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Decoupling Children and Marriage (Why are more and more American babies being born out of wedlock?)
Christian Post ^ | 6/27/2009 | Charles Colson

Posted on 06/28/2009 8:51:35 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

According to a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control, 40 percent of American babies born in 2007 were born to unmarried mothers. That’s up from 34 percent only five years ago.

When most Americans hear the expression “unmarried mother,” what nearly always comes to mind is a teenage girl. But that’s not what’s driving the recent increase. In 2007, only 23 percent of the out-of-wedlock births were to unmarried teenagers. The rest were to women in their 20s, and now increasingly, in their 30s.

The increase among older women accounts for the six percentage point increase of the past five years. In 2007, 60 percent of all births to unmarried women were to women in their 20s and 17 percent to women in their 30s.

Or, as Emily Yoffe of Slate magazine put it, “the vast majority of unwed mothers are old enough to know what they're doing.” Yoffe sees these numbers as evidence of “an extraordinary decoupling of marriage and procreation.”

But what’s behind this “decoupling”?

A significant part of the answer lies in changing ideas and attitudes towards marriage. Marriage is no longer seen as an institution whose ends have a communal, as well as personal, purpose. Instead, it is an expression of private affection whose ends are almost entirely about personal fulfillment.

Thus, getting married is increasingly something you do after the rest of your life is arranged to your satisfaction. You go to school, find a job, get established in your career, and then you think about getting married. As a result, the average age when people first get married has risen by five years since 1970.

But while our ideas about marriage have changed, our natures haven’t. One thing that Christians and dyed-in-the-wool Darwinists can agree on is that we are driven to reproduce ourselves. With a few exceptions, no matter how successful we might be, many feel that if we leave no descendants behind, all the striving is beside the point.

What’s more, our biology doesn’t care about our sense of personal fulfillment. A woman’s most fertile period is her late teens to early 30s-precisely the time when young people are going to school and getting established in their careers.

Thus, the longer we put off marriage, the more difficult it will be to fulfill one of our most fundamental instincts-have a child.

Throw in the complications of meeting “Mr. Right,” getting to know him, and deciding that he’s the person you want to marry, and the “ticking clock” begins to sound like Big Ben.

So it seems that more and more women have decided to have children while they still can, regardless of their marital status. The result is, in Yoffe’s words, a “culture [that] is out of touch with the needs of children.” And I would add that what a child needs most is a stable, loving family with a mom and a dad at the helm.

Re-coupling marriage and procreation will not be easy in this “me-first” culture. That’s because marriage and having babies-as fulfilling as they are-are not about self-fulfillment. They are about love, fidelity, and self-sacrifice for the good of the other-for the spouse, for the children.

That message is a tough sell these days. But it’s a message our culture ignores at its great peril.

=================================================================================================

From BreakPoint, May 27, 2009. Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with the permission of Prison Fellowship Ministries.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bastardboom; colson; family; illegitimacy; marriage; moralabsolutes; wedlock
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To: SeekAndFind
Women today are driven by the same maternal imperatives as they have been throughout history; they are made to have babies.

Young men today, of all races and classes in America, are driven by the same imperatives as they have been throughout history; to have sex (not necessarily to be fathers).

Today's young American man (correction, male not man) is too self-involved and too immature to parent. This doesn't stop the young women from following the pull of nature.

21 posted on 06/28/2009 9:18:09 AM PDT by wtc911 ("How you gonna get back down that hill?")
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To: mamelukesabre
A wedding ring is a woman’s license to steal. That’s how many men view it.

_________________________________________

Those "men" are fools.

22 posted on 06/28/2009 9:19:21 AM PDT by wtc911 ("How you gonna get back down that hill?")
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To: SeekAndFind

It may be a woman’s right to choose to have a child out of wedlock, but I get REALLY bent out of shape when the welfare department rushes in with offers of financial help. That may have been OK when there were only one or two, and there was no reliable birth control, but now.......

I would completely support a law that says “You chose - no support for you. And if you have another, you go to trial and possibly jail. There must be a father somewhere - ask him, you ‘chose’ him!”


23 posted on 06/28/2009 9:20:10 AM PDT by I am Richard Brandon
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To: wtc911

Divorce laws seem to corroborate.


24 posted on 06/28/2009 9:22:19 AM PDT by mamelukesabre (Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum (If you want peace prepare for war))
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To: GAB-1955

Actually, when there’s a surplus of women in a society, all women have to “hustle” first. Just cut down on the number of women available and you’ll see them valued higher ~ even by themselves.


25 posted on 06/28/2009 9:22:27 AM PDT by muawiyah
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To: GAB-1955
“Young men need to find good, honest, young women and choose one to have a permanent and satisfying relationship.”

Great plan until the young woman starts talking to her girlfriends that explain how easy it is to steal everything the young mans owns in divorce court!

26 posted on 06/28/2009 9:23:57 AM PDT by Beagle8U (Free Republic -- One stop shopping ....... It's the Conservative Super WalMart for news .)
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To: SeekAndFind

Government subsidized the production of bastards with welfare to sluts. When producing bastards became financially useful, many were produced.

What government subsidizes it get.


27 posted on 06/28/2009 9:33:26 AM PDT by GladesGuru (In a society predicated upon freedom, it is essential to examine principles,)
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To: Beagle8U
I said honest young women. Not the mall skanks.
28 posted on 06/28/2009 9:34:27 AM PDT by GAB-1955 (I write books, love my wife, serve my nation, and believe in the Resurrection.)
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To: SeekAndFind
Wow!

Being born and married in Nebraska some 27 years this is a story about a parallel dimension. I mean, I don't know what it's like now, but back then (and there) folks pretty much married for life. But, you were imbued with a pervasive sense of rural civic responsibility, which is broadly absent in cities on a comparative basis.

I suppose that the anonymity accorded in an urban environment is what allows much of this. That, and availability that is “unsupervised” by the local culture. The existence of a set of behavioral ethics is what holds the whole thing together. Combine all of this, and it is possible to hold one marriage together, raise kids, and do it all in one lifetime (even as an airline pilot).

It can be done, and it works very well. The kids from such environments are very different though. For one thing, there is a greater emphasis on education. When getting out of the “nest”, they're “odd ducks”. I have a niece that graduated “summa” in finance at a large midwestern university. At a Wall Street investment bank interview, the leading question was, “Is there anyone “normal” that comes from Nebraska?”.

Well, by urban standards, it's obvious that the answer is no. But normative standards may be quite dysfunctional, as we see in this case. Personally, I'd rather be the “odd duck”.

29 posted on 06/28/2009 9:35:54 AM PDT by Habibi ("We gladly feast on those who would subdue us". Not just pretty words........")
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To: oh8eleven

It Takes A village - To Raise A Native.

That’s “native” as in “Post Colonial Native” - a good exmple is Obama.


30 posted on 06/28/2009 9:36:33 AM PDT by GladesGuru (In a society predicated upon freedom, it is essential to examine principles,)
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To: GAB-1955

I don’t think there are any now.


31 posted on 06/28/2009 9:36:54 AM PDT by Beagle8U (Free Republic -- One stop shopping ....... It's the Conservative Super WalMart for news .)
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To: GAB-1955
The problem is that there is no apparent financial penalty for bearing children out of wedlock.

My point and your statement convey the same. Does it matter of something is pushed or it is pulled? The outcome is the same, it moves the same direction.

There is no societal mandate for abstinence until married, thus no penalty for those who give birth out of wedlock.

In fact in many cases, there is reward for the parents masked as "for the chidren" via government payouts. My stated point in my last post "why bother getting married" is the promotion in general anymore.

32 posted on 06/28/2009 9:37:06 AM PDT by EGPWS (Trust in God, question everyone else)
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To: I am Richard Brandon

Afterthought: “Ask him or THEM.”


33 posted on 06/28/2009 9:37:58 AM PDT by I am Richard Brandon
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To: Oldexpat

Just look at the historical stats.
The illegitimacy rate takes off just after the start of the “Great Society”.
Lyndon Johnson and friends did a great job, especially in destroying the black family structure.
Nearly 50 years later we view the sad results.


34 posted on 06/28/2009 9:40:19 AM PDT by nascarnation
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To: SeekAndFind

When a woman gets more and more wlfare money for each child—she only has the incentive to keep producing babies and not worrying about the cost to soceity.

She gets WIC-Food Stamps- Section 8 Housing, etc.

This gets repeated from generation to generation.

Wonder what Johnson would say if he could come back for a visit today?

He started the “War on Poverty” and set many of these programs into motion.

Now, all I see is a giant circle, with the item in motion coming back 5 fold to bite us in the ass.


35 posted on 06/28/2009 9:40:29 AM PDT by ridesthemiles
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To: muawiyah

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2682654/idiocracy_opening_sequence/


36 posted on 06/28/2009 9:40:41 AM PDT by M203M4 (A rainbow-excreting government-cheese-pie-eating unicorn in every pot.)
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To: Beagle8U

I see about 20 or 30 of them every Sunday morning at our church!


37 posted on 06/28/2009 9:40:50 AM PDT by GAB-1955 (I write books, love my wife, serve my nation, and believe in the Resurrection.)
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To: SeekAndFind
A significant part of the answer lies in changing ideas and attitudes towards marriage.

Only in that marriage is no longer the requirement in order to protect children from insult and provide for them under law. When the ramifications of having a child outside of marriage were removed by society, then the reason to marry ceased ... end of story.

38 posted on 06/28/2009 9:43:20 AM PDT by MozarkDawg
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To: Beagle8U

“Great plan until the young woman starts talking to her girlfriends that explain how easy it is to steal everything the young mans owns in divorce court!”

All too true! ! !

A friend’s 12 year old grand daughter was found to have taught the children of his son about the state agencies to call if they didn’t like the rules their parents were enforcing.

Son’s wife found out about this and Bratinella’s bottom met Mrs. Palm.

Problem solved, the classic way.

Considerm however, that had the goobers in any of a number of Sheeples Republic of FloriDUH gooberment agencies heard about any of this, that family could have been destroyed.

When gooberment wants to raise your children, that gooberment has far too much funding and waaaay too many employees.

Downsize and defund the Beast of Government.


39 posted on 06/28/2009 9:43:40 AM PDT by GladesGuru (In a society predicated upon freedom, it is essential to examine principles,)
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To: oh8eleven
Yeah, it takes a village. And like those little African villages, we'll be stuck in the past living the same way our ancestors did 10,000 year ago. No Change You Can Believe In. When was that last time a "village" invented a self-sustaining electrical power source? Hmmm, never.

The other reason is that women in this society have been taught to have sex with no consequences. So if they pregnant, it's all about ME, ME, ME! The man or men don't even enter into it.

40 posted on 06/28/2009 9:49:40 AM PDT by Clock King
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