Many Americans did a double-take after seeing New York City rapper Zadie Will's latest offering.
story? Will hosted a joint baby shower for five women with children.
The news broke last week after one of the women posted videos and photos of the celebration on social media.
Some may be relieved to learn that the post received many disapproving comments.
But perhaps the most notable reaction was a statement to the Post from one of the rapper's representatives.
Will's co-manager welcomed what he called a change in “modern relationship dynamics”, the “essence” of which is “a move away from one-size-fits-all approaches and societal pressures to conform”.
The statement is reminiscent of the 2020 controversy over the national organization Black Lives Matter's stated goal of “destroying the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure,” which many in the organization It was quickly removed from the organization's website after generating a series of negative articles that seemed to resonate. Surprisingly new funder.
Leaving moral issues for another day, the available data show that encouraging further transitions from traditional families in which children are raised by two married biological parents is completely indefensible. clearly shown.
why? Because all indications are that it will be at least as disastrous as the spike in out-of-wedlock birth rates since the 1960s — especially for black communities. This is because the proportion has reached almost zero. By 2016, he was at 70% (almost three times the 23.6% black out-of-wedlock birth rate that Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned about in his seminal 1965 report).
Continuing to ridicule the traditional nuclear family structure could exacerbate the twin problems that black Americans have long had at high rates: poverty and crime.
The evidence regarding out-of-wedlock parenting is overwhelming, with researchers from a variety of ideologies finding associations between family income and family structure.
As Melissa Carney emphasizes in her excellent book, The Two-Parent Privilege, “Children raised in single-parent households graduate from high school, earn college degrees, and become adults. The chances of earning a high income from this are significantly lower.”
Robert Rector wrote in a 2012 report for the Heritage Foundation that “being raised in a married family reduces a child's odds of living in poverty by about 82 percent.”
Scholars have studied the “success sequence” (defined by the federal government as “at least a high school education, then finding a full-time job, getting married, and waiting to have children”). report it “Nearly half of Millennials have given birth [before marriage] (regardless of subsequent marital status) are in the bottom third of the income distribution when they reach adulthood.''Meanwhile, 36% and 50% of those who had children after marriage, respectively, were in the bottom third of the income distribution. They were in the middle and top third.
Crime data is equally alarming.
A recent Family Institute paper that I co-authored with Brad Wilcox, Joe Price, and Seth Cannon found that cities with more than the median proportion of households headed by a single parent had an overall crime rate of 48%. %, and violent crime and homicide rates were also found to be higher. 118% and 255% higher. We are not the first to notice.
Robert J. Sampson of Harvard University has focused on the influence of family structure on crime since at least the 1980s. findFor example, “female-headed families have a strong positive effect on the rate of personal victimization.''
Reports of other scholars “Delinquency and crime rates are correlated with the proportion of single-mother families with dependent children in the community.”
So while flaunting the prevalence of out-of-wedlock births may raise the profile of up-and-coming music artists, it's not the model Americans should emulate.
The idea of “moving away'' from the nuclear family, perhaps the most important institution for the overall health of society, is harmful.
The undeniable reality is that an intact family is absolutely essential to stability and success in life.
Maybe we need more songs that.
Rafael A. Mangaal is the Nick Ornell Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Studies and a contributing editor at City Journal, author of Criminal (In)Justice: What The Push For Decarceration And Depolicing Gets Wrong And Who It Hurts Most He is also the author of
