to CVG. Debi’s parents set out on the eight-hour drive as quickly as they could pack.

The new plan was to have Debi spend the night in the hospital where they would monitor her and the baby throughout the night. They would induce labor with Poticin in the morning, then we would go home with a happy, if slightly smaller than expected, baby boy.

That afternoon, I went to pick my parents up at the airport and pick up Debi’s suitcase, which, she had already packed, thank goodness! Our carefully laid plans were all falling apart. We were having the baby a month early and in a completely different hospital than what we had planned. We had recently completed the nursery, but Debi had a baby shower scheduled at our church the following weekend. She had actually joked about not being able to go if the baby came early. Only now it didn’t seem very funny!

I spend that night at the hospital with Debi while my parent stayed in our apartment. Debi’s parents spent the night on the road between north Georgia and northern Kentucky. Ironically, Debi’s sister was also pregnant. She had set up a c-section for February 17, so Debi’s parents thought that they would have plenty of time between births. Now they were dealing with having two grandchildren within days of each other.

I remember the night of February 11, 2004 as being one of the longest nights of my life. On top of the anxiety of becoming a parent the next morning, Debi was trying to sleep with a fetal monitor across her stomach. She would get comfortable, then Ethan would move. The nurses would immediately realize that they were no longer monitoring the baby and come in to readjust the monitor, which would wake us up. I don’t know exactly how many times this happened throughout the night, but I’m sure it was at least a million.

Finally, morning came. With it came the nurses with Debi’s dose of Potocin at around seven o’clock. Not long after, Debi’s parents arrived just in time. About the same time, the medicine kicked in and Debi started having contractions. We were going to have a baby!

It wasn’t long after that that the doctors and nurses started looking worried again. Ethan’s vital signs were erratic whenever Debi had a contraction. He was going into fetal distress. The doctor thought that the umbilical cord was probably wrapped around his neck, which could cause major problems as the birth proceeded. Someone mentioned the possibility of sending Debi to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, but my sweet, southern wife put her foot down: “I don’t want no yankee baby!”

The next thing that I knew, they were suiting me up in scrubs for an emergency c-section. It is probably a good thing that I had no idea this was coming; otherwise I would have been more nervous than I actually was. As it is, I was more numb than nervous.

In much less time than you would think, they had Debi in an operating room. When they had her settled, they brought me in and gave me a seat by her head. As I sat down, alarms started going off and the nurses and doctors looked up in alarm! They quickly determined that everything was all right; I had just sat on a cord going to the monitoring equipment. They told me to move. Stat!

The actual c-section was uneventful. It was a little bit surreal looking my wife’s organs being moved about by doctors. In no time at all, they pulled forth from her a baby boy.

The nurse asked if I would like to see my baby. I felt torn between staying beside Debi and going to Ethan, but she indicated that I should go. I don’t remember holding him then, but I went to the table where the nurses were examining him.

I remember hearing that babies often looked pasty at birth. Not Ethan. He was born looking as if he had a tan. I remember his head full of black hair and his blue eyes, as well as his really pronounced lips. I put my finger in his tiny hand and he grabbed it.

The nurses said that he was perfectly healthy. There was no sign of a birth defect.

Shortly after that, we were back into Debi’s hospital room with a new baby in her arms. Our parents said that we left so suddenly that they didn’t know where we went. You can imagine their shock when we showed up with Ethan in hand.

We did take the opportunity to play a practical joke on the grandparents. We (I) had toyed with several potential names, as all parents do. We considered Andrew Taylor, a nod to Debi’s maiden name and the Andy Griffith Show. I kept saying that we should name him Ezekiel and call him “Zeke.” Since his birthday, February 12, was Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, we told the assembled crowd in the hospital room that we had decided to name him “Abraham Ezekiel.” There were more than a few forced smiles in the room at that point.

An additional item that will be good blackmail material when Ethan starts dating came before we left the hospital. The name card on his basinet read in big blue letters: “I’M A BREASTFED BOY.” We definitely got a picture of that.

The story after that is routine. Ethan went home with us three days later. He was healthy in spite of being born a month early. At five pounds one point four ounces, he had virtually no body fat, so he ended up spending a night in the incubator after a checkup the following week.

A memorable moment was the first time I changed a diaper… ever. There in the hospital nursery, in front of doctors, nurses, and everyone, my newborn son peed on me. After that I learned to treat a little boy like a loaded weapon. Don’t point it at anything you don’t want to get shot and keep it holstered as much as possible.

And, oh yeah, the baby shower that Debi missed? The church people brought it to her after she and Ethan had returned home. It's a rare thing for a baby to be the guest of honor at his own shower!

So here I am four years later. Ethan is about to be a big brother. Debi is again wondering if I’ll be there for the big moment. The family is assembled and I’m just waiting on Air Tran to let me know when I’ll get there. All I can say is that if the eve of Sarah’s birthday is any indication, it will be an interesting experience.