Ok, given what you said - tell me.. Who is encouraging women to have a baby without visible means of support?

Who's out there saying "do this!"?

I would counter that it is actually MEN who are abdicating THEIR responsibilities and there's a vaccuum in the place of whomever or whatever should be encoraging or forcing men to live up to their responsibilities.

Now, what's caused that? I don't know if there's any SINGLE cause. Who knows? Maybe men got caught up in the "women's lib" movement and figured they could be 'more' independant too. But we all know that minorities are disproportionately represented when it comes to single parenthood.

At least welfare reform helped curb some of the generational abuses (like the Ventura case in Boston with over 100 family members in 4 generations all on the dole).