Quote:
Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby
Only if your parents were fortunate enough to have been born white, had both parents married to each other and living at home with each other, and of /enough/ means that your mother could stay home and not have to work for a living.
If you were black, or your mother had to work for a living, or was a single parent, then no - it wasn't "wonderful years" for many reasons.
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The mothers of some of my close friends also worked. Some mothers had to as they had lost their husbands in the war. Some classmates had mothers who were physicians, nurses, teachers, worked at or managed retail stores and restaurants, you name it. My mother was a teacher but my parents elected to live on less income so she could stay home and take care of my brother and me. We squeaked by. My father worked long hours on commission in retail yet earned little. Several of the children in my class were fatherless, not because they were illegitimate but because their fathers had been killed in combat.
From what I have read illegitimacy has a lot to do with childhood poverty, regardless of race or ethnicity. Children in groups having the highest illegitimacy rates suffer the highest poverty rates. The percentage of children raised in traditional two parent nuclear family units since the 1950s has diminished over the years. IMHO this has created many of the problems we now experience such as higher and higher rates of crime, poor schools and substance abuse.