-This post is dedicated to the actual families talked about in it.
There are 2 families. They are related. One is composed thusly: One single mother (G.E.D), three children (all under age 12, all being raised by their grandma), 2 baby daddies (one dead, murdered I believe, the other AWOL somewhere, probably in prison for drugs), and all living in relative poverty in the’hood.
The other family: 2 parents (both college educated, father with a business and former successful career, mother retired), 3 children (one graduated, one in college, one who is ex-military), and 1 grandchild (out of wedlock, sadly, but taken care of nonetheless).
There are 2 families. They are related. One are composed thusly: One single mother (college educated I believe), 2 children (teenage girls), one fly-by-night boyfriend (who has had sex with both the underage children as well as the mother, but has a semi-stable job as of now), and unknown fathers of the two girls. I don’t know if this family has managed to find steady housing yet.
The other is composed thusly: One (college dropout, now married, but with 2 children from another relationship) mother, pregnant with at least one child, one soon-to-be father (currently unemployed, ex-Gangster Disciple member, who had one child, now deceased). The mother’s children are elementary school aged, currently living with the baby-daddy’s (sister or mother, I forget which, this stuff gets confusing). If I remember correctly, both the man and woman in this case are members of the same set of Gangster Disciples. They are currently living with the mother of the first family (with the statutory rapist boyfriend) in the same uncertain housing, as both women are sisters.
This is America, mahf*cka.
There are 2 mating strategies. One works in times of plenty, one in times of little. The first is thus: A female has as many children as she can by as many high-fitness, resourceful males as she can get to impregnate her. The children grow to sexual maturity quickly and receive little parental investment, as the mother is off doing whatever/whoever. Ideally, these children reach maturity as quickly as possible to reproduce as quickly as possible with as many fertile partners (for the male offspring) or resourceful partners (for the female offspring) as possible.
The second strategy: Humans pair bond and produce children within those bonds. Generally, only a few children are born, but they are invested in for years and trained in how to get resources and care for themselves, and they, ideally, find another human with whom to pair bond and start the cycle anew.
The first strategy mentioned is that of r selection, often compared with how rabbits breed. The second is K selection, often compared to how wolves breed. Note that the first strategy is about pure numbers. It works well when gathering resources is not an issue, predation is high (i.e. the offspring may not make it for long, so that breeding more of them increases survival chances of the species), and lifespans are short, so that long-term planning is not needed.
The second strategy, however, is more suited to harsher, more unforgiving environments, where resources are scarce, survival is also perilous, and the long-term must be considered. Also note that this method, though it takes more discipline to use properly, results in a much more safe and orderly society, and can work in times of plenty as well.
What you see in the ‘hood is an r-selection strategy. Single mothers are provided for by the welfare state, and thus free to reproduce early and often (sadly, sexual abuse of children is not uncommon) with the most alpha dog Gs she can get to (the gangsta, the killa, and the dope dealer, or maybe even the playa or the pimp). The children grow up with little parental investment (mommy is off hustling, scratching out a meager, state-funded existence, or banging yet another Crip or Blood somewhere), and often, especially for the males, end up dead before they exit their 20s. Side note: All those school and after-school programs you hear about in the inner city are more about replacing mom, ironically, and are a failed attempt to instill some level of parental investment. They’ll keep burning taxpayers’ money trying, though.
There are some stereotypes about Black folks and shortsightedness, and this explains some of them. If I am growing up in some South Side Chicago ghetto and I see a lot of my childhood friends end up dead or in jail by 18, I’m trying to live it up before then, so forget about education or job training or investments or any of that. I just wanna eat, sleep, f**k, and hustle, and pray I get another day to keep on, because who knows…I may be next. This is why if you ever talk to some older (i.e. 30 and above, but even as young as their late teens in some ‘hoods) Black people who went through that hell and made it out, you can learn a lot of dark, gritty, hard-earned wisdom that they don’t teach in school (for that matter, what do they teach in schools these days? It all sounds like so much bullsh*t to me…).
The K-selection strategy works well in hard times, when there is no social safety net to rely on. In that case, it is imperative that long-term decision-making come into play, as a bad earning season could mean starvation or bankruptcy or other nasty things. All of a sudden, the males must now take up the responsibilities of provision, so that they and the females can invest more into their offspring, who will in turn not only have their own families, but also care for them as they age (the real Social Security). For an example of who has this down to a science, see the Asian-American community (seriously, those guys thrive out in the West).
In America, we have a paradoxical poverty yet a wealth that we are squandering. Our society is simply too soft, fat, and…well, not really happy, but complacent. Want to shake things up? You Christians want to see fatherhood come back? Tired of insane taxes being wasted by Uncle Sam’s crooked, incompetent a**? Then create some scarcity: Shrink government, cut, no, eviscerate entitlement programs (HUD, Medicare, Medicaid, WIC, TANF, the CDC, the EPA, CHIP, Social Security, Affirmative Action, and many more aren’t needed if men are instead allowed to produce and handle these areas free of stupid and overbearing regulation), and let human nature’s good side free just a little bit. By the way, you may also have to cut some politicians’ and corporate executives’ throats to do this…
Will some single mothers starve? Yup. Will a lot of people lose their jobs? Oh yeah (goodbye, public sector unions!). Will it make a lot of things a lot better in the long run? You bet your a** it will! Think of it as a small short term sacrifice for a much larger future dividend. Also, we should kick out all the current politicians in the Presidency, House, Senate, and Supreme Court, and disband the Democratic and Republican parties while we’re at it. The media would, doubtless, simply implode faster as we did it.
This should be America, mahf*cka!
HOLY HELLFIRE 