[NativeSon]

Only 17? If only we had a Wayback Machine to crunch the numbers from Haverhill High circa 1960/61. (I know, my sister was one of ‘em)

You do have a point but how did your sister live? Was she on the dole? who raised the child? the gub'mint or family?

Purely from my observations, the differences I see is that unwed (or young and unwed) and pregnant is no longer looked down upon. And the gub'mint has made an industry of financing the behavior.

Heck, I know three generations of "women" that never-worked but can sure reproduce on my dime and never got married and never sought support from the fathers.

[metesky]

Dad told me that he was ready to drag out the shotgun, but he didn't have to. My b-i-l stepped right up, they married, had five kids, eventually they separated over other issues but remain friends to this day. The kids turned out pretty much like any large family: a nurse, a successful contractor (he did a hitch in the USMC in the RR era), an artist who's seeing the value of his work increase as he matures (he won the Boston Globes Young Artists contest in the late 70s), an animal rescuer and a screwup (every family has at least one!. They all have families of their own and my oldest niece's (the one who started it all... :O)) kids are starting to graduate from school and set forth on their own. All in all pretty satisfactory.