Stop the Bush 100 million dollar marriage initiative

OH EVOLVE @ InsanityHouse.com
Tere Speaks

On February 19th, 2002, this article from the NY Times fell into my computer
space. I read with disbelief how the Bush administration wants not only to
promote marriage but also to spend $100 million dollars in the effort. Its
now late March and I cant seem to stop chewing on this article while
simultaneously blowing multiple colors of smoke from my pours. If Dr. Horn
from the Bush administration were in my presence I would most probably drop
to all fours and growl and salivate at him.

So the Bush administration wants to promote marriage as a way of dealing
with the "poor" single parent women in this country. My immediate spurge is
that marriage is not benefiting the majority of women in this country
anymore. Wives have become regulated maids that work for little pay and
little respect. Just watch what happens to the majority of women in a
divorce situation. According to the National statistics on Marriage 7 out of
every 10 divorces are filled by women. This tells me that women are wanting
out. Of that 7, 70\% claim the number one reason is due to domestic abuse.
Domestic abuse is defined as any abuse, verbal, emotional, psychological, or
physical. And of that 70\%, 50\% of the children have been witness to
domestic abuse. We do know that the #1 cause for emotional, social and
behavioral problems with children is them being witness to domestic abuse.
Our country turns a blind eye to the nature of domestic abuse so the way I
see it is women are saying, "Ive had enough of you buddy, Im out of here".
Good for them.

If the Bush administration really wants to attend to the issues of
"poor" single parent women; there are many things that they could put that
$100 million dollars towards. The first is Child Support Enforcement.
According to the 2000 Child Support Report, 39 billion dollars is owed to 29
million children. One month late on child support can put a family into
financial distress, two months can send the family into chaos. Women
typically use child support to pay for childcare so they can go to work.
When it does not arrive, childcare is lost resulting from lost work and
time, which calculates into, lost wages. The domino effect works well in
this area. Most states require that the individual parent go without
receiving support for 3 months before they can even file. By this time the
familys boat is sunk. Insanity House Inc. (advocates for single parent and
non-traditional families) did an informal survey asking women who did not
receive support, their reasons for not filing. #1 reason was fear. These
are women who left their marriages due to their husbands negative treatment
of them and when they have attempted to collect they find themselves back
into a situation that makes them feel vulnerable and frightened. #2 reason
was that many families do shared custody. Good for them. These women
stated that when they attempted to ask for child support it made the shared
arrangement uncomfortable and difficult for their children. Treats of suing
for full custody emerged and the time spent with the childrens father was
stressful and difficult due to heated emotions. Third reason was that the
system is so difficult to maneuver, time consuming and costly that they
chose not to spend what little time and money they did had fighting a battle
that would leave them even more impoverished time and money wise.
The second way that the Bush administration can deal with the "poverty"
issue of single women with children is to equalize the pay scales between
men and women. (Wow, what a concept)
If single working mothers earned as much as comparable men, their
family incomes would increase by nearly 17\% and their poverty rates would be
cut in half, from 25.3\% to 12.6\%. (AFL-CIO, Institute for Womens Policy
Research) If married women were paid the same as comparable men, their
family incomes would rise by nearly 6\% and their familys poverty rates
would fall from 2.1\% to 0.8\%. (AFL-CIO, Institute for Womens Policy
Research)
Pay equity can be an effective anti-poverty strategy. Pay equity could
help workers become more self-sufficient and reduce their reliance on
government assistance programs. A study by the Feminist Majority says that
nearly 40\% of the working poor women could leave welfare programs if they
were to receive pay equity wage increases. One third to one half of the wage
difference between men and women cannot be explained by differences in
experience, education or other legitimate qualifications. (National Academy
of Sciences) Childless women currently earn 90\% of their male counterparts
salaries, while women who have kids earn only 73\%. (Working Mother, November
2000). 70\% of female executives think theyre paid as much as males; 78\% of
men agree. However, studies show that women in management get 62.7\% of what
male managers earn. (Gallup; American Management Association; Business and
Professional Womens Foundation; Working Mother, November 2000) Female
college graduates aged 25-36 earned 73\% of what their male peers earned in
1993. Controlling for age, degree level, field of study, and occupation,
about half of women earned only 87\% of what men earned in 1999.
(National Science Foundation)

And finally the third way is to increase the pay scales for the teaching and
helping professions. The majority of single parent women go into the helping
and teaching profession because they are child and community focused. These
fields require not only a BA, but for the majority and MA as well. The
teaching and helping professions simply do not pay what their educational
value requires. Could it be because women dominate the helping and teaching
professions? 56\% of Single parent women continue on with higher levels of
education over 46\% of their married women counterparts. They have to; they
have children to support. They also typically rely on Federal Student Loans
to help them finance their educational goals. After the degree has been
earned and they enter into the work force as a teacher, social worker,
therapist or nurse, what they find is that their salaries hardly cover the
monthly bills of child care, rent, utilities, food, auto and insurance much
less the re-payment of those student loans. And health insurance for the
majority is a dream in the clouds. Insanity House has created the Raise the Nation Foundation to address just such matters for single parent and non-traditional families and offers grants and scholarships for continuing education for this population as well as offering the only private fund for student loan re-payment. Contribution and application information is available at www.raisethenation.org starting April, 2002.

My final conclusion is simple. President Bush and your administration could
use $100 million dollars in much better efforts if your goal is to really
attend to the issue of poverty and single parent households headed by women.
There are approximately 12 million single parent households in this country
headed by women. You could take that $100 million and bring
every single parent woman household out of poverty. You could take every
student loan acquired by single parent women and forgive them of this debt.
You could put that $100 million into a scholarship fund for single parent
women to continue on with higher levels of education. You could put that $100
million in an emergency fund for women who are in financial crisis because they
fail to receive child support. All of these efforts would certainly help remove the poverty issues of single parent households headed by women. Perhaps President Bush and his administration is really far more interested in keeping women as second class citizens and dependent on a system that has not served or valued women for decades.
This countrys line item of marriage is not going to cut it. Ive been
there and done that. My position is a simple "No Thank You".


Tere McDowell is President of Insanity House, an organization dedicated to
empowering single parent and non-traditional families. Ms. McDowell is the
leading expert on single parent and non-traditional families and wants your
feedback about the Bush marriage initiative. Please send your comments to
[email protected]