A New "Just Say No"?

This link at Instapundit, in addition to Insty's commentary, was so good I'll just reproduce the whole thing here:

SINGLE-PARENT HOUSEHOLDS ARE STRESSFUL BUT ENTIRELY MANAGEABLE FOR THE UPPER CLASSES; LESS SO AS YOU MOVE DOWN THE SOCIOECONOMIC LADDER. The Bleak Reality of Single Parent Households.

A new policy brief derived from The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Survey of American Family Finances and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics shows exactly how much family really matters when it comes to helping kids out with important life events and transitions on the financial side. There’s really no surprise there.

But some of the detailed findings on the trouble single mother families face make for some bleak reading. . . .

A read through the whole report points to the unavoidable conclusion that a major goal of social policy has to be the formation of two-parent households.

This shouldn’t involve—as the occasional dorky pastor type or culture warrior might imagine—giving chastity and abstinence lessons to teens. Such lessons aren’t a bad thing necessarily; it’s just that over the centuries this kind of influence appears to be, well, limited.

And on the other side of the divide, this isn’t about birth control either. Short of lacing the tapwater with birth control drugs, we aren’t going to get anywhere on the single parent problem by focusing on this end of the equation.

In fact, as birth control (and abortion) became more available, the numbers of single parent households has more than doubled—from the sixties with the pill on up through Roe v. Wade in the 1970s. Availability of birth control to women who want or need it is important for other reasons, but an increase in birth control availability isn’t associated with any kind of decline in the illegitimacy rate.

The solution, naturally, is to put pressure on young men. Isn’t it always? But given men’s entire lack of reproductive rights in today’s America, why should they be targeted for increased responsibility? Maybe we should look at Sweden.

As for “over the centuries” — actually, when the “dorky pastor types” held sway, illegitimacy rates were much lower. Shaming works to control behavior, and lefties know it — just announce you don’t recycle at a faculty cocktail party if you don’t believe me. Lefties don’t mind shame as a tool for behavior control. They just oppose shaming when it’s not in support of their favored policies.