Glenn Grothman: still wrong on single parent families and abuse.

Our Glenn continues to get press, this time in the National Law Journal.  Of course, they were able to figure out that it's poverty, not having a single parent, that accounts for the increase in child abuse -- the very poverty Senator Grothman's political views help to create.

Blame poverty, not parents

A Wisconsin state senator is only the latest public official to attack single mothers. (Remember former Vice President Dan Quayle's attack on the fictional television character Murphy Brown for being a single mother, thus contributing to a "poverty of values"?) Glenn Grothman sought to pass legislation emphasizing "nonmarital parenthood" as a cause of abuse and neglect. His proposed bill would have required public education about this point and highlight the role of fathers in preventing abuse. (The bill failed to pass this legislative session, but the state senator remains committed to getting his message out.) Grothman, himself unmarried and childless, sees this measure as necessary because people "make fun of old-fashioned families." 

He couldn't be more wrong. The idealized "Leave it to Beaver" family is hardly the object of scorn. Even more, it never reflected the reality of many households in America. Now it does so even less — there are 13.7 million single parent homes nationwide, including 26 percent of all children. Five times as many mothers as fathers are single parents. And at least 4 percent of children live with two unmarried parents.