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When you talk about the ultra-wealthy, they will sometimes refrain from getting legally married due to certain tax and accounting issues, or due to the possible financial consequences of a breakup. So, it doesn't necessarily translate to the situations "real" people would face with marriage.
Actually, the wealthy are much more likely to get married and stay married than the poor & middle class.
Now, I look back at my life and I wonder, wouldn't things have been better if they had never been married? I think the fighting wouldn't have been so vicious, they wouldn't hate each other like they do, and my son would have a loving set of Grandparents who could be willing to be in the same room with one another.
I look at your post and think you would have been better off (and probably your parents, too) if you'd been given up for adoption to married parents who were willing and able to raise you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Memphis1979
So, in a real world, where unplanned pregnancies happen, whats best?
In most cases, it's adoption, IMO...unless there is a truly stong extended family network willing and able to step in.
I think that it's best for me to be married before having kids. I don't feel the need to force that particular life choice on others. If I think somebody is weird, doing things backwards, or is just plain wrong, I keep it to myself..
The thing is, we have this problem in America where this focus on individualism has run wild. I mean, are YOU really that different from everyone else. Why do we Americans somehow think we're always the exception to the rule? For people who want kids, marriage just makes sense.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sponger42
This is a general statement and not directed at any one person or group, but: I think more people need to mind their own effing business.
If there was no welfare state for single parents to tap, I would mind my own effing business. But people who have kids out of wedlock are much more likely to be dependent on the taxpayers instead of paying taxes. And those kids who grow up in single parent homes are likely to repeat that cycle.
When it comes to having children I don't care if people are married or not, I don't even care if they stay together or not, what I care about (above and beyond EVERYTHING ELSE they do in their life) is that they are good parents to their children. The rest of it is none of my business.
Newsflash: In general, it's the married people who stay together who make better parents. Oh, yes I can hear people screaming about how they're the exeption to this...but the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of kids being raised in married, 2 parent families.
It is getting to where a perfectly good wedding gift is shoes for a 2 year old. I think I am also old school in thinking that it takes 2 married people to raise a child, however understand that with the divorce rate being so high that is impossible in this day and age. I feel alot of people want to take the easy way out of relationships and figure that marriage is doomed to fail so why bother, if that is the mindset they should figure raising a child by themselves is a whole lot more difficult. I am fortunate that I have been married for over 20 years and my son turned 16 on the 15th. I was raised by my mother who divorced my dad when I was in the 4th grade and since I saw how hard it was on everyone in the family, I would never have wanted that for my child.
The divorce rate is high because we have such wildly unrealistic expectations for marriage. We also base our mate selection way too heavily on love/attraction alone, and not other factors. (I'm not saying being in love is unimportant....but it's definitely not enough)
Personally, I think this book should be required reading for high school graduation:
I also love what author Elizabeth Gilbert had to say on the subject:
If you look at the history of marriage, anytime you see a conservative culture of arranged marriage being replaced by a more liberal culture of romantic marriage ... you will see divorce rates start to rise immediately.
It turns out that love is a very fragile notion upon which to base a very important and complicated institution. I think most people throughout history would look at the way we choose our marriages today and just think, my God, these people took huge risks. They risk their future, financial stability, property and their heirs on something as fragile and delicate as romantic affection.
It's not that that necessarily means that I advocate a return to arranged marriage, it just helps put in perspective why contemporary western marital arrangements can become so chaotic.
Listen I had two children out of wedlock and they were raised strictly by me and I never once took a dime of welfare . I am educated and chose to work instead of sit on my butt and draw welfare . I also saw the look on some drs faces when I told them I was a single mother . I always paid their bill with cash or with a credit card and never once did I owe them a dime either . If you are not married and raising kids everyone assumes you are getting welfare I dont know why but they do . I have no problem with people not chosing to be married just because they have kids . as someone else said that is the worst reason to get married .
Problem is, phonelady, you're the exception and not the rule.
I agree. When it comes to raising children or any relationship the most important thing is STABILITY. It's not about MAN & WOMAN and some making a legal contract or religious ceremony. It's the emotional commitment to the family. There are many households with a single parent or same-sex parents where children are being raised in stable, loving environments. And it's those married persons with closed minds who are treating the children of the "different" families "different". Family is family. I support family not matter what the makeup. I support marriage in whatever way you define it. Too bad our government won't do the same.
I both agree and disagree on the stability issue. I agree with your emphasis on the importance of stability. However, this whole idea of 'emotional committment' is what makes marriage and child rearing so unstable because emotions come and go. That's why religious ceremonies & legal contracts are done. They help to reinforce the commitment when you really want to bail. And even in the best of marriages, there are times when both parties want to bail out.
There are always exceptions to the rule, but for the most part, kids raised in single parent households don't get the same level of stability that kids raised in 2 parent households get. The evidence for this is overwhelming.
Should be the way of the world by law....but sorry sweetie, humanity has expired, we live in a moral-less time now.Just a bunch of betty crack whores and sperm donors.
And don't forget the hateful people like you who think that every single parent fits that description of yours. There are plenty of us out here that raised wonderful well-adjusted, educated kids by ourselves without mooching off the government, without being drug users, without being prostitutes, without ever getting in trouble with the law in any way.
People like you who want to make laws against things that chap your personal religiously-based reality are the most misguided people on the face of the planet. Sharia all over.
Oh, and here's some other info from the Brookings Institution (a left-wing think tank)
Having unmarried parents can be devastating for children who start out with no cushion in life. In 1999 congressional testimony, Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution said that the increase in single-parent families—mostly due to unwed motherhood in the past few decades—"can account for virtually all of the increase in child poverty since 1970." A recent study found that the stress of early childhood poverty can literally damage developing brains.
Two-parents homes are not always "happier"; whereas you can find some mighty well-adjusted kids in single-parent homes. But traditional families are still out there.
Sure, 2 parent families aren't always happier. But it's high time we started thinking about this issue in terms of the odds. The odds are stacked against kids and parents in single parent families, emotionally and financially. The evidence is overwhelming. Why do so many continually deny it?
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