Well, it has been a while since I’ve written a letter to the editor…

Today’s letter is a short one because I actually hope it’ll get published. It is in regards to an opinion piece in the San Francisco Chroncle published on Tuesday by Peggy Drexler. She is current promoting her new book “Raising Boys Without Men : How Maverick Moms Are Creating the Next Generation of Exceptional Men”.

Before I get to the letter (in which I would make the following points if not constrained for space), let’s make sure we’re clear on exactly what she’s promoting. While she may soft-sell it in certain circles (like in the opinion piece in the Chron.) what she’s saying is not that single and lesbian mothers can raise good children, she’s saying that they do a BETTER job than a family with a father. The title isn’t “How Maverick Moms Are Raising Exceptional Men”. No it’s “How Maverick Moms Are Raising THE Next Generation of Exceptional Men”. It’s not even “A Generation”. It’s “THE Generation”. In other words, the children of fatherless families will be the best children in the future. She is effectively disgarding men as acceptable parents. I’m sure she’s a big fan of the research for conception without sperm, which I mentioned a few days ago, because that’s what she needs to fully accomplish her goal to get men out of the picture.

In any case, on to the letter:

I am writing in regards to Peggy Drexler’s recent Open Forum opinion piece titled “Changing Attitudes About Families”.

In her piece, she argues that “maverick moms”, or said differently fatherless families, are just as capable of raising children as traditional families. While she quotes numerous statistics, what she fails to do is quote any statistics to support her thesis.

Children from fatherless families are more likely to go to jail, drop out of school, become addicted to drugs, have a teen pregnancy and commit suicide, amongst other things. These results have been repeated over and over in studies from organizations as divergent as the Census Bureau and N.O.W.

She correctly states that “socioeconomic status is a stronger predictor of child welfare than almost any other index.” However, I don’t see why that means we should ignore all other indexes. I suspect being drunk is the strongest predictor of whether you’ll cause a fatal car accident. Does this mean we should stop being concerned with seatbelts?

Finally, the “research” that she performed fails every test of scientific accuracy. She uses metrics which are completely subjective in nature, doesn’t have a control group to compare her results against and uses a self selected sample set. Those are all completely unacceptable in scientific research and reflect the fact that she is more concerned with making unsupportable assertions that reflects her bias and lack of objectivity.

I urge the Chronicle to have higher standards for who you allow to publish in your newspaper.

Ken Crawford
Online reader in Roseville, CA

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 21st, 2005 at 8:13 am and is filed under Catholicism, Catholicism - Morals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.