Source: WENN

From BlackVoices

When she was just 16 years old, Maya Angelou got pregnant with her son, Guy Johnson. At a time when teen mothers were often shamed and/or pushed into marrying the baby’s father, the now-literary icon and renowned poet had a support system many other teen moms lacked. Dr. Angelou’s own mother, Vivian Baxter, never shamed her young, unmarried, pregnant daughter, instead choosing to help the teenager and support her efforts to raise her son on her own.

In this clip from Dr. Angelou’s second appearance on “Super Soul Sunday”, she opens up to Oprah about becoming a teen mom. Though Dr. Angelou says she struggled with trying to be independent and work while raising a baby, she always knew one thing: that she could return home to Vivian whenever she needed help.

“The world would throw me flat on my face with this little baby I’m trying to raise,” Dr. Angelou tells Oprah. “I would go home to Vivian Baxter. She would act as if it was the best thing that ever happened… She never, ever made me feel that I had done the wrong thing.”

Read more on BlackVoices.com.

ecosoulintellectual.blogspot.com

Nobody said raising a child would be easy or cheap, but I bet you didn’t know that for a middle-income family, it would cost about $234,900. MSNBC reports on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s recently released annual report “Expenditures on Children by Families,” which calculates the price of a child for the first 17 years of life. And yes, the price just keeps getting higher and higher.

Back in 1960, a middle income family could expect to spend about $25,000 on a child. If you adjust for inflation, that figure today would be $191,720. Among the costs, housing is the biggest expense, with child care, education, food and transportation adding up next in that order.

Although spending on food has in fact decreased since 1960, from 24 percent to 16 percent, child care costs and education have risen from two percent to 18 percent.

Parents are also spending less on clothes, choosing to bypass expensive footwear and other name brands for cheaper alternatives. Moms and dads have reduced clothing costs from 11 percent in 1960 to six percent today.

Since 1960, food expenditures have actually declined to 16 percent of income from 24 percent, while the cost of child care and education has soared to 18 percent of income from 2 percent.

For a breakdown of annual child costs per income level, take a look at the USDA calculation chart provided by MSNBC.

Households with annual income less than $59,410: $8,760 to $9,970, depending on the child’s age.

Households with income of up to $102,870: $12,290 to $14,320.

Households with income over $102,870: $20,420 to $24,510.

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These are the men who are truly loyal to their biological destinies. These are the men who think that what they should be doing is populating the earth with their seeds. Is it bad? No, not if they stay in the child’s life. But somehow we can’t help but judge the lack of self-control involved in farthering so many kids especially the ones who did so outside of any official relationships…

Lil Wayne

He’s the obvious one, ain’t he? Weezy has three baby mamas and counting. At only 29 years of age, he’s on track to reach ODB status by the time he’s 40. He’s currently dating a new woman, an Arizona waitress by the name of Dhea. If she’s as savvy as Lauren London, she’ll get knocked up soon.