The ’50s were the best

“There are lies, damned lies, and statistics” is the well-known saying. The editorial writer’s attempt to infer anything positive in comparing 1957’s “shocking” teen pregnancy rate of 96.3 per thousand compared with today’s 29.4 is gleeful but ignorant.

Growing up in Spokane in 1957, I can tell you that overwhelmingly all the dads were at work and all the moms were at home during the day, and at night each family ate dinner together and we were not in want. It was the best decade for American families, black and white, that ever was or probably ever will be again.

Almost all of those babies born to teenagers in 1957 were in the context of marriage. Those children grew up with their brothers and sisters in a home with their mom and dad married to each other.

It must be frustrating for progressives that in the wake of their efforts for society’s acceptance of birth control, abortion, no-fault divorce and the welfare state, four of 10 children are born today to unmarried mothers.

Or maybe it’s success if your goal all along was to tear down a man’s role and responsibility as the head of the family.

Paul Unger

Spokane