Quit School, Knock Up Your Girlfriend and Enjoy Being Poor

“Countless studies have shown that children raised in a two-parent family are less likely to be raised in poverty, less likely to do drugs, less likely to be criminals later in life, and more likely to graduate from and do well in school. Married people tend to take care of themselves better and live longer. They typically eat better, have more settled lives with less stress and fewer risky habits, monitor each other’s health, and are quicker to seek medical attention for problems that arise. Married people, particularly those with children, seem to be motivated to save and invest more for the future and to live longer to enjoy their savings and their children’s future. Out-of-wedlock births increase the national incidence of: lowered health for newborns; retarded cognitive, and especially verbal, development of young children; lowered educational achievement; lowered job attainment as young adults; increased behavioral problems; lowered impulse control (aggression and sexual behavior); and increased anti-social development. It’s been said you need only do three things in this country to avoid poverty: finish high school, marry before having a child and marry after the age of 20. Among those who follow such advice, only 8% are poor, while 79% of those who do not are poor. The consequences of this trend are crime rates higher than they should be, graduation rates lower than they should be and a treasury depleted in the name of trying to solve both problems by throwing more money at them. No culture can remain healthy with illegitimacy rates like these. And it is simply impossible to understate the socially catastrophic consequences of America’s crisis of illegitimacy. The family is still the best department of health, education and welfare ever invented.” —Investor’s Business Daily