School shootings or not, last week before the carnage, I was having a conversation with a very smart educator about the challenges we face with the preponderance of single-parent homes that find all across the nation. Single-parent and in some cases no-parent conditions (kids being raised by grandma) affect the way that teachers do their jobs, and cause havoc in society in the larger sense.
Susan L. Goldberg discusses this at PJMedia and talks about the effect that the lack of parenting has on society. She links to some studies that show:
72 percent of adolescent murderers grew up without fathers; the same for 60 percent of all rapists.Now, there are millions of kids who grow up in single-parent households who turn out just fine. But, as long as we are talking about what is different now and the apparent rise of problems in our schools (sometimes lethal problems), it might be useful to talk about the number of kids growing up in single-parent households.
70 percent of juveniles in state institutions grew up in single- or no-parent situations
The number of single-parent households is a good predictor of violent crime in a community, while poverty rate is not.
I suspect the lack of male teachers in elementary and secondary education is also a major factor.
ReplyDeleteBut like the huge number of mothers with no husband to assist in home building & child-rearing, it's not something that is "politically correct" to discuss.