In 2009, 41% of children born in the USA were born to unmarried mothers (up from 5% a half-century ago). That includes 73% of non-Hispanic black children, 53% of Hispanic children and 29% of non-Hispanic white children. Those are not misprints.
Some children of unmarried parents, of course, turn out just fine, particularly if the parents are economically secure or in committed, long-term relationships, or if the single parent is particularly strong and motivated. And as married parents will tell you, wedlock does not guarantee untroubled kids.
Even so, evidence is overwhelming that children of single mothers ”” particularly teen mothers ”” suffer disproportionately high poverty rates, impaired development and low school performance.
No, it’s not right, but the situation is far too complex to simply frame in terms of marriage. The bottom line is that children shouldn’t be born into unstable situations. And married poor people can be just as unstable (sometimes more so) than single poor people — more people in a household means more of a drain on whatever income there is and more potential conflict.
The operative word here is “poor.” Not just poverty of financial/material resources, even though that’s a huge factor, but poverty of character, ambition, and responsibility. Married or unmarried, too many females think that having a child will fill a void in their lives and too many males still consider children to be chiefly the women’s responsibility. Having a child makes a single woman’s situation more precarious and it creates more conflict in a bad marriage.
We have to come to terms with the reality that just because you can reproduce doesn’t mean that you should. There are some folks who just aren’t suited for parenthood, just as some aren’t suited for marriage. Instead of calling them selfish or bullying them into it, they should be supported.
When I worked in predominantly Hispanic communities, it was downright depressing to see how the young women were harangued into having babies at a young age, married or not. And how many were pushed into marriage right after they graduated from high school. (Oftentimes, pregnancy was part of that push.) We would work so hard to stress education and self-improvement, spent grant money on taking the students on college trips to envision a better future and getting them scholarships/grants but so rarely would they plant their feet on that path. They would be pregnant by graduation or soon after. Appeals to the parents did no good because they saw nothing wrong with being poor, young, and pregnant. It’s what they themselves had done.
Nowadays, “parenthood is my right” is more important than “parenthood is a big responsibility.” The teen girls who “want a baby of my own to love” aren’t any different in that than the gay couples who “want a baby of our own to love.” They see their needs and “rights” as paramount while not giving enough thought to how their decisions will affect the children, in the long run.
It’s a huge, complex, societal mess.
Quite frankly those who have abandoned Judeo -Christian morality have created this mess. Well free sex has consequences. Babies, abortion and STDs being three. Unfortunately they want us to become fellow enablers, rather that dealing with the root causes which are rather simple.
Hurray for Feminism! How wonderful. /sarc
The operative word is DIVORCE.
Before society, enabled by the church chose to wink at divorce, virtually every child had a two parent family. Many of those families were still “low income”. However none were as “poor” as they are now.
#4 — Divorce is necessary and always has been. Those “good ole days” of every home containing two parents weren’t wonderful for many people, including myself, in which there was domestic violence and misery. I would argue that many people of my generation are unable to form healthy relationships because of what we saw and experienced. I prayed every night that my parents would separate and I could have a peaceful home. And I had many friends who lived in the same situation.
But that’s what we get when we insist that everyone has to get married and everyone has to have children or else be considered selfish or “weird.” Some people simply aren’t suited for being spouses and/or parents. The single life is commended in the Scriptures but when is that EVER taught with the sincerity and sensitivity devoted to marriage in our churches?
It is not the divorce that is the greatest evil. Even the catholic church permits divorce. It is remarriage after divorce that permits parent A to abandon family A in order to start new with family B. In the meantime the kids in family A get to twist in the wind, and everybody is poorer because two familes are more expensive than one.
As note, the single life has much to commend itself. Nor does it need to be selfish. One can adopt. One can certainly mentor. One can be generative without engaging in what used to be called “the marital act”. However that does require the discipline to remain chaste (regardless of one’s sexual orientation).
“That includes 73% of non-Hispanic black children, 53% of Hispanic children and 29% of non-Hispanic white children. Those are not misprints.”
Thank you, Lyndon Johnson and Congress, the results of “The Great Society” are in!