Agreed we do need more fathers. Children are complex and it takes a village to raise them. I take my hat off to women that try and do it but I don’t think being a single parent is something to be promoted since it’s 10 times harder to do without an able body and a somewhat Healthy mental counterpart. There cannot be any improvements made until the black community is fixed only 36% of black children come from two married parent homes and 48% come from single parent homes. The percentage needs to be drastically higher on the two parent side.
I honestly don’t believe any improvements will take place with marriages though. If anything my prediction is that things will continue to escalate but the biggest difference is that in the future many populations (not just black) will be confronted with this problem. People are not as religious, women and men are waiting longer to settle down, the cost of living has gotten horrible. Cohabitation and disposal relationships have become a trend. These are just some of the factors that are causing people to not rush to the altar like they used to.
Marriage is in the decline. It’s predicted that within a decade or so 45% of women of all races will be single… single parenting and co-parenting from separate households will become more of a “trend” in America. If you look at how our community in particular is trending, you can deduce that there will be less marriages not more.
I think the more realistic solutions at this point is to prepare for that reality. And then look for other avenues to help at least minimize some of the issues. For example providing more support to black children—more mentorship programs, social/emotional classes required at school, more organizations geared toward teaching groups of boys, masculine activities and skills: hunting, fishing, fighting, sports, dating, etc. Providing mandatory counseling for black children. Investing more resources into academic programs and training programs for black teens to help them transition into adulthood… more promotion for classes to help parents be better parents… these are all things that already exist, so just investing more in these programs and strengthening them and making them better will help. I also think promoting more healthy black marriages will also help, but it’s complicated because you can’t exactly force people to get married nor can you prevent them from having children.