Victims of the "Real Estate Crisis"...Not

USA Today ran a heart-tugging story on the front page yesterday about how the "real estate crisis" is supposedly affecting children.

However, if one reads the article, it soon becomes apparent the problem with some of the families profiled is not real estate, it's parental choices.

Two of the three families profiled have single mothers, which puts a family at greater financial risk in and of itself.

One of the women, who obviously had a rocky marriage at the time, took on a $5000-a-month mortgage before selling the previous family home. When her husband abandoned the family just six weeks after the move to the new home, she was left holding the bag for two mortgages.

Is that the fault of the "real estate crisis," because she's having trouble selling at least one of the homes and paying a huge mortgage on her own? I don't think so. I was incredulous that the paper would blame her circumstances on the economy and sluggish real estate sales, rather than on a succession of bad choices.