Six Word Saturday **edited 2/26 to add picture **

(Another)elephant in the room: teenage motherhood.

Unwed mothers means handicapped for life
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I have been reading a LOT about teenage pregnancy with Thomas Sowell and and Michael Marder.

Then Joanne Jacobs mentioned an article in the NY Times about women under thirty having a higher percentage of children outside of marriage. Which of course irritated a professional woman who made the same choice as so many of my students.

My students are more like the ones mentioned by Heather McDonald or Gerri Geribaldi.

And this is where it is hard to have a discussion. There are women who provide for their children, who have divorced but make sure the father is still in the children's lives and that the child is the focus of the home. You are not the people I am talking about.

I am talking about kids who think that having a baby is their ultimate achievement, so school, any kind of job or career, is so secondary as to not even register. They will become their parents, who will tell them that they will not succeed in high school and may as well drop out now and bring in some money.

I am talking about women in their forties who have managed to snag one good job and then, to keep it, skirt the law. When the illegal activity (usually taking things that belong to other people, or what most of my students who get arrested are arrested for), and the job disappears, there is no back up plan except to play Maizie the bird and have someone else take your responsibilities.

Daniel Moynihan predicted what the Great Society would do - and dang if he didn't nail it.

It has been a long week with 2 more girls proudly announcing they are pregnant - and the boys start edging to the door.....