Government health officials say that last year, nearly four in 10 births were to unwed mothers. And contrary to Auguste and others' views, those aren't teenagers who can't get tubal ligations having the babies.
While out-of-wedlock births have long been associated with teen mothers, the teen birth rate actually dropped last year to the lowest level on record. Instead, births among unwed mothers rose most dramatically among women in their 20s.
Experts said the overall rise reflects the burgeoning number of people who are putting off marriage or living together without getting married. They said it also reflects the fact that having a child out of wedlock is more acceptable nowadays and not necessarily the source of shame it once was.
The increase in births to unwed mothers was seen in all racial groups, but rose most sharply among Hispanics. It was up among all age groups except youngsters ages 10 to 17.
I've seen a lot more 20-somethings who haven't equated having children with marriage. It's like they think the marriage thing is optional, not even optimal. This may be a consequence of the high divorce rate in this country, which might cause young adults to be more jaded about marriage. But mainly what I see is that they just don't think getting married before having kids is a big deal, and if you ask them, they think you must be old-fashioned.
But don't bring up that single parenthood tends to mean that men aren't involved.
Just because a mother is not married does not mean the father isn't around, (Stephanie) Ventura (of the National Center for Health Statistics) noted. She cited 2002 statistics that showed that about 20 percent of all new mothers under 20 were unmarried but living with the father at the time of the birth. That same was true of about 13 percent of all new mothers ages 20 to 24.
According to census figures, the median age at first marriage was 27 for men and 25 for women last year, up from 23 and 20 in 1950. Meanwhile, the number of unmarried-couple households with children has been climbing, hitting more than 1.7 million last year, up from under 200,000 in 1970.
Of course, that means that 80% of the fathers with the under 20 moms and 87% of fathers with the 20 to 24-year-old moms weren't living together. And the story doesn't discuss which of these non-living-together dads were actually involved daily in their children's lives. I doubt very many of them were. But marriage before childbirth is just another lifestyle, right?
|