Single parent Moms............................It breeds poverty and crime......
Johnson: The moral crisis of unwed motherhood
By Greg Johnson
Friday, April 17, 2009
Knoxville News
The statistics are stunning. At least they should be. In 2007, 43 percent of children born in Tennessee were born to unwed mothers.
In Knox County, 35 percent of births were to single moms. That's up from 17 percent in 1980. The situation is worse in Tennessee's other major metropolitan areas. Hamilton County saw 46 percent of births to unwed mothers, up from 23 percent in 1980. In Davidson County, the number of out-of-wedlock births went from 24 percent in 1980 to 46 percent in 2007. Shelby County had the highest rate of single motherhood - 59 percent of births compared to 35 percent in 1980.
Though the crisis cuts across racial and geographic lines, unwed pregnancy is much more pronounced in the black community. Some 77 percent of black children born in 2007 in Tennessee left the hospital with their single mom. About 34 percent of white kids were born out of wedlock.