1 in 5 US moms have kids with multiple dads, study says

Break it down further and you get the sad same result of minority women being the hardest hit.

One in five of all American moms have kids who have different birth fathers, a new study shows. And when researchers look only at moms with two or more kids, that figure is even higher: 28 percent have kids with at least two different men.

“To put it in perspective, this is similar to the number of American adults with a college degree,” says the study’s author, Cassandra Dorius, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. “It’s pervasive.”

Dorius’ study, which was presented Friday at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America, examined data from nearly 4,000 U.S. women who had been interviewed more than 20 times over a 27-year period.

This phenomenon is important to study, Dorius says, because there are consequences to both the mom and her children. Women with children from multiple fathers tend to be disadvantaged compared to other moms. “They are more likely to be under-employed, to have lower incomes, and to be less educated,” Dorius says.

Dorius found that a multiple-father type of family structure was more common among minority women, with 59 percent of African-American mothers, 35 percent of Hispanic mothers and 22 percent of white mothers reporting children with more than one father.

Women with low income and little education were also more likely to have children with different birth fathers.

An important message that doesn’t appear to be getting through is just how hard it is to raise a child as a single parent.

"While these women tended to be poorer than others to begin with, their whole lifetimes continue to be disadvantaged," she said.

The grio's Melanie Eversley already is overlooking the facts to whine that this will be an attack on black women again as they have the highest figures. No. The blame goes to black men and women since this isn't a simple case of being married, having a kid, getting a divorce, remarrying and having another one. This is poor black people who make poor choices in life while already being "disadvantaged" and compounding the problem.

The welfare system doesn't help as it had a hand in destroying the black family over the decades. Instead of whining about the image problem, how about everyone look at the causes and fix them?