"Two Classes, Divided by 'I Do'"

The NYT has a long article on two women, one a red-haired single mother with three children, who makes $12.35 an hour as a manager in a day care facility, the other her boss, who is married and reasonably comfortable.

After many hundreds of words, the article finally gets around to explaining something that's obvious from the pictures of the fair-skinned single mother's children:

Although she grew up in the 1990s, Ms. Schairer’s small-town childhood had a 1950s feel. Her father drove a beer truck, her mother served as church trustee and her grandparents lived next door. She knew no one rich, no one poor and no one raising children outside of marriage. “It was just the way it was,” she said. 

William Penn University, eight hours away in Iowa, offered a taste of independence and a spot on the basketball team. Her first thought when she got pregnant was “My mother’s going to kill me.” Abortion crossed her mind, but her boyfriend, an African-American student from Arkansas, said they should start a family. They agreed that marriage should wait until they could afford a big reception and a long gown. 

Their odds were not particularly good: nearly half the unmarried parents living together at a child’s birth split up within five years, according to Child Trends. 

Ms. Schairer has trouble explaining, even to herself, why she stayed so long with a man who she said earned little, berated her often and did no parenting. They lived with family (his and hers) and worked off and on while she hoped things would change. “I wanted him to love me,” she said. She was 25 when the breakup made it official: she was raising three children on her own.

As Dennis Dale once commented, Barack Obama slid through the rapidly closing Novelty Window. His parentage could be sold to a gullible public as representing Hope and Change. Here's the opening to his 2004 keynote address to the Democratic Convention, which set him on the road to the White House:

Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let's face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely. 

My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin- roof shack. His father, my grandfather, was a cook, a domestic servant to the British. 

OBAMA: But my grandfather had larger dreams for his son. Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place, America, that's shown as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before him. 

(APPLAUSE)
While studying here my father met my mother. She was born in a town on the other side of the world, in Kansas. 

(APPLAUSE)
Her father worked on oil rigs and farms through most of the Depression. The day after Pearl Harbor, my grandfather signed up for duty, joined Patton's army, marched across Europe. Back home my grandmother raised a baby and went to work on a bomber assembly line. After the war, they studied on the GI Bill, bought a house through FHA and later moved west, all the way to Hawaii, in search of opportunity. 

(APPLAUSE)
And they too had big dreams for their daughter, a common dream born of two continents. 

OBAMA: My parents shared not only an improbable love; they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or "blessed," believing that in a tolerant America, your name is no barrier to success. 

(APPLAUSE)
They imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren't rich, because in a generous America you don't have to be rich to achieve your potential. 

(APPLAUSE)
They're both passed away now. And yet I know that, on this night, they look down on me with great pride. 

And I stand here today grateful for the diversity of my heritage, aware that my parents' dreams live on in my two precious daughters. 

I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible. 

(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy; our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal... 

(APPLAUSE)
... that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." 

That is the true genius of America, a faith...

But now, kids with a struggling white mom and a black dad who isn't around are rapidly becoming just a depressing commonplace.

My old articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer