Did someone say Nuclear Meltdown? Excellent.
Posted on 03/03/2007 9:38:09 PM PST by carlo3b
Numbers Drop for the Married With Children
Institution Becoming The Choice of the Educated, AffluentBy Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 4, 2007; Page A03PORTLAND, Ore. -- Punctuating a fundamental change in American family life, married couples with children now occupy fewer than one in every four households -- a share that has been slashed in half since 1960 and is the lowest ever recorded by the census.
As marriage with children becomes an exception rather than the norm, social scientists say it is also becoming the self-selected province of the college-educated and the affluent. The working class and the poor, meanwhile, increasingly steer away from marriage, while living together and bearing children out of wedlock.
"The culture is shifting, and marriage has almost become a luxury item, one that only the well educated, one that only the well educated and well paid are interested in," said Isabel V. Sawhill, an expert on marriage and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Save the ovation for God, or at least for my wife.
:)
Yes, our hands are full, but there's NEVER a dull moment.
No empty nest for us, either. When my youngest turns 20, I'll be 74, if the Good Lord lets me live that long.
We already have eight grandchildren.
We have truly been blessed, and not by any merit of our own. God has been very good to us.
.
Well, if we were reproducing as we should be - to sustain our society, then the numbers should reflect that there are MORE married couples with children, even counting in the baby-boomer empty-nesters. The problem is, many of the baby-boomers bought into the Population Bomb propaganda and opted to raise two golden retrievers (or some other breed) instead of human children. The Islamists are just biding their time.
Seems to me all this started "down the tube" way back in the 50's before feminisim was a mainstream word...IMHO...
I believe the troubling movements really started in the 60's.. The 50's was very much a family values decade, it was the beginning of the Dr. Benjamin Spock generation, of wimpy parents, which festered the 60's morons.. :)
Did someone say Nuclear Meltdown? Excellent.
Ha!.. I love it.. :)
This article is purposeful, just like the one awhile back about women not choosing marriage.
The media bombards the people with false stats to encourage immoral behavior by making it seem acceptable.
I wouldn't believe his conclusions anymore than I believe anything CLintoon says. This is so obviously agenda driven, so much an element of the drumbeat and buzz of leftie propaganda that leads to mindless liberals thinking, "Well, WE find the one each of either sex with some kids around thing works for US< but who are WE to think that it is right for anybody else?" How can these people pretend to be upset over Romney's polygamous forbears? I guess because one of the guy's wives wasn't a fellow, huh? THEN it would have been okay!
OKay, I admit it, I'm hoping to be sent to the same rehab clinic Ann Coulter gets sent to for NOT calling Edwards an "other F-word".
"The culture is shifting, and marriage has almost become a luxury item, one that only the well educated, one that only the well educated and well paid are interested in," said Isabel V. Sawhill, an expert on marriage and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Those who DO marry before they have children and stay married are the upwardly mobile. Marriage is not a "luxury" commodity. It costs a pittance to get a marriage license and garners many financial and emotional benefits. Level of education does play a part, but the key is not having kids before getting married and once married, stay married.
Those who don't even complete HS and have kids without marrying represent a large % of those living in or near the poverty level.
I don't find the world in the sess pool as many of you do. It could be that I am an optimistic person. I have been my whole life. I am glad for that. I was raise in a family with three kids by two boomers who were loving and conservatives. The three of us are married with 7 kids between us and one on the way. I don't see what the boo hooing is going on here at FR, but instead of crying in your soups. Stop it and appreciate what you have. Spoiled children is what I call it.
Satan is pleased...
I'm about to join the 75%, even though I celebrated my 23rd anniversary with the only woman I've ever had sex with yesterday. You see, our youngest of three will graduate and leave home in June to further her education. In fact, if I live until I'm 82, I would have spent 75% of my life either unmarried or without children.
That seems far away from the writer's As marriage with children becomes an exception rather than the norm... For folks with children, being married and living together as a family is still the most common case. Failure to convey this very simple fact is a signal failing on the part of the writer. Only 12% of children live in a single-parent home where there was no marriage. 16% of children live in a single-parent home because of separation or divorce. (The remaining 4% of children in the U.S. live in a household that has neither parent.)
However, I am not arguing that this is a good situation from my viewpoint. I would rather see families living together, and for over 30% of children to have to live with just one parent or even no parent isn't a good thing. It is just not as dire as the writer paints.
Your post is profound. These are exactly the reasons I am hesitant to get married. I am in my 40's and finally coming into my own financially. I have remained single while my siblings and friends have gotten married; many of them have since gotten divorced and others have privately told me how envious they are of me that I remained single. One I know has been separated for 3 years, waiting for a divorce while his wife sits in the house he paid for; he is relegated to a 2 bedroom basemant apartment down the street so he can see his kids weekends only because that's the way the law has it. Other friends have had numerous affairs. I can't believe in this day and age when more women then men get college degrees, it is typically the man who pays the higher price in a divorce. Part of me would like to get married, then I look around and see with my own eyes that it is not a particularly good deal for men.
Carlo:
I don't think conservatives are the problem: Conservatives generally believe in economic opportunity. We generally push our kids to achieve, and attend college. They are far more likely to marry than the children of many democratic constituencies. You need look no further than inner cities, where most children don't even know anyone who's married.
I have nothing to be ashamed about
I have been married for 18 years ... my husband and I have 3 beautiful well mannered children
I gave up my career to raise my children .. I go to all the school meetings .. volunteer to help at their school.
My home is open to all their friends (I've got the food bill to prove it) and I always know where my children are.
I am not rich and I don't live in the house of my dreams .. but I and my family are happy and that's all that really counts.
"...Mr. Adler and I now rate as a childless couple for the purposes of statistical calculations."
Like you, I would trust nothing that spews from the Washington Post. Too, the dateline is Portland, a liberal pesthole of national infamy.
The cultural Marxists infest the Post, and PC disinformation is one of its primary sacraments.
Portland is the eco-fascist capital for the church of kangaroo rat worship.
If I recall the study correctly, Portland has more dogs than children. So expecting the typical Portland Marxist, who worships walnuts, too, to have even a passing knowledge of children, families and their needs is near impossible. They build shrines to Gaia there disguised as "calming bumps."
http://www.trafficcalming.net/
They are, on the whole, insane.
Well, I'm still married, without kids at home. IF I was included in that number of "married without children" then it is deception and/or fraud. In short, show me the numbers.
Pitiful. Whether women want to hear it or not, this is a direct result of women working outside the home and letting their children be raised by institutional day care.
In particular, single-parent households create children who have little understanding or appreciation for marriage and the bonds between men and women. It's difficult to learn what we don't experience.
We've created a very cold world for children and we need to fix it. Health and productivity and gratitude begin in the home.
That's undoubtedly part of it, since they are measuring households, not families. Also, young adults now often can afford to live away from home, either alone or with roommates; half the sitcoms on TV depend on this premise. But undoubtedly there is something there in the data.
The Fitzhenrys, who married 10 years ago, are an example of what sociologists call "assortative mating," the increasing tendency of educated, affluent people to unite in marriage.
Herrnstein and Murray once called this "cognitive sorting," and got in a lot of trouble for noting it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.