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.
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From BreakPoint, May 27, 2009. Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with the permission of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
Men have exactly the same biological drive to produce offspring that women do. However, in a welfare society without ethical values, men can optimize their reproductive chances by being promiscuous and letting others do the parenting. That has been the strategy in de 'hood for years, and it's now going mainstream.
Because so many women are screw ups.
The problem is that there is no apparent financial penalty for bearing children out of wedlock”
NOt only no apparent financial penalty—
We are actually paying them more for each child.
How many first-time unwed moms in their 30s are on welfare? Probably not many. If they were part of the welfare culture they would have been an unwed mom in their teens or early twenties.
There's more going on here than welfare.
Understood. Now....break down unwed mothers by race and see what you come up with. Problem is, I don’t think people have the nerve to do this. Break it down by city. Break it down as far as you can. If you don’t get to the bottom of it and keep making excuses for these people, it will continue.
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To produce them...not to parent them.
A good deal of blame has to go to the development of the Pill and the widespread acceptance of artificial birth control, which allowed sex to be separated from procreation and which made the sexual revolution possible. Contraception also allowed procreation to become separated from marriage. Instead of the three things existing together—sex, procreation, and marriage—we have different combinations of two of the three existing together: sex and marriage but without procreation; sex and procreation, without marriage; and (via the marvels of in vitro fertilization) we have procreation without sex.
Other factors that have led to this increase in out of wedlock births is our society’s refusal to attach any stigma to unwed motherhood and illegitimacy along with the accompanying devaluation of fatherhood. Indeed, we actually put “single mothers” on a pedestal as though they are better than married mothers because they’re raising children without the help of husband or fathers, who are now superfluous. This, in turn, has further increased the irresponsibility of men, who see no need to commit themselves to marriage or family when they can gratify themselves without all that baggage.
We have truly arrived at a sad state in this county.
Maybe not under tax laws, but single parents (especially single mothers) tend to poverty at a much higher rate than married parents.
Whatever their other failings, African villages don't have high rates of illegitimacy. In such societies, men have no choice but to marry someone they knock up. Traditional societies like that are quite functional when it comes to parenting, marriage and family life.
It is not too costly to get married. Indeed, there are tax breaks to promote marriage.
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Let me give you my experience with this.
My husband and I lived together for 8 years. There were 2 major reasons why we did not marry.
1) At the time we were not religious.
2) We both would have taken a horrific beating with school loans, grants, and scholarships. Why? Because once a person marries the college financial aid department considers the spouse’s money the same as belonging to the student!
The only reason we married was because we both found the Lord, and before we could be baptized into our denomination we had to repent and get married first.
Thankfully, I did beat the Big Ben ( loudly ticking) biological time clock and had 3 children after the age of 35. None of our 3 children followed in our early footsteps, and all are strong in the gospel. I have another child from another marriage and he has 6 kids with his wife and his family is strong in the gospel as well. Among the 4 children we are grandparents to 10 with another grandchild and our first great grandchild to be born in December.
Absolutely! I agree.
And,....There is far too much PC hindrance.
This is a possible reason . . . .video of a young female practicing her marital skills!!!
Or is it natural?
http://www.snotr.com/video/2630
More babies are being born out of wed-lock because FEWER women are choosing abortion just because they are pregnant and not married. IMHO..
That’s funny. That seems to be the same thing that drove all my old girlfriends away too.
Girls just wanna have fun. And then take your money.
“We are reaping the logical, natural consequences of the cultural and sexual revolutions”.
And those consequences are nurtered by cultural marxists.
I think I know exactly what she was saying. I’ve heard that speech hundreds of times.
You don’t pay attention to me! You ignore me! Why can’t you acknowledge that I’m here? Would it kill you to have a conversation with me? Why do I feel most lonely when you are around? What is wrong with you? Don’t you know how to show affection? Why don’t you take me anywhere? Are you listening to me? why don’t you respond to me? This is what I’m talking about, you aren’t paying attention! Don’t you have anything to say to me? I’m waiting. What is your response? Are you a human being or a robot? why don’t you have any humanity? Why are you so cold? stoicism is not a virtue. You have no emotion. I need to know what you are feeling. why can’t you talk to me? Are you retarded? Tell me what you are thinking, dammit! Can you speak? I’ve been sitting over here all by myself with the dog reading this dam book for an hour waiting for you to come over to me and show me some affection. I’M SICK OF WAITING! Can’t you take a hint? Do I have to tell you everything? Why can’t you do this one simple little thing for me without me asking? What is wrong with you? You aren’t normal. this is not how normal couples interact. you don’t interact. I can’t take it anymore.
Blah blah blah.
Okay, no problem! Hello sailor! (Or hello, married man, or looking for a green card man, or looking for a meal ticket chronically unemployed man, or sensitive, artistic, and probably gay man.)
And once she's added Baby to her list of possessions, why, who needs that dead weight of a husband hanging around anyway?
Precisely.
Medicaid claimants should be scrutinized exactly the same way as workman's comp claimants. Many recipients have been shacking up for decades. There seems to be total trust in what the applicant tells Medicaid and no continual investigations that could prove otherwise.
It all ties back to morals and scruples. Casual sex is what the movies, music and TV promote. Kids movies are not exempt from it. It's overwhelming in context to our daily lives and what our children and grandchildren absorb from it.
Who wants to buy the cow when the milk is free? They argue back saying who would buy a coat that you haven't tried on? These days people need private investigators to ensure the person they care about is who they claim to be, let alone someone who will be faithful, loving and devoted. I pray for my grandchildren a LOT.
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