Illegitimacy

My term paper is regarding the social issue of illegitimacy. The consequences, solutions, universal effects as well as the effects on children, and the seriousness of this problem will be discussed in great detail.
My interviewee was a close friend of mine named Brad. Brad has been working full time as a police officer for fifteen years. He has worked in Minnesota, Florida, and Missouri. Police officers are extremely knowledgeable about social problems because they have first hand experience with people who suffer the most from these issues. They are called when there are problems and disturbances. Therefore, they frequently work closely with at risk children, who are often fatherless. Brad lived and worked mostly in poverty stricken communities with high rates of teenage pregnancy and crime. He deeply cared about helping under privileged youth because they are innocent and do not deserve to be mistreated. Brad is conservative and believes that society should hold individuals accountable for their actions and that welfare should be more restricted and not be an entitlement program.

Question: What is your perception of illegitimacy?
Answer: “It is a serious social problem. Observing fatherless children has actually made me become pro-choice and I was always pro-life. Abortion can prevent child abuse, poverty, and crime. Illegitimacy is a vicious cycle that perpetuates itself and only escalates. I associate violent crime, poverty, child abuse, hopelessness, and immorality with illegitimacy. It leads to higher crimes rates. Also, it increases taxes drastically because of our welfare system. Most welfare recipients are single mothers.”

Question: How would you describe mothers with illegitimates?
Answer: “The first thought I have is that they are irresponsible and expect the government to take care of their kids. They don’t bother to plan for the future. Imagine what would happen if everyone was this irresponsible. Personally I only know of two teenage mothers who attended college. Many teenage mothers fail to even graduate from high school because they have to care for their babies. It appears that some people will get pregnant intentionally just so that they can collect public aid money. I was in numerous situations where mothers of juvenile delinquents would blame society for their children’s violent behavior. Statistically, African Americans have more kids. They do not learn from their mistakes. Raising a child alone with low income is quite a challenge and should motivate a person to not get pregnant out of wedlock again. However, they continue to have babies out of wedlock and perhaps this is because the government throws more money at them each time they have another kid. It is most disturbing to me that these parents set such bad examples. I observed many single mothers engaging in commercial sex and consuming illegal drugs. Occasionally, there were unmarried mothers who would try extremely hard to be decent parents, but this is rare. Even these good mothers experienced great difficulty because they had very little help from the man who got them pregnant and they have to bear all the responsibilities by themselves. Raising children is very demanding and single mothers need all the help they can get.”





Question: Do biological fathers of illegitimates help raise the children?
Answer: “No, they provide very little if any financial or emotional support for their own children. Often they were also fatherless and therefore do not understand the expectations of fatherhood because they had no example of this growing up. This is especially true of the African American culture where single parenthood is the norm. Police officers, myself included, would try to reason with unmarried fathers on behalf of their children. They would usually deny that they were the father and suggest that anyone could be the father because the mother is a slut. This is very common with adolescents. Or these young men would blame society for their problems stating that they would not be able to take care of their children because there are not opportunities for them to have a good paying job. They want to be viewed by their peers as being macho and fatherhood is not considered macho. Sometimes the fathers were several years older than the mothers and the pregnancy was a result of rape. In general, I would describe men with children out of wedlock as irresponsible and immoral. They are usually in gangs, are popular with their peers, and earn low grades in school. It is no surprise that they are more likely to be arrested than their peers without children. I knew of one circumstance where the couple was in their lower twenties and broke up before the child was born. The father actually wanted to be a good parent, but the mother had a new boyfriend and made it difficult for him to be involved with the child. This was very unfortunate, but not typical.”

Question: What is the quality of life like for fatherless youth?
Answer: “Fortunately, we live in America where everyone does have an opportunity to succeed through our education system. It is more difficult for fatherless youth to succeed, but it is possible. These children are the poorest. They cannot afford to take family vacations or be involved in extracurricular activities that cost money. Also, the quality of schools that these children attend are inadequate because they almost always live in low income communities. Child abuse occurs much more frequently in single parent homes. Their mothers are often too young to raise kids right. Also, they do not have enough money for high quality health care.”

Question: Are most juvenile delinquents from broken homes?
Answer: “Yes, most juvenile delinquents are from broken homes. Young people need families. When their family is dysfunctional, they will try to find a replacement. Gangs often serve as the replacement because they are often widespread in areas with high rates of illegitimacy. The gang becomes the only family they have. Since there is a lack of love at their home, they will do anything to be accepted elsewhere. Gangs are a very violent subculture. They encourage rape, theft, illegal drugs, murder, and disrespect for authority figures. Since broken homes are often poverty stricken, there is not money for sports, extracurricular activities, amusement parks, or vacations. Therefore, crime is their way of fighting boredom. Youth from dysfunctional families have had a rough life and are mad at society. Therefore, they don’t feel guilty for committing these crimes.”

Question: Can you make any generalizations about single parent families?
Answer: “No doubt they are dysfunctional. They are in poor neighborhoods in the inner cities or occasionally in rural areas, but mostly cities, very rarely do single parent families live in suburbs because they cannot afford to. They have higher rates of abusing drugs and higher crime rates. Single parent families are the most poverty stricken.”

Question: What do you think the solution is?
Answer: “Without two diligent parents, children have less in life than what they deserve. This does young people a great injustice and it is morally wrong. The government should cut off welfare recipients after one year and remove all minors from the home if parents fail to provide adequate care. This would prevent people having kids just to obtain a welfare check. Illegitimacy drains society’s resources and we cannot handle it. Many adults would be happy to adopt these children and then there is hope that they would have a decent life. We need to enforce higher standards of care when it comes to young people. Parents should be held accountable for their juvenile delinquents and child support should be strictly enforced.”