Major County District Attorney Hollis Thorp "Children are born with the right to have a good home," said last week. "It doesn't have to be a rich that is completely without problems, but should be a good home". There is too much to ask or hope, but some days it seems certainly an almost insurmountable challenge.
Thorp was referring to the case of a couple of Fairview who gave up their parental rights adopted four sisters from Liberia amid allegations of neglect and abuse. But the truth in your comment has a much more reach.
The Tulsa World reported last week that 28 percent of Oklahoma families are headed by single parents. Not all are immersed in poverty and many hard-working single parents do a phenomenal job education of their children. But the statistics paint a gloomy picture for a good number of those families.
Census data shows more than one third of single-parent families headed by women living in poverty — triple the rate of poverty among families of Oklahoma as a whole. Linda Terrell, Executive Director of the Institute of Defense of the child, Oklahoma, says that the births of poverty, addiction, incarceration and teen contribute to the number of single parents. Oklahoma usually don't rank well in any of these categories.
A two-parent family is not a guarantee of a good home more than a House parent is the promise of a bad House. But the State of the family today is not good for kids, and they are powerless to do something about it.
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