By: Matt Rosenberg
Births to unmarried mothers heighten the risks of low achievement, lower adult income, and greater risk of incarceration. That’s all too evident in the city of Chicago, where eight of every 10 black babies are born to unmarried mothers. Exactly when it’s most needed, the black fatherhood conversation – once forcefully laid out by then-Presidential candidate Barack Obama – has become off-limits. That’s all wrong.
Chicago continues to suffer from failing schools, failing courts, and violence. Plus growing juvenile carjackings and transit crimes. We’re living in the Wild West. Black youths and black fatherless youths are central in all these problems. We’re in a new era of heightened danger and concern. It’s time to re-open the conversation about missing black fathers, honestly. Yet license to talk about it is apparently granted by race. We all pay the price.
In 2018, Illinois Republican primary election gubernatorial candidate Jeanne Ives got angrily rebuffed at a local forum by Democratic opponent Chris Kennedy for raising the same common-sense points as Obama. Last year, the CEO of McDonald’s found himself the target of a cancel attempt for highlighting the parental role in violence prevention and abjectly walked back the triggering remarks.
But on the primarily black and Latino South Side of Chicago, the conversation can be much more straightforward. Latasha Fields is the mother of four children. I spoke to her and her husband Ron at their kitchen table in their immaculate Chicago bungalow-style home. It’s on a pulled-together block in Washington Heights on Chicago’s South Side. They have four children. He runs a barber shop in South Shore. She’s a home-school operator and advocate. Together they also run a house-call-based ministry counseling other couples on child-rearing. They’ve both seen worse times and then far better.
Ron sold drugs starting in sixth grade. He never got a high school diploma, worked a series of dead-end jobs and was rebuffed by whites from attempts to join the plumbers union in Louisiana. Finding a trade as a barber was a life changer. He and Latsha met in church in Baton Rouge. His barber shop in Chicago is a vibrant community hub. He’s deeply involved in the lives of his four children, three of them still at home, and doesn’t hesitate to lay down the law.
Latasha’s first child arrived when she was a single 17-year-old in Baton Rouge. She said, “That was the light bulb for me. I got pregnant from a guy I know didn’t want me, didn’t like me. He had multiple girls; other girls are pregnant…that was a turning point…because I started to see, if I keep this up, where is my life going to end up?”
She climbed the ladder, starting as a teen single mother working at Burger King for minimum wage and taking night college courses in business administration. She caught on at a local property management firm first as an administrative assistant, and then as a property manager. Later she ran her own property management company and became a homeschooling entrepreneur.
Latasha says she benefitted from safety net programs like welfare for two years as well as leg-up government programs like homebuyer’s assistance and subsidized child care. But she believes the Great Society programs that began in the 1960s were never meant to be used by anyone permanently. She believes, despite reforms, a harmful dependence took hold.
“Cheering and celebrating and encouraging black people to depend on the government is policy. The social welfare system is a policy where you remove the black men out of the home and give the black women (housing) projects and food stamps. All that was engineered through policies. Which now is social enslavement. It’s a mentality that has covered over black people.”
Latasha says she has no tolerance for real police misconduct and brutality. But she adds, “my black sons have more of a chance to be killed by somebody that looks like them than a cop.” And she notes pointedly, “The greatest youth program is the family. Restore the Moms and Dads if you want to help society.”
Their commitment to parenting stands as a lived response to the warning underscored by Obama in that 2008 Chicago Father’s Day speech. He said then, “if we are honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that too many fathers also are missing — missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it. You and I know how true this is in the African-American community…and the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.”
That baby Latasha had at age 17? Her name is Vetiveah. She was raised by Latasha and her stepfather Ron. She was home-schooled from 4th through 12th grade. She got a full-ride academic scholarship to college. And now she works as a nutrition educator for a Connecticut nonprofit.
Matt Rosenberg is senior editor of Wirepoints, and author of What Next, Chicago? Notes of a Pissed-Off Native Son.” He has worked in journalism, public policy, and communications for more than three decades. Parts of this piece, on Latasha and Ron Fields, are adapted from his book.
Ted was on The Chicago Way with John Kass and Jeff Carlin to discuss the proposed $5 billion lakefront stadium project proposed by the Chicago Bears & Mayor Brandon Johnson, why Chicago is struggling compared to other metro areas across the country, why the city might or might not go the way of Detroit, and more.
Some Illinois lawmakers continue to deny that covid aid and other federal stimulus bailed the state out of its fiscal mess. But a look at past and projected revenues from COGFA shows just how much the bailouts blew out the state’s revenues. And now that they’re over, how much harder it will be for Illinois revenues to grow.
Election integrity – both real and perceived – is essential to government’s legitimacy and stability. Illinois, like the rest of the nation, better fix its problems now.
Ted joined Dan and Amy to talk about Chicago’s latest bond offering, why Chicago’s dismal home value growth is due to poor policies, the next $70 million to be spent on migrants, the 9% salary hikes demanded by the CTU, and why Illinois lawmakers voting to stop Chicago’s selective enrollment schools from being closed is hypocritical.
Weekly crime statistics from the Chicago Police Department: Report through 4/21/2024.
Chicago has been a part of memory all of my life, and I hold different versions. After each weekend now in the current version, I learn about the shootings over the weekend in Chicago. Urban gangs now operate, with men killing men and sometimes bystanders, although the borders of that seem to be flexible and widening. A version of Chicago from my childhood was that my father was a bridge builder for the Milwaukee Railroad and would periodically travel to Division headquarters there. Even as a pre-schooler, I knew that Chicago was an important place, and important for our family. During WW II,… Read more »
We have a fundamental philosophical problem in society. The ruling idea is: “I didn’t get x that I am entitled to, and it is someone else’s fault. Therefore I can do y to right that wrong.” Each person gets to fill in the x and y based on their own “lived experience”. We need to completely eradicate this idea. In the meantime, we need to work on protecting decent people from the fallout that we see today. We also need to start imposing consequences for choices, and certainly stop rewarding those who make these claims. How does this relate to… Read more »
“The ruling idea is: “I didn’t get x that I am entitled to, and it is someone else’s fault. Therefore I can do y to right that wrong.” I feel like your idea can work in other areas as well. “Waaahhhhh. I don’t have a pension and it’s someone else’s fault. Therefore, I can try to steal their pension to right that wrong.” “We need to completely eradicate this idea.” I agree. That’s why the law and the constitution are so important. Otherwise we just have whiners complaining because they made bad choices. “I didn’t save for my retirement and now I’m jealous that… Read more »
ROE IS SETTLED LAW!!!
Roe NEVER had any protection in the constitution. That’s the whole premise behind the leaked opinion and that this should be returned to the states.
Can’t really say that about pensions. It’s explicitly covered in the Illinois constitution as well as the states and US constitution under the contracts clause.
Do you honestly think it would be overturned if a constitutional amendment to abortions existed in the US?
You keep dreaming though. Maybe 50 years after the ILSC ruled pensions can’t be diminished you will finally get your wish. What’s that 2065? Too funny.
Roe NEVER had any protection in the constitution.
vs
In its landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), the Supreme Court recognized that the right to abortion is a fundamental liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.
Freedom of speech, right to bear arms, pensions shall not be diminished, make no law impairing the obligations of contracts. These are items that are explicitly discussed and outlined in the constitution.
vs.
Abortion is a right under the 14th amendment even though no explicit right has been established. This leaves it much more open to interpretation. These interpretations are more likely to be overturned than one of our rights that are clearly outlined.
Keep trying debtsor, you’ll figure it out one day.
That ruling was a very broad interpretation regarding Section 1 of the 014th Amendment. Perhaps the current court has realized that and will allow for states to determine, through their elected representatives, the abortion issue.
If you read Constitutional scholars that subscribe to originalism, Roe was a poor decision that had no basis in precedent or Constitution. It was in fact making law from the bench. The leaked decision does what the court should have done all those years ago-send the issue back to the voters of the separate states to vote on how they want their state to live. If you have a problem with that, you might be a totalitarian.
LOL, my ROE IS SETTLED LAW comment is because PPF repeatedly points to an IL supreme court decision that ruled that the pension clause in the constitution means that a pension granted can’t never ever ever be taken away, never. Pension benefits are are settled law. In response, I point to Roe vs Wade which every learned supreme court justice has described as super-precedent and cannot be undone. Yet here we are, Roe is about to be undone. The same can be said for IL’s pension clause which itself is likely unconstitutional, and a political court in the future full… Read more »
So many years ago multiple courts ruled that blacks couldn’t vote, people who didn’t own property couldn’t vote and those who couldn’t pass a voters test couldn’t vote. All of those issues were considered SETTLED LAW. I guess those court rulings shouldn’t have been changed right?
LOL, my ROE IS SETTLED LAW comment is because PPF repeatedly points to an IL supreme court decision that ruled that the pension clause in the constitution means that a pension granted can’t never ever ever be taken away, never. Pension benefits are are settled law. In response, I point to Roe vs Wade which every learned supreme court justice has described as super-precedent and cannot be undone. Yet here we are, Roe is about to be undone. The same can be said for IL’s pension clause which itself is likely unconstitutional, and a political court in the future full… Read more »
and theres the troll crawling out of his mommies basement!-put hot dogs in my mac and cheese mommy!!
PPF, neither I (nor anybody else here) has objected to public pensions on the grounds that I don’t have a pension myself. We can agree that whether I or anybody else has a pension is irrelevant to the discussion of public pensions. Jealousy is not the issue. I am in favor of holding people accountable for their decisions, if in fact they were the ones who made the decision. I am not in favor of holding some people accountable for decisions they had no control over.
People that lived here voted for politicians that offered these pensions.
People that lived here (and continue to do so) voted for politicians that continue to actuarial short pensions so the money can be spent on other things or taxes won’t increase.
People that didn’t vote for this have chosen to move here or lived here under their parents who voted for these policies.
PP, you are only providing excuses. You don’t feel you should be held accountable just like those whiners who feel they’ve been wronged. Sad.
The sins of the father should be visited upon his children… And by the way, neither I nor anyone else has advocated “stealing” your pension. I believe it is in the best interest of all concerned to deal with reality and compromise on public pensions. You have asked before- “why should public employees compromise on what they are owed?” Maybe ask the bank that agrees to a short sale, or the credit card company that settles on a debt. Probably they think that it is better for them in the long run. I think the same applies in this situation.… Read more »
“Probably they think that it is better for them in the long run. I think the same applies in this situation. But I guess you would rather characterize all of us as thieves out to get you.” I think pensioners have made that assessment and have determined that it is in their best interest to tell you and others that want to steal their pensions to pound sand. Let’s look at the choices. Cut a deal with the state and take less money. The state probably wouldn’t use the savings to actually shore up pension funding but instead spend it… Read more »
Neither of us knows for certain what the future holds. Maybe you will be right, that past results are indicative of future benefits, and pensioners will be paid in full while the general public who pay the taxes are in dire straits. That could happen – I guess only time will tell.
In the meantime, maybe you can practice your Marie Antoinette impersonation.
Being the baby daddy to 15 or 20 kids is a tough job so stop criticizing.
I understand very well my parents were divorced I did the best I could growing up in uptown and now my comments about Obama with all the millions of dollars that he has now he should start an organization to help boys and girls also let’s not forget about Oprah Winfrey did she help the kids in Chicago no😤🤔
We have watched this get worse and worse over the last 30+ years. What is so hard for people to understand , a life built on a solid foundation will be solid in the future. Solid family units are good for neighborhoods, Cities and states. Governments should do what ever they can to promote this. Good luck to Latasha and Ron Fields may they continued to be blessed
Because politicians, especially Democratic politicians, want dependence on them in order to stay in power. Throwing money (yours and mine) is easier than encouraging solid family structures which, as you say, should be the good we aspire to.
And yes, prayers and good luck for Latasha and Ron and their fine children.
Exactly correct.
“The greatest youth program is the family. Restore the Moms and Dads if you want to help society.”
Wow. Latasha Fields said what needed to be said, without a whiff of racism to it. And she’s walking the walk, along with her husband Ron. What a testament to ‘can-do-itiveness’. So much respect for both of them. These are truly, in the words of famed CBS broadcaster Harry Porterfield, ‘People You Should Know”.
Ditto! Big time.
I remember when Jeanne Ives and the McDonalds CEO for being asking black families including fathers to be responsible for the outcomes of their offspring is not “racist” as it’s being made out to be by politicians, and the mainstream media who only want to blame police. I’m sick and tired off hearing the same old argument being brought to us by incompetent politicians and their compliant media.
So makes no sense that we would start, as a nation, to limit reproductive freedoms. We will NEVER be able to hold men accountable to their offspring by legislation – it’s been a tale as old as time and we already have child support enforcement but how many people do we all know that have a bio father/sperm donor who “doesn’t pay”? The readers of this site who lean republican need to start seriously questioning the GOP’s maniacal stance on saving babies when we are punishing the women who cannot, who don’t want another child to further plunge them into… Read more »
“I am saying that accessible / free birth control IS the answer”
Free accessible birth control already exists. Every kid is pretty much taught how it works in school. Its free for medicaid patients.
People who have babies want to have babies. Abortions are at historical lows.
And in the US, they’re having fewer and fewer babies than any time in the last 100 years.
This is the elephant in the room that no democrat will seriously do anything about because it strikes at the Democrat Party’s very existence. They hate liberty because liberty requires self discipline and personal responsibility. So they’ve destroyed both with endless welfare incentives and constant demonizing of anyone who attempts to reform it. They will pay lip service once in awhile to the importance of fathers, as Obama did in 2008, 14 years ago. In that time, how many black children have been born into systemic poverty and dysfunction all created, nurtured and managed by the democrat party for votes?… Read more »
I have often said that the Democratic Party has held African-Americans in bondage more cruel than the worst slaveholders in the antebellum South. The shackles are invisible, but every bit as effective.
The economist Walter Williams agreed with you – Dems are the masters of the plantation now.
Am I the only one who thinks that unwed mothers and no fathers in the home is a symptom of the problem, and not the cause?
The left has been busily building a degenerate society that condones any kind of behavior, and we now have several generations of evidence as to the result. Before fathers can fix it, we need to figure out how to produce men (and women) capable of being parents.
Totally agree.
Latasha and Ron’s story should be front page news and celebrated as the norm versus a statistical outlier. Matt Rosenberg’s story and continued laser focused attention to the Chicago he loves, is worthy of far greater scale and acceptance than the media at large will render. In highlighting their successes and struggles, Latasha and Ron embody that human quality that no policy, agency, or program can address; namely, the condition of the human heart. In other words, love. Love for each other, love for their children, love for the families that they help. Love too often gets short shrift, but… Read more »
Another great piece, Matt. Keep telling the truth and folks will come to rely on it. Sadly, most thinking people view “The Media” as a suspicious enemy these days. Honest reporting like this may change things over time.
Thank you, Dan. We’ve got some more stories to tell on the subject. That will include profiles of other Chicagoans and how they’ve dealt with the challenges of child-rearing in tough neighborhoods. We’ve also got a piece in the works on the social science literature about the poor outcomes for children raised by other than both married, biological parents. And yes, there are exceptions. In fact one more of our family profiles that’s planned will bring that to life.
“Births to unmarried mothers heighten the risks of low achievement, lower adult income, and greater risk of incarceration.” Yes, this is true. You (and I) view the disparate outcomes of children as a function of the marital status of the parents. To us, it makes obvious sense that married parents provide better for children than unmarried parents. Two parents are better than one. Duh! However, the communist does not see it this way. The communist views the disparate outcomes as the result of systemic bias against unwed parents. They believe our society is set up to favor married parents and… Read more »
Matt has done it again, Speaking truth to power ( otherwise known as the elephant in the room.) Why can’t we have a discussion about the failure of the Great Society? Why can’t we talk about the lack of fathers in the homes as a potential pre-cursor to criminal behavior? Oh, wait–Matt is only reporting. It’s 2 survivors themselves who tell the story! Bravo, Ron and Latasha!
The father should absolutely be named on the birth certificate and should be held legally responsible for the maintenance of the child based on income, except in cases of illness or disability. If they don’t work, they should be required to perform community service in exchange for benefits. They can rot in jail if they abandon their kids. It would be worth it to lock them up. We waste enough money on other things, we need to hold the man accountable.
They can pay for genetic testing if they dispute paternity.
Rob, In IL, being named as the unmarried father on the birth certificate does not legally make you the father. It’s completely crazy I know and makes no sense. In IL, only a judge or an administrative agency can formally declare and adjudicate an unmarried parent the father of a child, usually through a DNA test, or, through evidence like the mother’s testimony. However, there is one loophole to this. It’s called a VAP – a voluntary acknowledgment of paternity. If you’re a man present with the mother in the maternity ward, and you share different last names, the nurse… Read more »
Great article. Fathers in the home is the first solution to ending crime in Chicago.
I’d like to read an article featuring current politician’s responses when asked about the fatherless homes that comprise 70+ % of Illinois’ black community, and 40% +/- of almost every other demographic group.
Either their thoughts about fatherless households, or quote the blather and harrumphery they bloviate in attempting to explain why the Great Society’s destruction of the two-parent Black family isn’t really a problem we need to talk and actually do something about.
Something other than obfuscation and denial…..
Here is a bill that was proposed but withdrawn by sponsors because it was deemed racist because benefits could be denied.
https://openstates.org/il/bills/99th/HB6064/
The bill was stated simply that a fathers name must be on the birth certificate before it could be issued. I think the sponsors made a mistake tying it to withholding benefits without a father on the certificate. They should have used a medical reason like family history of diabetes or cancer/heart disease. But having a father listed would reduce benefits.
Obama never believed it when he said it. He was pandering.
Yep. Obumer’s like that. Unfortunately.