Essential to the Debate
A few weeks ago, Newsweek ran a cover story that was a model of magazine journalism (the Aug. 30 issue, in case you missed it). Called "A World Without Fathers," it explored in unsparing terms the decline of the two-parent black family. The story was exceptional less for breaking new ground than for forcing all of us, black and white, to think about realities we'd prefer to ignore. A young black child now has only a 1 in 5 chance of growing up with two parents. Nearly two-thirds of black children are now born to single mothers, up from one-fifth in 1960.</br></br>This is, of course, a social disaster. By that, I don't mean that single parenthood inevitably fails. It doesn't. Plenty of children will not only survive, they will thrive, because they have a loving and committed parent. One good parent is better than two lousy parents. But two good parents are better than one. They typically have more money. In 1991 median family income for black married couples was $33,300; for a single mother, median income was $11,400. Parenting is also as trying as it is joyous. Two bodies simply improve the chances of success.</br></br>What's most disastrous about present trends is the explosion of unwed teenage mothers. One-fifth of all black children are now born to unwed teens. These children of children start life with the odds against them. Their parents haven't developed job skills. Many aren't ready for the time-consuming burdens of parenting. Teenagers want to have fun, and although children are fun, raising them is no party. Our schools and social institutions can't compensate for children born before their time.</br></br>We resist talking about these issues. Every discussion risks slipping into a debate about racism, which - for different reasons - makes both blacks and whites seethe. Whites tend to think that blacks resort too easily to racism as an explanation for any difficult problem; blacks tend to think that whites can never understand the barriers they face. All this plays to the worst racial stereotypes on both sides of the color line. But there's also another cause of our mutual reluctance, and it is that no one really knows what to do.</br></br>As the Newsweek story made clear, we don't understand why black families have fared so badly. The causes seem to be a mixture of general societal trends (earlier and easier sex, less stigma to unwed motherhood), economic changes (loss of well-paying factory jobs for black men) and the family patterns of American black culture. Some of these trends also affect whites. Between 1960 and 1990, births to unwed mothers have gone from 2 percent to 21 percent of total white births; and two-thirds of these white mothers are now under 24. They're not Murphy Browns. But the trends have been more devastating for blacks.