#success sequence

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Jason L. Riley

Published: Dec 12, 2023

A decade ago, New York City launched a campaign to combat teen pregnancy. It featured ads on buses and subway cars that read: “If you finish high school, get a job, and get married before having children, you have a 98% chance of not being in poverty.”

That advice, more popularly known as the “success sequence,” is often credited to research done by Brookings Institution scholars Isabel Sawhill and Ron Haskins, though others have made similar observations. In his recent book, “Agency,” Ian Rowe of the American Enterprise Institute writes that the message “has attracted many admirers because of the simplicity of the three steps that young people, even if born into disadvantaged circumstances or raised by a young single parent, can themselves control and take in their lives.”

The effort nevertheless faced significant backlash from detractors who accused then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg of stigmatizing teen pregnancy and pushing a “moralistic, conservative agenda to revitalize marriage,” Mr. Rowe writes. Mr. Bloomberg’s successor, Bill de Blasio, ultimately abandoned the effort. Public moralizing has since fallen further out of favor and been replaced by a kind of self-congratulatory nonjudgmentalism. In today’s New York, you’re likely to see ads for free syringes and directions to “safe” injections sites for junkies, even as drug overdoses have reached record levels.

We could use more of that moralizing from public officials, whether the issue is solo parenting, substance abuse or crime. The success sequence works to keep people not only off the dole but also out of trouble with the law. High-school graduates and children raised by both parents are much less likely to end up in jail. “Virtually every major social pathology,” political scientist Stephen Baskerville writes, “has been linked to fatherless children: violent crime, drug and alcohol abuse, truancy, unwed pregnancy, suicide, and psychological disorders—all correlating more strongly with fatherlessness than with any other single factor, surpassing even race and poverty.”

America’s crime debate tends to focus on so-called root causes, such as joblessness. But it’s worth remembering that the sharpest increase in violent crime began in the 1960s, a decade that saw low unemployment, strong economic growth and a doubling of black household incomes. As notable, labor-force participation rates of young black men fell during the 1980s and ’90s, one of the longest periods of sustained economic growth in U.S. history.

A new academic paper from the Institute for Family Studies doesn’t deny that economic conditions play a role in criminal behavior. And co-authors Rafael Mangual, Brad Wilcox, Joseph Price and Seth Cannon write that “changes in law-enforcement and the prosecution of criminals have also had a hand in the recent uptick in violent crime in American cities.” The paper’s main argument, however, is that family instability may be the biggest factor of all and that it’s not receiving the attention it deserves.

“Cities are safer when two-parent families are dominant and more crime-ridden when family instability is common,” the authors write. Nationwide, the total crime rate is about 48% higher in cities “that have above the median share of single-parent families, compared to cities that have fewer single-parent families.” Even when controlling for variables such as race, income and educational attainment, “the association between family structure and total crime rates, as well as violent crime rates, in cities across the United States remains statistically significant.”

Having a father around, the authors note, is about more than an additional paycheck. Fathers teach their sons responsibility, self-control, how to carry themselves, how to treat women. They tend to be more effective disciplinarians, and their involvement in childrearing is linked to positive outcomes in the academic development of their children, “especially in mathematics and verbal skills.” That finding “has been established for both sons and daughters but, unsurprisingly, it is especially pronounced among boys. The presence of married fathers is also protective against school suspensions and expulsions, as well as the risk of dropping out of high school.”

Between 1960 and 2019, the percentage of babies in the U.S. born to unwed mothers grew from 5% to almost 50%. “Shifts from the late-1960s to the 1990s away from stable families have left some cities, and especially some neighborhoods, vulnerable to higher rates of crime, especially violent crime,” the study concludes. “We need to realign material and cultural incentives in our cities to favor marriage and stable families, not undercut them.”

We all know single mothers—some of us even may be related to them—who heroically beat these odds and raised children that have gone on to lead productive lives. The public-policy goal should be to reduce the number of people who will have to face those odds. And that means calling out behavior that is objectively harmful to people and society in general.

--

Study: Stronger Families, Safer Streets: Exploring Links Between Family Structure and Crime

Executive Summary This Institute for Family Studies report finds that strong families are associated with less crime in cities across the United States, as well in neighborhoods across Chicago. Specifically, our analyses indicate that the total crime rate in cities with high levels of single parenthood are 48% higher than those with low levels of single parenthood. When it comes to violent crime and homicide, cities with high levels of single parenthood have 118% higher rates of violence and 255% higher rates of homicide. And in Chicago, our analysis of census tract data from the city shows that tracts with high levels of single-parent-headed households face 137% higher total crime rates, 226% higher violent crime rates, and 436% higher homicide rates, compared to tracts with low levels of single parenthood. We also find that poverty, education, and race are linked to city and census-tract level trends in crime. In general, in cities across America, and on the streets of Chicago, this report finds that public safety is greater in communities where the twoparent family is the dominant norm.

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Not everything needs to be normalized or destigmatized.

The problem with the discussion around addressing social issues is that many people only want to do the politically virtuous thing, not the harder, more politically difficult thing. They want to shout, "defund the police!" But they don't want to do anything that would actually facilitate a reduction in the need for police.

What this tells us is that they don't really care about actually solving it, they just want to be seen to care about it. Indeed, if it was resolved, it would be politically inconvenient, as they'd no longer be able to posture around it.

[theedorksinlove]

SUCCESSION ✗ 2x04 - SAFE ROOM

don’t jump.

[successionable]

SUCCESSION - S04E04 Honeymoon States

[mynonclicheblog]

when you're near the end of an episode and you hear that drumbeat starting up in the background

[brookheimer]

watching this show rn and there keep being moments where i’m just like ‘holy shit this is so succession it has to have been an influence or something’ and then i remember that i am insane and have succession lens on 24/7 these days. very like… person who only thinks about succession watching any other tv show: wow this is so much like succession

[fluffpuffin]

Was reminded of how good the Bavely Default ost is, and honestly no game can ever match how insane that final boss theme was

[hardoncaulfield]

I don't know🤔 he's❓just...moseying🚶...terrifyingly moseying 😱🚶he's wearing sunglasses 🕶️😎 inside ⁉️he 👀👀 looks like if...if Santa 🎅 Claus was a 💼 hitman 🗡️🔫

[normalbrothers]

peaky blinders (2019, anthony byrne

(much needed remake of this post)

[i-merani]

Roman Roy's first and last attempt at an eulogy

[taken from Franz Kafka's letter to his father]

[rebornrosess]

currently writing a report on the pilot episode of the bear for my screenwriting class which has been so much fun and i’ve made some fun new discoveries!!! i feel dumb for only just now realizing this but god the way this show uses music is even more effective than i initially even though because “new noise” by refused is immediately associated with carmy (and note that it never builds to the to the lyrical breakdown, there is no resolution or catharsis to the chaos) but then “old engine oil” by the budos band becomes associated with the beef/chicago as carmy lights up the stoves and then we get launched into a montage of chicago, baby pictures, and photos of chicago...literally NEW vs OLD...and the sound supervisors remix these two together TWICE during the pilot to signal carmy’s re-integration into the history of the beef/chicago (1. carmy beginning the morning prep 2. carmy telling everyone to try the new sandwiches) like!!! they used popular music as leitmotifs!!!

[illjustpretend]

man baldurs gate may be my game of the year

That's so hard to admit considering tears of the kingdom also launched this year. And it blew my socks off too. It's a marvel of game design. And I haven't even gotten to play starfield yet...

But baldurs gate is in another ball park for me. Because I've been playing since early access, I've had so much time to form a comfortable nostalgic attachment to many aspects of the game.

Plus because it's more niche in its appeal (than Zelda at least), following the development cycle, watching the player base grow and interacting with the community has really felt like a more connected experience. Certainly more connected than waiting in silence for 6 years for totk (not a dig, honestly it's fine and I get it).

AND it's one of the few games in a long time I've been able to actually play with my IRL friends. It's just basically the perfect recipe.

I can sing Larian's praises all day but I can't say anything that hasn't been said a million times already. If you haven't played this game yet, PLEASE DO IM BEGGING

[safflowerseason]

Marcia when Kerry showed up at the apartment:

[jutenium]

Some Verroq sketches

[clairevoyant813]

gonna be honest. and this is just how i feel about these types of endings. i detest when writers and directors end things without at least one neat bow at the end of a story. this ending...

SPOILERS PAST HERE

Tom ceo? shiv reduced to housewife and stay at home mother duties? not a single death? kendall just staring out at the water? roman happy i guess? waystar bought by gojo bc shiv self sabotaged? im honestly upset. i don't know what i wanted to be the ending, but i didn't want a sopranos ending.

if there's one thing about hbo shows: they don't often stick the landing w their show finales. ill be curious to hear about barry's ending. because while the episode was really entertaining and great, the endings were not so.

[rabbitindisguise]

And you may ask yourself "why is Lav still up at this hour despite fighting tooth and nail for a regular sleep schedule?" Well it's because I got a tummy ache from too much eggnog. Truly the Agonies never cease

[fightingdragonswithwho]

wedding of the year is about to start… see you on the other side….