The American Dream Part One: Single Moms, "Deadbeat" Dads and the Nanny State
A three-part series on family and economy.
This is a three-part series examining jobs, government, and the American family.
First, a definition of “American Dream.” Every generation has new expectations. Some valued home ownership more, others personal freedom. For the sake of sanity, let’s call the American Dream simply the ability to improve one’s circumstances with reasonable effort.
Many argue that dream is dead or dying. Is it? Since it’s an election year and MAGA flags are flying high, let’s rip the bandages off the patient and look.
It’s a complex subject, but I want to explore a couple specific aspects: family (this week) and the workforce (next week). Weigh in any time with a comment or email.
The American Family We Don’t Mention
There’s plenty of attention on college educated Millennial parents, urban couples who start families at 40, the immigrant family. But what about the families - often white and even raised in the Church - that we like to pretend don’t exist?
The ones our tax dollars support?
What I'm about to describe is not “bleeding heart” propaganda. These are real examples I’ve seen working with and for folks in these kinds of situations over the past two years.
The Single Mom
Your biggest cost would be housing, but your apartment is free, because you don’t work. You had to wait a couple years to get it, and it’s nothing fancy, but it’s paid for and it’s yours, as long as you don’t do anything too atrocious.
Food costs are rising, but you get food stamps. Because of the kids, this is several hundred a month.
Family drops off hand-me-down clothes for the kids. The school covers supplies, unless your child wants to do something fancy like cheerleading, or football. You might have to get a job to cover those costs.
You qualify for Medicaid, so the meds are covered.
Your car is pretty nice, no one’s sure how you paid for that. Maybe your Grandma. She’s been pretty generous off and on over the years.
Or you don’t have a car, and it’s okay, because there’s nowhere you really need to be. You take care of the kids, you can get them to the bus to go to school, they get driven off sometimes for playdates with their friends.
If you get a job, all of that might go away. So it had better be a really great job.
Your parents probably had a rocky marriage, or never married. They might have been in and out of jail themselves. Maybe you never even knew your dad, or not well. So there’s childhood trauma of some kind. Stress can make it hard to function.
It had better be a really, really great job.
The Deadbeat Dad
The Nanny State justifies its existence by protecting babies. Involved dads render the Nanny State useless. When the dad is not involved, kids usually live with their mom. Intentionally or not, the system is incentivized to demonize dads. Judges, social workers, and employees of nonprofits tend to operate on an unspoken assumption that it is dad’s fault.
Dad has his own history, stress, and baggage. But because he doesn’t have the kids, he doesn’t qualify for the same benefits Mom does.
He does, however, qualify to pay child support.
If he’s working, the state may take as much as half of what he earns. If ethics weren’t an issue he could take home as much, or more, doing odd jobs for cash, or staying on unemployment.
Fathering a child can make you an indentured servant to the state.
It had better be a really, really, really great job.
Weak Families, Weak Economy
Historically the family unit was central to most cultures because any other solution is expensive, traumatic, and bad for the economy. It’s not politically correct to say it, but it is compassionate to say that single moms tend to make stressed employees. Men strapped to child support agreements will likely never be able to invest in a house, their own business, or other markers of upward mobility.
Meanwhile, regardless of who’s paying for it, running two households is a lot more expensive than running one.
Divided families are also going to struggle more maintaining their health, physical or mental. There’s less time or energy to create the safe haven, cook the food, grow a few carrots. Does poverty cause obesity, mental health and addiction issues, or vice versa? You tell me.
These issues are not black and white - they’re American
These used to be considered “black” issues, and many liberal conversations still blame them on racism. But in recent years, white families have started to experience the same decline. At a statistical level, all Americans are now more likely to come of age as unmarried parents, unemployed, abusing drugs or alcohol, relying on government programs.
It seems like these programs have only made things worse. But why?
More next week.
I know there are reasons that no fault divorce was instituted, but I think it has done more harm than good, leaving all parties wounded to one degree or another. What other contract in life can be broken by one party unilaterally? Your description of the resultant “single mothers and deadbeat dads” illustrates the painful price paid for not making the effort to keep the family intact, whenever possible.
Amen. I worked for Child support for 19 years and very real situations