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Quick note: your sister's story was also common enough in the 1880-1950 timeframe. She'd also have been considered a loose woman, immoral, etc, and come under v

Quick note: your sister's story was also common enough in the 1880-1950 timeframe. She'd also have been considered a loose woman, immoral, etc, and come under vicious religious censure. Now, statistically, would that have improved things more generally? I don't know. But it was a thing. If we were to spin the clock back to pre-industrialization and its concomitant labor crunching, I don't know that period of history quite as well. While I think the lack of good religious thinking is causing all sorts of odd misfires across society, I'm not sure it would improve "bad choices" though. C.f. canturbury tales...

kypro 6y ago
Sure, it happened, but the rate of single parenthood has historically been in the single digits. Today I believe around a third of children are born into single parent families. To be fair I don’t think it’s entirely a lack of religion to blame for this trend though. I think a less religious but more culturally conservative society would also see lower levels of single parenthood. It seems likely to me to be partly the absence of religious beliefs alongside the promotion of more destructive cultural values that has done the damage. A third component is the way in which the welfare state (at least here in the UK) “rewards” people who make poor life decisions. My sister rightly understood the only way a working class girl with no qualifications is going to move out of her parents’ home is to have a kid. In the past she would have been forced to have found someone who could provide for her or she would have needed to find a way to earn a living. Now if despite she would have made all the same bad decisions anyway I suspect you’re right, past societies would have looked on her decisions much less favourably and she would likely be far worse off. But I doubt this would have happened. She was always a smart kid - far smarter than me. But when everyone around you is skipping school to smoke in the park or having kids at 15 while being given a new home by the government it’s hard to resist what seems like an obvious path. I guess what I’m saying is that I would acknowledge that it’s not entirely a lack of religion at play here, but the decline of family values that religion promoted and the lack of moral objection to certain lifestyles has given room for less preferable cultural attitudes and beliefs to arise. The fact people think I’m wrong to criticise my sister for choosing to have a child with an alcoholic she barely knew to move out of my parents home, for example. It honestly annoys me how many people say her selfish decision which her child will bare the brunt of is something that she should be proud of. I love with all my heart but it’s selfish and wrong, and she was failed by everyone who didn’t plainly tell her that.
- pnathan 6y ago
  So this is something that I am personally very confused about as well. My wife and I both grew up poor (how poor depends on who's asking, we had food, we had clothes, we had housing, but not per se that very much more); both our sets of parents have maintained traditional morality around kids. To this day, I am always confused when people from similar economic places make substantially worse choices. We really weren't that special. A few books: - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005T5O9QW/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005T5O9QW/ This is a survey of late 90s Philadelphia very poor mothers, who decided to have kids very young. I think you might find this a fascinating work, harmonious with your family's experience, even if it's from a different time and place. - https://www.amazon.com/Way-We-Never-Were-Nostalgia-ebook/dp/B017QL8WIM/ https://www.amazon.com/Way-We-Never-Were-Nostalgia-ebook/dp/... This is a discussion of American lenses on the past and how we often misread propaganda or middle class expectations as being what really happened. I also am sort of loafing my way through a book, "Taming the Troublesome Child", on the professionalism of social work around children - I actually was hoping to learn how troubled kids were handled in the past, but it's actually about "social work". Ah well. A lot of what it is indicating is that poverty and, to some extent, immigration status (in the US) had a heavy interplay in how families were treated by social workers, considered by society, and understood. At least in the Northeastern US. I don't mean to say your sister thought ahead, or that you shouldn't be bothered by her choices, or any of that. For what it's worth, I noticed years ago that the really smart kids struggled in school. I have a few pet theories, mostly related to systemic disconnection in society (and here that circles back to churches - a good church design is a cross slice of society, not just 'the rich church', or 'the black church', etc). Individuals have a chance to shine brightly or be a dark spot against a statistical haze. It's always sad when someone really sets up a failure and pain pattern.

kypro 6y ago

Sure, it happened, but the rate of single parenthood has historically been in the single digits. Today I believe around a third of children are born into single parent families. To be fair I don’t think it’s entirely a lack of religion to blame for this trend though. I think a less religious but more culturally conservative society would also see lower levels of single parenthood. It seems likely to me to be partly the absence of religious beliefs alongside the promotion of more destructive cultural values that has done the damage. A third component is the way in which the welfare state (at least here in the UK) “rewards” people who make poor life decisions. My sister rightly understood the only way a working class girl with no qualifications is going to move out of her parents’ home is to have a kid. In the past she would have been forced to have found someone who could provide for her or she would have needed to find a way to earn a living. Now if despite she would have made all the same bad decisions anyway I suspect you’re right, past societies would have looked on her decisions much less favourably and she would likely be far worse off. But I doubt this would have happened. She was always a smart kid - far smarter than me. But when everyone around you is skipping school to smoke in the park or having kids at 15 while being given a new home by the government it’s hard to resist what seems like an obvious path. I guess what I’m saying is that I would acknowledge that it’s not entirely a lack of religion at play here, but the decline of family values that religion promoted and the lack of moral objection to certain lifestyles has given room for less preferable cultural attitudes and beliefs to arise. The fact people think I’m wrong to criticise my sister for choosing to have a child with an alcoholic she barely knew to move out of my parents home, for example. It honestly annoys me how many people say her selfish decision which her child will bare the brunt of is something that she should be proud of. I love with all my heart but it’s selfish and wrong, and she was failed by everyone who didn’t plainly tell her that.

pnathan 6y ago
So this is something that I am personally very confused about as well. My wife and I both grew up poor (how poor depends on who's asking, we had food, we had clothes, we had housing, but not per se that very much more); both our sets of parents have maintained traditional morality around kids. To this day, I am always confused when people from similar economic places make substantially worse choices. We really weren't that special. A few books: - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005T5O9QW/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005T5O9QW/ This is a survey of late 90s Philadelphia very poor mothers, who decided to have kids very young. I think you might find this a fascinating work, harmonious with your family's experience, even if it's from a different time and place. - https://www.amazon.com/Way-We-Never-Were-Nostalgia-ebook/dp/B017QL8WIM/ https://www.amazon.com/Way-We-Never-Were-Nostalgia-ebook/dp/... This is a discussion of American lenses on the past and how we often misread propaganda or middle class expectations as being what really happened. I also am sort of loafing my way through a book, "Taming the Troublesome Child", on the professionalism of social work around children - I actually was hoping to learn how troubled kids were handled in the past, but it's actually about "social work". Ah well. A lot of what it is indicating is that poverty and, to some extent, immigration status (in the US) had a heavy interplay in how families were treated by social workers, considered by society, and understood. At least in the Northeastern US. I don't mean to say your sister thought ahead, or that you shouldn't be bothered by her choices, or any of that. For what it's worth, I noticed years ago that the really smart kids struggled in school. I have a few pet theories, mostly related to systemic disconnection in society (and here that circles back to churches - a good church design is a cross slice of society, not just 'the rich church', or 'the black church', etc). Individuals have a chance to shine brightly or be a dark spot against a statistical haze. It's always sad when someone really sets up a failure and pain pattern.