The Daddy-go-round

A liberal researcher is surprised that many low-income "deadbeat" dads who supposedly abandoned their families were, in fact, jettisoned by the mothers of their children:

Edin explains that the pregnancies she studied very often were due to the decision by the mother to forgo birth control without the knowledge of the father, because motherhood will gain her status:

    Pretty soon, the women are skipping doses of the pill or letting the patch or other forms of contraception lapse. Why? In these communities, motherhood often exerts a strong pull on young women’s hearts and minds and weakens their motivation to avoid pregnancy. Being a mom serves as the chief source of meaning and identity in neighborhoods where significant upward mobility is rare.

Then once the baby is born, the mothers have strong incentives to eject the father from the family, replacing him with what ultimately turns into a parade of men:

    When a single mom in the inner city feels her kid’s father has failed to provide, there is an enormous temptation to “swap daddies,” pushing the child’s dad aside while allowing a new man—perhaps one with a little more going for him economically—to claim the title of father. These moms are often desperate to find a man who can help with the bills so they can keep a roof over their kid’s head. The problem is that these new relationships may be no more stable than the old ones.

    When a mom moves from one relationship to another—playing gatekeeper with the biological father while putting her new boyfriend into the dad’s role—she puts her kids on a “father-go-round.”

Notice that even in the Age of the Strong, Independent Woman Who Don't Need No Man, in which low-income mothers are supported by the state, hypergamy rears its insatiable head.

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