A disturbing story about subsidized single motherhood from the UK Daily Mail.

Excerpt:

A mother-of-ten who nets more than £30,000-a-year in benefits has begged for charity donations to help raise her brood – because her state ‘wage’ is not enough.

Moira Pearce, 34, has insisted her weekly government handout of £600 is insufficient to feed and clothe her children and she needs donations to survive.

The single mum – whose kids are fathered by four ex-partners – has insisted her range of child and family allowance benefits do not meet her weekly outgoings.

Her annual payments funded by the public purse work out at a staggering £31,200-a-year – or £3,120 per child.

Ms Pearce – who lives with unemployed ex-boyfriend Mark Austin, 19, seven daughters and three sons – now wants extra help to save her from going under.

Stephen Baskerville has noted some of the risks of this kind of arrangement in a Washington Times article.

Excerpt:

A British study found children are up to 33 times more likely to be abused when a live-in boyfriend or stepfather is present. “Contrary to public perception,” write Patrick Fagan and Dorothy Hanks, “research shows that the most likely physical abuser of a young child will be that child’s mother, not a male in the household.” Mothers accounted for 55% of child murders according to a 1994 Justice Department report (and fathers for a tiny percentage). As Maggie Gallagher writes in her 1996 book, “The Abolition of Marriage”: “The person most likely to abuse a child physically is a single mother. The person most likely to abuse a child sexually is the mother’s boyfriend or second husband. . . . Divorce, though usually portrayed as a protection against domestic violence, is far more frequently a contributing cause.” Adrienne Burgess, head of the British government’s Fathers Direct program, observes that “fathers have often played the protector role inside families.”

There was a time when society frowned on single motherhood and divorce – back when we put the needs of children over the happiness of adults. There was support available for those women who needed help from private charities, but the government didn’t get involved. Women chose to marry men who had moral character, so that they could teach their children right and wrong in these sexual matters. But then women began to prefer men who had less-defined ideas about religion and morality. Those men were “better” because they were more fun, and less judgmental. Somehow, women began to view men telling children about right and wrong as a bad thing. Setting up moral boundaries was no longer viewed as protective, but as incompatible with “liberty”.

Here is some research showing how single motherhood and divorce increases the frequency of child poverty and child abuse. Should we be subsidizing fatherlessness? The more we subsidize something, the more of it we will get. Do we want more of these things? Can we afford it? Is it what is best for innocent children?