5 ms·

I'm going to repost a comment of mine from two years ago. This is not an unknown thing to school boards. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23012403 https:/

I'm going to repost a comment of mine from two years ago. This is not an unknown thing to school boards. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23012403 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23012403 The wife of one of my good friends was on the county school board for 12 years. According to her, it was an unspoken secret was that parental involvement was the biggest predictor of / contributor to student success. The reason it was taboo was because you absolutely cannot expect anything from the parents. It was political suicide. I would put dollars on the table that such is already happening for every parent that is willing and able to do it, because they were already doing it before too.

nemo44x 4y ago
The #1 factor in determining if a kid will have a desired outcome is if they have a mom and a dad present. It's really that simple. And that means parental involvement. It's sad one is labeled a racist or anti-feminist or w/e when you point this obvious fact out. ~70% of black kids are born to single mom's. That's a broken culture. White kids are at ~30% and rising and we see the same failure rates. That's a broken culture. Asian's have 2-parent families and have success. Even the lower class ones, suggesting income/class shouldn't be a factor in having kids with 2 parents. So of course the next step is to demonize the nuclear family. The trends keep getting worse.
- virgil_disgr4ce 4y ago
  What do you mean by "broken culture?"
  - nemo44x 4y ago
    That's it's considered acceptable for kids to be born into situations like this. This is "broken" because it reliably leads to failure and undesirable outcomes.
    - wbsss4412 4y ago
      You’re making a lot of strong assumptions when you say that it’s considered acceptable. I strongly doubt that it is normal for anyone to want to be a single parent (there are of course anecdotal exceptions to this, but not on a cultural level).
  - singlow 4y ago
    I think he means a culture that produces bad outcomes.
  - soderfoo 4y ago
    The most charitable interpretation of "broken culture" would be America, across all slices of society, has trended towards selfish shallow values, less intellectual interests and value on hard work, more aggression and an empathy defecit. I think this has frayed the fabric of society by damaging the reciprocity that binds families and communities, and encourages divisive and antisocial, short-term behaviors over long-term, collective decision-making. This varies across our rich tapestry of subcultures, but I see it everywhere. Especially among government and business leaders.
    - nemo44x 4y ago
      An analogy I heard is that there is no single American culture. Or even an "American Culture" at all, and that there probably shouldn't be one. And that various powers/forces/etc have tried to homogenize America into a shared American Culture which can't possibly exist. So, the analogy is America is like a soda machine that has many different flavors of soda and each of them is different and unique and loved by different people. Some flavors disgust some people too and they don't want it. However, we've decided to mix them all together anyways and no one actually likes that. So instead we'd be better off leaving each other alone, allowing different communities with different values to do things the way they want to and to rely less and less on Federal government oversight into social issues. Give more power to the states and in turn the states give more power to localities.
      - nverno 4y ago
        Wholeheartedly agree with your analogy. Americans share a federal political system, but not much of a collective culture, at least not too far beyond that shared by liberal societies around the world. It's one of the best thing about the states. You're 100% right that the Federal govt should step back to allow local government to handle issues differently. Local people care about local people and understand their needs/concerns.
- em-bee 4y ago
  but what to do about it? we can't just expect parents to get involved. nor does it help to just blame their kids performance on them. the focus really needs to be on a broader level. what changes to our society are needed so that families can thrive so that they can actually focus on the care of their kids? things like higher minimum wage, parental leave, easy access to insurance, etc. all the general needs everyone has. i believe what largely has gone wrong is the idea that in order for people to have a better life they need to start with better academic performance so they can get better jobs which ends in a better life. but it appears that academic performance is not the start of a better life, it is the outcome. That's a broken culture what part of the culture is broken? and who's culture? how about the broken american culture that doesn't provide adequate support and protection for parents? i don't think being a single parent is a problem in itself. it only raises the difficulty level. it would be less of an issue if parents had more rights against their employers that would allow them to care for their kids, or get enough financial support that they don't need to hold a fulltime job with hours that conflict with their kids schedule. or affordable childcare. there are so many things that could be done, but people just like to point at problems and not think about solutions.
  - nemo44x 4y ago
    So you're saying it's everything else that's wrong. Not that we accept single motherhood as normal and OK? That's what's wrong here. Rights without responsibility. Stop incentivizing single motherhood, for starters. Encourage men to stick around and for both parents to rely on each other. It feels like you're helping but you're not. You're encouraging futile behavior.
    - em-bee 4y ago
      that's not what i meant to say. what's wrong is that we keep trying to find out who or what is at fault instead of trying to find out how to actually make things better. the question is: how do you encourage men to stick around? what makes them leave? who or what is incentivizing single motherhood? if it is economical factors, then those factors need to change. those are what i gave as examples. what i hear is: being a single mother is bad. you shouldn't leave your family. don't do that. but that doesn't help. we need to get a better understanding of what causes families to break apart. we need to provide an environment that supports families. being a single parent is not a cause, it is an outcome. we need to fix the causes for that outcome, if we want to change that. encourage parents to rely on each other what is that supposed to mean? a cynical reading suggests that this means that if only parents would rely on each other they would not have any problems. how about the ability to rely on society? because that is what is lacking. parents are on their own. i don't know, but is that what incentivizes single mothers? because they can get more help that way? if that is the case, yes, that should change, but not by providing less help to single parents, but rather by providing more help to couples, so they can stay together.
- AftHurrahWinch 4y ago
  If there is a causal relationship between number of parents and children's erudition, then I think you've made a good argument for the nuclear family and a great argument for polygamy. :)
  - nemo44x 4y ago
    We do have a sort of polygamy but the fathers don't stick around! But it's not hard to see why so many cultures had (and still have) this type of arrangement where wealthy men that can support all these women and kids have many wives, average guys have 1, and the bottom of society has none as they can't support them anyways.
    - Dracophoenix 4y ago
      Poor men can have multiple girlfriends and one night stands as well. The vast majority of men thrown in jail for failure to pay child support have low paying jobs.
- curun1r 4y ago
  > It's sad one is labeled a racist or anti-feminist or w/e when you point this obvious fact out. ~70% of black kids are born to single mom's Where it ventures into racist territory is to present these statistics on their own absent the context of mass incarceration, over policing and manufactured black criminality that play such a large role in the disparity that you’re pointing out. To blame it on culture more so than a correlation with poverty and a cycle of incarceration feels awfully close to blaming black people for the systemic racism to which they’re subjected.
  - nemo44x 4y ago
    It’s not just a black issue. There’s a ton of white people this applies to. White people are at the same rate blacks were in the 60’s when the Moynihan Report came out. So the trajectory is the same. Society is far less racist than it was in the 1950’s. However the amount of fatherlessness has exploded. Same with for whites but it started at a different place.
  - mk81 4y ago

nemo44x 4y ago

The #1 factor in determining if a kid will have a desired outcome is if they have a mom and a dad present. It's really that simple. And that means parental involvement. It's sad one is labeled a racist or anti-feminist or w/e when you point this obvious fact out. ~70% of black kids are born to single mom's. That's a broken culture. White kids are at ~30% and rising and we see the same failure rates. That's a broken culture. Asian's have 2-parent families and have success. Even the lower class ones, suggesting income/class shouldn't be a factor in having kids with 2 parents. So of course the next step is to demonize the nuclear family. The trends keep getting worse.

virgil_disgr4ce 4y ago
What do you mean by "broken culture?"
- nemo44x 4y ago
  That's it's considered acceptable for kids to be born into situations like this. This is "broken" because it reliably leads to failure and undesirable outcomes.
  - wbsss4412 4y ago
    You’re making a lot of strong assumptions when you say that it’s considered acceptable. I strongly doubt that it is normal for anyone to want to be a single parent (there are of course anecdotal exceptions to this, but not on a cultural level).
- singlow 4y ago
  I think he means a culture that produces bad outcomes.
- soderfoo 4y ago
  The most charitable interpretation of "broken culture" would be America, across all slices of society, has trended towards selfish shallow values, less intellectual interests and value on hard work, more aggression and an empathy defecit. I think this has frayed the fabric of society by damaging the reciprocity that binds families and communities, and encourages divisive and antisocial, short-term behaviors over long-term, collective decision-making. This varies across our rich tapestry of subcultures, but I see it everywhere. Especially among government and business leaders.
  - nemo44x 4y ago
    An analogy I heard is that there is no single American culture. Or even an "American Culture" at all, and that there probably shouldn't be one. And that various powers/forces/etc have tried to homogenize America into a shared American Culture which can't possibly exist. So, the analogy is America is like a soda machine that has many different flavors of soda and each of them is different and unique and loved by different people. Some flavors disgust some people too and they don't want it. However, we've decided to mix them all together anyways and no one actually likes that. So instead we'd be better off leaving each other alone, allowing different communities with different values to do things the way they want to and to rely less and less on Federal government oversight into social issues. Give more power to the states and in turn the states give more power to localities.
    - nverno 4y ago
      Wholeheartedly agree with your analogy. Americans share a federal political system, but not much of a collective culture, at least not too far beyond that shared by liberal societies around the world. It's one of the best thing about the states. You're 100% right that the Federal govt should step back to allow local government to handle issues differently. Local people care about local people and understand their needs/concerns.
em-bee 4y ago
but what to do about it? we can't just expect parents to get involved. nor does it help to just blame their kids performance on them. the focus really needs to be on a broader level. what changes to our society are needed so that families can thrive so that they can actually focus on the care of their kids? things like higher minimum wage, parental leave, easy access to insurance, etc. all the general needs everyone has. i believe what largely has gone wrong is the idea that in order for people to have a better life they need to start with better academic performance so they can get better jobs which ends in a better life. but it appears that academic performance is not the start of a better life, it is the outcome. That's a broken culture what part of the culture is broken? and who's culture? how about the broken american culture that doesn't provide adequate support and protection for parents? i don't think being a single parent is a problem in itself. it only raises the difficulty level. it would be less of an issue if parents had more rights against their employers that would allow them to care for their kids, or get enough financial support that they don't need to hold a fulltime job with hours that conflict with their kids schedule. or affordable childcare. there are so many things that could be done, but people just like to point at problems and not think about solutions.
- nemo44x 4y ago
  So you're saying it's everything else that's wrong. Not that we accept single motherhood as normal and OK? That's what's wrong here. Rights without responsibility. Stop incentivizing single motherhood, for starters. Encourage men to stick around and for both parents to rely on each other. It feels like you're helping but you're not. You're encouraging futile behavior.
  - em-bee 4y ago
    that's not what i meant to say. what's wrong is that we keep trying to find out who or what is at fault instead of trying to find out how to actually make things better. the question is: how do you encourage men to stick around? what makes them leave? who or what is incentivizing single motherhood? if it is economical factors, then those factors need to change. those are what i gave as examples. what i hear is: being a single mother is bad. you shouldn't leave your family. don't do that. but that doesn't help. we need to get a better understanding of what causes families to break apart. we need to provide an environment that supports families. being a single parent is not a cause, it is an outcome. we need to fix the causes for that outcome, if we want to change that. encourage parents to rely on each other what is that supposed to mean? a cynical reading suggests that this means that if only parents would rely on each other they would not have any problems. how about the ability to rely on society? because that is what is lacking. parents are on their own. i don't know, but is that what incentivizes single mothers? because they can get more help that way? if that is the case, yes, that should change, but not by providing less help to single parents, but rather by providing more help to couples, so they can stay together.
AftHurrahWinch 4y ago
If there is a causal relationship between number of parents and children's erudition, then I think you've made a good argument for the nuclear family and a great argument for polygamy. :)
- nemo44x 4y ago
  We do have a sort of polygamy but the fathers don't stick around! But it's not hard to see why so many cultures had (and still have) this type of arrangement where wealthy men that can support all these women and kids have many wives, average guys have 1, and the bottom of society has none as they can't support them anyways.
  - Dracophoenix 4y ago
    Poor men can have multiple girlfriends and one night stands as well. The vast majority of men thrown in jail for failure to pay child support have low paying jobs.
curun1r 4y ago
> It's sad one is labeled a racist or anti-feminist or w/e when you point this obvious fact out. ~70% of black kids are born to single mom's Where it ventures into racist territory is to present these statistics on their own absent the context of mass incarceration, over policing and manufactured black criminality that play such a large role in the disparity that you’re pointing out. To blame it on culture more so than a correlation with poverty and a cycle of incarceration feels awfully close to blaming black people for the systemic racism to which they’re subjected.
- nemo44x 4y ago
  It’s not just a black issue. There’s a ton of white people this applies to. White people are at the same rate blacks were in the 60’s when the Moynihan Report came out. So the trajectory is the same. Society is far less racist than it was in the 1950’s. However the amount of fatherlessness has exploded. Same with for whites but it started at a different place.
- mk81 4y ago