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Comment by kibwen | Hacker News Reader

I find the argument here to be so incomplete that it verges on silly. Raising a child is difficult, and nobody goes into it wanting to go it alone. The question is not "is single parenthood bad", it's "is single parenthood worse than the alternative of forcing parents to stay together despite a toxic, loveless, or unfaithful marriage".

Of course, ideally, people just shouldn't be having kids if they're not absolutely sure that they want to be raising children. The best salve we have for the overall problem is access to birth control.

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> nobody goes into it wanting to go it alone

I think this is missing the point of the controversy. The argument at the time was that it was fine for women to chose to have a child without being married. It was not about "couples should stay together for the sake of the children".

The whole point of the TV show was "Murphy Brown was divorced, and then she decided it was fine to have a child." That is, if a single women wanted to have a child, she should. There was no need for her to first establish a working marriage first.

> The whole point of the TV show was "Murphy Brown was divorced, and then she decided it was fine to have a child."

Here's how the Wikipedia plot synopsis describes it: "In the show's 1991–92 season, Murphy became pregnant. When her baby's father (ex-husband and current underground radical Jake Lowenstein) expressed his unwillingness to give up his own lifestyle to be a parent, Murphy chose to have the child and raise it alone." If you were to see a real-life woman in the same circumstance, what would you advise that she do instead? And why are we blaming the mother for the problem of deadbeat fathers?

> than the alternative of forcing parents to stay together despite a toxic, loveless, or unfaithful marriage

So is the implication that the US has much higher rates of those marriages? If so, why? Look for the root cause.

> is the implication that the US has much higher rates of

The strict implication is that the US has higher rates of people leaving relationships that result in children.

Perhaps:

* Marriage rates are lower, with more children out of wedlock, AND|OR

* US citizens are more prone to leave a bad relationship, whereas other places see more people staying despite a bad relationship, AND|OR

* US early relationships have a higher rate of one spouse being incarcerated than other countries, AND|OR

* { etc. ponder longer and add more reasons }

Things are rarely as simple as the first thought that occurs.

It’s funny that more birth control is still touted as a possible solution when it has never been more available and the situation has never been worse.

Worse for whom, precisely? You have not presented any argument that the current state of affairs is worse for anyone at all.

It has been more available. Are you aware a mother just went to prison for procuring her daughter birth control?

Aggregate statistics might be more illuminating than anecdotes.

Birth control is currently under attack in the USA. This makes it less accessible to the public.

You stated that birth control is more available now than ever. Aggregate statistics might be more illuminating than not even an anecdote. I’d like to see a source that shows more birth control access in America than there was several years ago.

Worse for whom? And “love” isn’t even required for marriage. Love marriages are a relatively new innovation.

Worse for everyone involved. Adults in bad marriages do not make for good parents. Children exposed to abusive marriages are predisposed to considering abusive marriages normal, therefore perpetuating the cycle.

And the implication that "love" isn't desirable in a marriage because it's a modern idea is laughable. Child mortality rates less than 80% are a relatively new innovation; shall we get rid of those too? Loving marriages are a good thing. But by all means, if you want to spend the rest of your life co-habitating with someone you loathe, by my guest.

>> Adults in bad marriages do not make for good parents. Children exposed to abusive marriages are predisposed to considering abusive marriages normal, therefore perpetuating the cycle.

Do you believe majority of bad marriages are abusive?

> Worse for everyone involved. Adults in bad marriages do not make for good parents.

Statistics show that neither do divorces and single parents.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/ (“The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage.”).

> Children exposed to abusive marriages are predisposed to considering abusive marriages normal, therefore perpetuating the cycle.

Abuse used to be a ground for divorce prior to modern no-fault divorce.

> And the implication that "love" isn't desirable in a marriage because it's a modern idea is laughable.

Obviously it’s desirable. But if you take a shot at your love marriage, and then you “fall out of love,” should you be able to inflict the financial and emotional damage of divorce on your kids?

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