Christian Science Monitor: on Families & Children

Carly Fiorina: Paid maternity leave OK if voluntary, not mandated

"I have had lots of men imply I was unfit for decisionmaking because maybe I was having my period," Fiorina told CNN host Jake Tapper on Sunday.

This identification with women, as a woman, can be a great asset for Republicans. Fiorina often says that every issue is a women's issue. She opposes popular ideas such as federally mandated paid maternity leave (voluntary, yes; required, no). But such a stance may not matter among Republican in the first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa.

Lyndon Johnson: War on Poverty result: fewer poor kids, but more single moms

Behind this seeming anomaly is the fact that there are simply more single-parent households today. 25% of Americans now live in "families with female householder, no husband present." That's up from 8.5% in 1965. Back then, the decline of traditional family structure stirred discussion as a challenge confronting poor & urban African-Americans. Today, researchers are concerned about declining marriage rates for a broad swath of working-class Americans.