Quote of the Day:

“She was a cute little baby, I just didn’t know if that was my daughter or not,” Price said.

–a Fox News story on a 19-month-old who died after her two three-year-old siblings locked her in the oven

You almost always immediately suspect, when you see a headline about a child who has been killed in domestic abuse, that mom's boyfriend did it.  

This week's horror story from the post-marriage world, however, concerns two Houston three-year-olds who put their toddler sister in the oven, locked the door, and turned it on high.

Fox reports:

Child Protective Services records reviewed by KTRK show one child put J’Zyra Thompson in the oven and the other made it “hot.” The baby reportedly kicked the oven door while inside. Attempts to resuscitate Thompson, who had multiple burns, were unsuccessful.

And the inevitable:

J’Zyra’s mom, Racquel Thompson, left her four kids – all under the age of 5 – home alone while she and a boyfriend got food at Domino's Pizza and filled a prescription at Walgreens, police said.

Frederick Price is the father of at least two of Thompson’s children, and said he may be J’Zyra’s dad, but never took a paternity test to find out. He told KTRK that he hadn’t seen the children in months after failed attempts to contact Thompson.

“She was a cute little baby, I just didn’t know if that was my daughter or not,” Price said.

Price went on to call Racquel's leaving the kids alone without calling him "irresponsible" but of course she is not the only one being "irresponsible." Price is a man who doesn't even know if the baby was his.

This is a particularly horrific story, but it is yet another example of the kinds of families that are created when the idea of marriage has been left behind. Marriage creates families in which responsibilities are shared by two people who don't need a DNA test to determine their parenthood.

Forty percent of all children born in the U.S. today are born into single-parent households.

If you missed IWF's panel on the future, if any of marriage and the effect of the decline of marraige on children and society, I urge you to read our booklet on the panel.