Not just poverty. Middle class single parent households have it harder than equivalent two parent households as well. We respect good single parents especially because we recognize how much harder it is to, say, take classes in the evening or lead the PTA if you're also making sure your kids are clothed, educated, fed, nurtured, safe, and so on.

> Starting with talking about fatherlessness and "culture" is blaming the victims and, frankly, racist.

I don't think this cultural issue is unique to black communities or even urban ones. I've already posted on race and fatherlessness:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14387245

Please stop attacking allies. There's enough convincing to do without outgrouping and ending discussions of important issues by throwing around conversation killing (and frankly inaccurate) epithets.

...as far as blaming victims... I'm not interested in putting anyone in stockades on any of this. I do think we need to recalibrate our cultural calculus on what kids need to properly thrive. Home situations should absolutely be on the table, not for the purpose of judging, but for the purpose of setting expectations for prospective parents, people deciding whether to make marriages work, people picking out potential mates, etc.

Part of the problem, in my mind, is that in our effort to avoid victim blaming, we framed certain life choices as valid forms of self actualization instead of truthfully really hard situations. There has to be a way to be supportive and loving to single parents without also misleading the next generation into thinking that finding committed partners isn't also a big priority.

> ...there are so many other factors to address first.

Are there? Why is the social injustice of family structure on the bottom of the list?