November 13, 2002
VLWC:
It Takes a Wedding (ALEX KOTLOWITZ, November 13, 2002, NY Times)With the Republican victory last week, Congress now appears likely to set aside funding for programs that promote marriage among the poor. A friend who provides services for inner-city children declared this marriage push "nuts." That had been my initial reaction, as well. But now I wonder if the conservatives who are driving this effort might be on to something.There's a shift in the winds in our inner cities. On the heels of a fatherhood movement (which, incidentally, also had conservative roots), more and more young couples are considering marriage. A long-term study of 5,000 low-income couples has found that eight of 10 who have a child together have plans to marry. "I was out in the field all of the time, interviewing low-income single mothers," Kathy Edin, a sociologist at Northwestern University, told me. "And what really struck me in those interviews was how many people talked about the desire to get married. And I would go back, you know, and talk to my friends in academia and they would say, 'Oh, they can't mean that.' But I would hear it again and again." [...]
[T]here is now growing consensus among social scientists that, all things being equal, two parents are best for children. It would seem to follow that two-parent families are also best for a community. It may take a village to raise a child, but it takes families to build a village. [...]
Even if conservatives don't know how to get there, at least they recognize that marriage, this very private institution, has very public consequences. Liberals, who have a much firmer understanding of the obstacles poor people face, need to enter that conversation.
First, let me say that one sure sign you're becoming a right-wing paranoiac is that the main thing that strikes you about this essay, and that PBS Frontline is running a related documentary--FRONTLINE: 'Let's Get Married' (PBS, 11/14/01, 9 pm)--this week, is that they waited until after the election to acknowledge the efficacy of a conservative crusade.
Posted by Orrin Judd at November 13, 2002 12:30 PM
This is a very good sign. It also shows why Republicans need to work hard to implement their policies. Talking to liberals doesn't persuade; showing
and telling does. Welfare reform had a lot of liberal opponents in 1995, but in 2002 most recognize its goodness. So it will be the rest of the conservative agenda. What is on the right today will be in the center in five years, if we implement it tomorrow.
Mickey Kaus
, of course, noticed this article and commented that the large elephant in the room, welfare reform, wasn't mentioned. No one claims that economics is the only thing that matters, but incentives certainly matter some. Welfare reform has helped make it economically more sensible to marry (and have fewer kids out of wedlock), and that does have an effect on the margins.