“Fostering” The End Of The (Maybe) Baby “Boomlet”?

Note: This post is going to zig-zag a bit, but for a good reason (and I also posted here on a timely matter also related to a birth of a child).

You probably don’t remember this post, which tried to refute the claim from conservatives that they were “begattin’,” you might say, faster than liberals (kind of a silly notion, but such is what passes for “informed discourse” on occasion).

Well, I don’t think anyone is going to be encouraging such activity again any time soon, given this story, which tells us that unwed birth rates in this country have reached an all-time high (though, as the story tells us, the economic slump will probably bring an end to the “boomlet,” if comparisons to the Great Depression hold up here also)…

The statistics are based on a review of most 2007 birth certificates by the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The numbers also showed:

• Nearly 72 percent of the births to black women were out of wedlock. Mothers were unmarried in about 51 percent of Hispanic births and 28 percent of non-Hispanic white births.

• Cesarean section deliveries continue to rise, now accounting for almost a third of all births. Health officials say that rate is much higher than is medically necessary. About 34 percent of births to black women were by C-section, more than any other racial group. But geographically, the percentages were highest in Puerto Rico, at 49 percent, and New Jersey, at 38 percent.

• The pre-term birth rate, for infants delivered at less than 37 weeks of pregnancy, declined slightly. It had been generally increasing since the early 1980s. Experts said they aren't sure why it went down.

• Among the states, Utah continued to have the highest birth rate and Vermont the lowest.

Now I realize that I’m starting to venture into territory with this where I don’t usually go, because I think I have better things to do than to get all hung up on “culture wars” stuff (and I have a feeling that you’d rather reason about more interesting subjects, though I could be wrong). Also, it’s really not my intention here to say much the “Octomom,” as noted here, because I think her situation is an anomaly – I hope so anyway; I’d hate to think there are many more medical practitioners out there as incompetent as her fertility doctor.

However, my concern here is the kids born out of wedlock who end up in foster care; if a woman has the means to give birth to a child and support that child herself, that’s none of my business regardless of what I may personally think about the absence of a father (I should note that I haven’t been able to find statistics on the ages of women who give birth to children who end up in foster care, but as I read about this, it seems that the majority of women are in their teens or twenties, though I don’t have any citations on that – if anyone has better information on that, please let me know).

And on the topic of foster care, here is a post by a man who apparently grew up in a foster care network and ended up supporting Barack Obama because of his commitment to children’s advocacy and related issues. Also (and I can’t believe I’m doing this), here is a link to a column by Mona Charen of NRO, of all people, who makes an argument for the Obamas “getting in front” on parenting issues, which they’ve already done as nearly as I can tell (I really wish I could disagree with Charen here, but shockingly, I think she makes some sense, though somehow I don’t think divorce is automatically a sentence to “skid row” for a child – not preferable of course, but not necessarily the end either…also, I could do without the hosanna to Jack Kemp, but I guess that comes with the territory).

Finally (closer to home), this editorial in the Bucks County Courier Times today tells us how County Commissioner Diane Marseglia and Dem State Rep Joe Galloway are trying to “push the bolder of Sisyphus,” if you will, on the matter of foster children’s issues, running into resistance from fellow commissioners Jim Cawley and Charley (“I Have A Semi-Open Mind”) Martin (lots of luck with that one, and kudos for your efforts).