Nov. 23, 2009 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Negotiating nuisances JWisdom.com: Actually, it really is all about you with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff Nov. 20, 2009 Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry Nov. 19, 2009 Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes) Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics Nov. 18, 2009 Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes) Nov. 17, 2009 Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations? JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung Nov. 16, 2009 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes) Nov. 13, 2009 JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes) Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity Nov. 12, 2009 The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes) Nov. 11, 2009 Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes) Nov. 10, 2009 Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes) Nov. 9, 2009 Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes) Nov. 6, 2009 Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes) Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man Nov. 5, 2009 The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes) Nov. 4, 2009 Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered? JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes) Nov. 3, 2009 Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes) Nov. 2, 2009 Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes) Oct. 29, 2003 Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Oct. 12, 2007 / 30 Tishrei 5768 Family-unfriendly policies By Mort Zuckerman http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | You will hear a lot about the American family in the election campaign. For most of us, that calls up an image of a man and wife and two or three children. Forget it. Predominant as the social pattern for several hundred years, that American family has lost its place. Households of unmarried couples and households without children outnumber "American family" households. And only about 20 percent of families fit into the traditional structure with father as the only breadwinner. Here is what has been happening: In the 1950s, 80 percent of adults were married; today, roughly 50 percent are. Why? Partly because people are delaying marriage, with the median age for a first marriage rising by four years for men and about five years for women. Second, divorce rates have more than doubled since the 1960s as marriage evolved from a sacrament to a contract. Third, millions more cohabit before marriage. Fourth, births to unmarried mothers, white and black, have risen from 5 percent in 1960 to about 35 percent today. So the new American family is a household with fewer children, with both parents working, and with mothers giving birth to their children at an ever older age, having fewer children, and spacing them further apart. This is not good news. Twice as many married people indicate they are very happy as compared with those who aren't married. But it is the children who are most affected. The stable family of two biological parents — surprise, surprise! — turns out to be the ideal vessel for molding character, for nurturing, for inculcating values, and for planning for a child's future. By comparison, the children of single parents or broken families do worse at school and in their career. Marriage, or the lack of it, is the best single predictor of poverty, greater even than race or unemployment. The result is a serious new divide in our society between the children of poorer, less educated, single parents and those of richer, better educated, and married parents. The married parents typically earn more than $75,000; in only 20 percent of cases do married parents with children earn less than $15,000. The startling increase of those who grow up with only one parent has markedly added to poverty among children, shifting poverty from the old to the young. Children in mother-only families are more likely than those with two parents to be suspended from school, to have emotional problems, to become delinquent, to suffer from abuse, to take drugs, and to perform poorly on virtually every measure. Working moms. The culture has also changed. Once, about 40 percent thought that a wife should help her husband's career rather than have one of her own. Now, 81 percent think she should have her own career, and 70 percent think that both husband and wife should earn money. Parental time with children has dropped from about 30 hours a week to around 17 — yet 70 percent believe that children are not affected negatively by having a working mother unless they are under school age. Moreover, the vast majority of working mothers now say that even if the family did not need the income, they would continue working. So a big question for everyone is how to reform Social Security and welfare so as to nourish marriage and raise the proportion of children who grow up in two-parent families. We should worry about a welfare system that pays unmarried mothers enough to have their own apartments and has led some to prefer babies to husbands. Research indicates that a 10 percent growth in welfare benefits increases by 12 percent the chances that a poor young woman will have a baby out of wedlock before the age of 22. This has been true for both whites and blacks. This is one reason that, even after a significant reform of the welfare system, the single welfare mother has become the public symbol of much of what is wrong with America's social service programs. We must find ways to educate people to understand that it is a good idea to be married before having children. Federal aid should give incentives for couples to form and sustain healthy marriages, not encouragement for single parenthood and nonmarital birth. Social service benefits that phase out fairly quickly after marriage, for example, can actually create a marriage penalty. Nor should the tax code penalize couples who marry. This dramatic shift from traditional to contemporary family structures and values is unlikely to change. But the bulk of the nation's most intractable social problems would benefit from tempering that trend by nurturing the American family. Public policy should not contribute to an a la carte menu of sex, love, and childbearing. It should emphasize the benefits for all from the package deal of marriage. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. JWR contributor Mort Zuckerman is editor-in-chief and publisher of U.S. News and World Report. Send your comments to him by clicking here. ARCHIVES © 2005, Mortimer Zuckerman

Arnold Ahlert  Mitch Albom  Michael Barone   Dave Barry  Tony Blankley  Andy Borowitz  David Broder  Stratfor Briefing  Mona Charen  Linda Chavez  Ann Coulter  Greg Crosby  Larry Elder  Suzanne Fields  John Fund  Frank J. Gaffney  Lloyd Garver  Jonah Goldberg  Julia Gorin  Jonathan Gurwitz  Paul Greenberg  Lewis Grossberger  Victor Davis Hanson  Betsy Hart  Nat Hentoff  David Horowitz  Laura Ingraham  Cheri Jacobus Jeff Jacoby  Paul Johnson  Jack Kelly  Ed Koch  Ch. Krauthammer  Michael Ledeen  John Leo  David Limbaugh  Kathryn Lopez  Rich Lowry  Michelle Malkin  Jackie Mason  Dick Morris  Bill O'Reilly  Jim Mullen  Clarence Page  Kathleen Parker  Dennis Prager  Wesley Pruden  Tom Purcell  Jonathan Rauch  Celia Rivenbark  Robert Robb  Cokie & Steve Roberts  Pat Sajak  Debra J. Saunders  Culture Shlock  Roger Simon  Michael Smerconish  Thomas Sowell  Mark Steyn  John Stossel  Cal Thomas  Bob Tyrrell  Diana West  Dave Weinbaum  George Will  Walter Williams  Byron York  Mort Zuckerman  Robert Arial  Chuck Asay  Baloo  Chip Bok  Dry Bones   Lisa Benson  John Branch  Gary Brookins  John Cole  J. D. Crowe  John Deering  Brian Duffy  Everything's Relative  Mallard Fillmore  Jake Fuller  Bob Gorrel  Joe Heller  David Hitch  Jerry Holber  Steve Kelley  Jeff Koterba  Dick Locher  Chan Lowe  Ranan R. Lurie  Jimmy Margulies  Rick McKee  Michael Ramirez  Kevin Siers  Jeff Stahler  Ed Stein  Danna Summers  John Trever  Gary Varvel  Kirk Walters  How 2  Lori Borgman  The Savvy Consumer  Elder matters  Fixit  Dr. Peter Gott  GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko  Richard Lederer  Tech Maven  Every Monday Matters  Nutrition Myths  Bookmark These  Bruce Williams  How Stuff Works