Not a true Christian: Debate Christianity and Religion's role in Politics

As a former teacher, this is misleading, and in someways, false. If I'm recalling this correctly, the research on this started significantly back in the 1980s, when there was a notable uptick in White, female, middle-class single-parent households. But the research had a significant bias in that it was both sexist (looking primarily at females), but also racist, for obvious reasons. What the research did was compare nuclear families to non-nuclear families, and when there was a breakdown in the nuclear family, it was looked at as a failure. Thus, the research disfavored single, Black and Latina single-parent households more than White.

What that early research missed, and what the myth missed, is that it takes a community to raise a child. Literally. Personally, I fit in a few categories here, so I'll use myself as an example. First, while I didn't have any family geographically close, every year growing up we gathered to some greater or lesser quantity twice a year. But my family is educated, and in some greater degree it is well educated. Prior to graduating high school, of 9 adults I had regular contact with, all of them had a Bachelor's, three had Master's, one had a law degree, and one was an MD. I should also note that of the 4 women, including my grandmother, by the time I graduated high school, the three Master's degrees were among the 4 women (my grandmother had a BS). So the conversation surrounding education was spoken in terms of assuming I would get a Bachelor's, at the least. There was no "if;" it was "What will you study?"

In teaching, I would talk about this with my students, keeping in mind that I taught in poor, urban schools. A significant number came from single parent homes, primarily single women. This was for various reasons, but I'll touch on that in a moment. What very few of them had was not just a family that lacked education, but a community as well. In my community, it was the same as my family - "What do you plan to study in college?" It was assumed. But my students, often, had a community that wanted them to simply graduate from high school. I was often the odd person, one of a couple, promoting post-high school education/training. And those who were going to college already had that community around them - family, parental friends, neighbors, where they worked, people in church, etc. It was the entire environment, and when relayed to me, again, it was not "if," but "What will you study?"

So as a teacher, I understood the limits of the research, and I also understood the uproar when BLM put on their website steps on how to get poor, Black students to be successful. There had become research by then (~2014/15) indicating the need for a community, and knowing that many Black students (specifically) grew up in a single parent (usually female) households, it was necessary for the community to look after the kids, and help them grow. This was because of the incarceration rate for Black males, or drug abuse, or just poverty in general. It was necessary to have that community, in some cases for literal survival, not just academic or emotional.

But getting back to the research, it still does not address this dynamic well enough. In my case, I might have had the expectation that I will get my BS, or beyond, but I had a dysfunctional home life, and neither of my parents gave me enough active support to do as well as I should have. In reality, I should have graduated with a near 4.0 (I struggled in math), but ended up with a low 3.something. And, in fact, the only thing that kept me in high school (as opposed to getting my GED), was sports. Much of the research still does not address these issues as it is a continued function of looking at the nuclear family, ignoring other aspects. So, obviously, I would be deemed a success in the research because I A) graduated high school; and B) eventually went on to get my Master's. Yet, I had a community around me, and additional motivation, to graduate HS. Had I not had my family expectations, nor the community as a whole (the conversation with peers at school* was the same as with my family), I would have been deemed a failure. And, the reality is that for my senior year, I was in a White, single-parent, female household.

But I graduated from college with a Master's because of my community, which included my extended family. And those who I know who were poor and in single-parent households (again, usually female) who graduated college with a BS/BA, all had community support beyond their extended family. And the research, as limited as it is, shows this to be necessary.

A side bar - One of the issues with poor students who graduate high school from attending college is the complicated application for financial aid. Poor students often don't have a parent(s) who has enough knowledge or experience in filling out that form, thus they never enroll. This is often not understood by the myth of looking specifically at single parent v. nuclear family households.

* - Often peers of the students I had, spoke in related terms. Those who had college assured, spoke in confident terms ("I will be studying [subject]."). But most were happy to graduate from high school, and spoke in those terms, confidently, and used more theoretical terms if speaking of attending or graduating college.

 

Also wealth is the problem. If you are poor and can't afford to move out, you all live together and raising the kids takes care of itself.

 

This is also a myth. What matters is not the biological parents, but the parents who have an impact on the kids. It is also biased (and in some ways racist) to use the term "biological" against poor people.

btw, for all the anecdotal evidence I gave, it is all research based.

This issue is more the stability of the household. I like to use Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in this regard, in that poor households, regardless of marital/living status, tend to not be able to provide the basic psychological needs of the kids in the households, which, in turn, provides a less successful outcome for the students in school, which leads to a potential life long issue. Think about a poor household that lives month to month (to be generous, rather than saying week to week), and all that it does entail and could entail.

 

I do know what you are saying, and I'm using education to explain how the need of a two parent household is a myth (and to keep it on topic, a heterosexual two parent household as promoted by Christianity @Sounders78 please correct me if I'm wrong). As both me and @rslfanboy have said, it is the community (beyond the family).

I don't disagree with this, and if I was not clear on that I apologize. What I am saying is augmenting that in saying that raising a child without a community (family or beyond) is necessary.

I have an Ecuadorian friend whose parents split before her senior year of high school. Her option was to leave her current school (and very good, private school) and go to a public school in another country (with her parents), or to go work that summer to pay her school, and live with her "second mother." IOW, she had a community (she got some support from her friends' parents as well). She is where she is today, because she had a community beyond family. So, I understand the point about family, but the research I am talking about uses the term "community" which is beyond just family.

But, I will also say that your culture, and you identify it (Bolivian) is different than the culture here. You can say that Bolivia handles that better, but I could also turn around the look something like the poverty rates of the two countries. I'm not saying that the US is better or worse, or that Bolivia is better or worse by saying that. I'm saying there are cultural differences and by using a similar metric between two cultures does not show valuable quantitative qualitative comparison.

But, what I am saying is your declaration that having a single parent household is definitively worse for the child is not necessarily true. That, as research has shown, is a myth (and we've discussed this in this corner of BS multiple times before, in at least the racism thread and the education thread). I'll come back with some documentation if you wish.

There are many kinds of families which do not involve the biological parents. So, yes, this.

 

What do you mean by "deficit?" What problem are you saying exists because the US has higher single parent households?

 

Regarding Christian Nationalism, White Christian Nationalism, and White Christian Heterosexual Supremacy, found this interesting. This is an interview with a guy, Brad Onishi, who grew up in Orange County, CA, and became an evangelical in his teenage years. But he also has an interesting view on this, not only because he left evangelicalism, but also because he is half Japanese. His story, rather than being about Falwell or Robertson or the South, is from the perspective of Orange County, CA, where he grew up.

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-lawfare-podcast-preparing-for-war-with-bradley-onishi



Lots of interesting points, and here are a few points I took from it.
In the American use of Christian Nationalism, there is really no difference between Christian Nationalism and White Christian Heterosexual Supremacy.*
While they have existed from at least the 1920s in relative form, the 1960s were traumatic as it blew up the concept of "family values."**
He found it hypocritical that Reagan, as a man who was twice married, had poor relations with his kids, found religion later in life, was selected over Carter, who was the ideal (small town farmer, married his high school sweetheart, never left home without his bible, and returned home when his dad could not longer manage the farm).***
They (Christian Nationalists) will accept a dictatorship if the country returns to "traditional values."

* - I will continue to use White Christian Heterosexual Supremacy to be explicit in concept.
** - He implied that the term "family values" was hate speech.

*** - This idea - that Reagan was chosen over Carter by the evangelicals for the reasons stated, got me thinking why that was. And looking back and why Trump has been selected, and all of the other evangelical preachers who have done shitty things and been forgiven, makes me think that they are latching on to somebody who fits their own view themselves - a flawed individual. This is in the context of Christian Nationalism. Wouldn't one choose somebody like Carter who is the ideal to be? Or even Biden, who has overcome the loss of his son? No, those two people are too perfect, not flawed, and therefore, not acceptable. So rather than looking at Biden as actually corrupt, what I see the Christian Nationalists doing with the impeachment is showing how Biden is not flawed, and therefor has is nothing to forgive. (On top of the other lack of "traditional family values" stuff.)

I also learned about the Appeal to Heaven (Pine Tree) flag.


This is a flag indicating that the Christian God is the one from whom to take direction over an above any man-made set of rules and laws. And Speaker Johnson has that flag outside his office.