I don’t know whether to laugh or weep. I recently heard a radio ad for Identigene, a home paternity testing kit. Apparently, not only are more women bearing children out of wedlock than ever before, they’re so friggin’ promiscuous they don’t even know who the father is!
Hey, I came of age in the late 60s/early 70s during the relatively early stages of the sexual revolution. My contemporaries and I sometimes behaved in ways that our parents didn’t approve of. But at least we had moral standards. (Well, most of us did.) People had multiple sexual partners but they usually had them in serial monogamous relationships that involved a level of emotional commitment, however fleeting. But now, it seems, it is routine for young people to “hook up” in relationships that sever sex from emotional commitment entirely. People have taken to copulating like bonobos — quite often without the benefit of contraception.
Sure, people have cheated on their mates since the dawn of time. Sure, uncertain paternity is not a new issue. But promiscuity was not so prevalent that a company could build a mass market business model around paternity testing!
I love some of the Frequently Asked Questions on the Identigene website:
- What if the alleged father is not available?
- Can I add a second child or second alleged father to a paternity test?
- I have multiple possible fathers but only one has agreed to the dna test. Can I do a paternity test with just one possible father?
And my personal favorite (drumroll)….
- What if two alleged fathers are related?
Call me an old fogy — having just turned 59, I definitely qualify — but this is a serious sign of moral decay. I’m not saying it’s impossible to raise healthy children outside of a nuclear family — obviously many people manage to do so — but it’s a lot more difficult. Divorce is tough on children. But when parents divorce, most dads stick around to play a meaningful role in their children’s lives. If the parents never marry, dads are less likely to stick around, yet many do. But if the the father’s identity is unknown, he can play no role at all.
I shudder to think how the next generation of Americans will turn out.