Interesting tidbit I heard on NPR (race content!)

[aborgman]

Thoughts?

During the days of slavery a black child was more likely to grow up living with both parents than he or she is today.

Andrew J. Cherlin, Marriage, Divorce, Remarriage, rev. and enl. ed., (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), 110 . See also Herbert G. Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925 (New York: Pantheon, 1976).

 

[CrispyDelicious]

 

[Kwesi]

Again how? This is quite a different topic than any other race thread before it.

I don't really have much input related to the topic but I'm definitely interested in seeing others interpretations.

 

[DaveDeVille]

... uhmmm , maybe it was because a child born into slavery was also considered a slave ,
and not allowed to move off plantation ?

i dunno ..

 

[aborgman]

... uhmmm , maybe it was because a child born into slavery was also considered a slave ,
and not allowed to move off plantation ?

i dunno ..

Yes, but slave families were also regularly split up for sale also.

During the decades before the Civil War, most slaves lived in nuclear households consisting of two parents and their children. In 1850, approximately 64 percent of all slaves lived in two parent families and 25 percent in single-parent families. Another 10 percent lived outside of a family unit, either alone or with others of the same sex. Family breakup, however, was apparently very common. Although many lasted twenty years or more, slave marriages were very vulnerable to breakup by sale. Interviews with former slaves indicate that one-third of all single-parent households were the result of the sale of a husband or wife. Even when marriages were not broken by sale, slave husbands and wives often resided on separate farms or plantations and were owned by different individuals. On large plantations one man in three had a different owner than his wife and could visit his family only at his master's discretion. On smaller holdings, divided ownership was even more common.

 

[pacojas]

choices are the issue

 

[chi-town_mike]

Same for white peeps too. It's called divorce or the divorce rate.

More disturbing, 30% of US children will be homeless in a few years. Recession doesn't care about race.

 

[aborgman]

Same for white peeps too. It's called divorce or the divorce rate.

Actually it's just plain "out of wedlock" generally.

...and yes, it's very high (in the US) for every race. The USA has an abominable record when it comes to teen pregnancies, out of wedlock pregnancies, and unintended pregnancies.

. . . black children are about half as likely as white children to be living with both parents or with one parent and a stepparent (41 percent versus 81 percent) they are about eight times more likely to be living with a never-married parent (31 percent versus 4 percent); and they are more than half again as likely to be living with a separated or divorced parent (25 percent versus 14 percent).

 

[chi-town_mike]

Yeah it's pretty ****ed up.