Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Good on you. There are plenty of people in this country who retain traditionalist values. I was raised in a to simply say 'to each his/her own' on most issues like this. There are so many differing views in America, I figured I would share a perspective on marriage that others may not have been considered.
I respectfully disagree with several of the points you made. There have been a lot of comments on single moms and welfare in this thread, including yours, so I figure I will jump in to the discussion and perhaps introduce another perspective.
Honestly, I expect to see the percent of single mothers on welfare go down in the coming years. Many of the single mothers those single mothers had their children young, and perhaps didn't finish a high school or college degree because of it. In 2003, 78.8% of teenage mothers received public assistance (1). The teen pregnancy rate has dropped at a startling rate in recent years, and is now less than half of what it was 20 years ago (2). The demographic of single parents on welfare may change significantly in the coming years if birth trends continue as they have.
And I will leave that point with this excerpt from "This Week in Poverty: US Single Mothers—'The Worst Off'" (3):
"Using data from government agencies, social scientists and researchers worldwide, the report shows that single mothers in the United States—most of whom are either separated or were previously married—are employed more hours and yet have much higher poverty rates than their peers in other high-income countries. Let me run that by you again—because it’s generally not what you’ve been reading of late in the news: the majority of single mothers in the United States are separated, divorced or widowed; and they work more hours and yet have higher poverty rates than single mothers in other high-income countries.
The employment rate for US single mothers during the mid- to late-2000s was 73 percent, compared to an average of 66 to 70 percent in peer countries. In a 2000 comparative study of nine peer countries, 87 percent of employed US single parents were working thirty or more hours a week, compared to just an average of 64 percent of jobholding single parents in the other countries."
Welfare is an essential part of any country. There are countless stories of it helping families get through a rough patch, and in reality, abuse of most welfare programs is pretty low. I feel particularly strongly about programs that help children, because no child should have to suffer because of their parents mistakes. And that means helping single mothers.
But back to your comment. The final point you make is that it is 'heinous' for women to have children with different men. Do you still feel this way in cases where the woman is a widow? Or in cases of domestic abuse, if the woman finds love in a safer relationship?
Don't judge until you've walked a mile in someone else's shoes.
I was talking about people who have illegitimate children but one person then they did with someone else also out of wedlock. Widowed and divorced moms are a different breed than never married moms. Likewise a single mom who supports her kids is different than one who depends on welfare. Stats do show that a huge percentage of never married moms depend on welfare. I believe in keeping it but can't feel sorry for someone who keeps making poor choices. BTW this feeling is for never married dads.
There have been a lot of good arguments made thus far, but there are reasons for this trend.
I would like to offer another reason that this is happening. First, Americans aren't as religious as we once were. There is less pressure to get married just because someone is pregnant. And I think this is a good thing. The divorce rate is dropping, and people are waiting to marry and make a life-long commitment to someone until they are old enough to know what they actually want in a partner. Sometimes that is the other parent of the child, sometimes it isn't.
I'll even give myself as an example right now. I am in my twenties and I have been in a relationship with a man I love for over two years. If I were to accidentally get pregnant right now, I would have the child. However, I see no reason to rush the wedding because of this. I would rather not have a massive belly in my wedding dress. I would like my wedding to be a celebration of love between me and my husband, not a rush job because I got knocked up.
And I know that is the way that a lot of millenials feel too. The average wedding in America costs over $25k and is planned for a lot longer than a month in advance. If people rush to get married, they risk losing what many expect to be the happiest day of their lives.
Another reason may be a bit greedy, but a lot of my generation doesn't have that much money to throw the wedding they want. This also means that they cannot set up a wedding registry and fully expect friends to come from out of town if the wedding is just thrown together. My closest friends are spread out between Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Houston, Washington DC, New York, and Boston. Most of us can't afford to be traveling for a wedding right now. So some of the though may be that if you wait until you are older, you will probably be able to afford a wedding much closer to your idea of the way, get better quality gifts, and increase the likelihood that more of your friends will be there.
And my final reason for why some of the better-off millenials may put off marriage even if they can afford it, is for tax reasons. In a household with two salaries, over an combined annual household income of about $75k-$100k, there is basically a marriage tax. I know that if my boyfriend and I get married now, we will be increasing the amount of money we pay in taxes by about $5000/yr. And that is not a negligible amount of money, especially as we are paying off our student loan debt and beginning to save for retirement. Even if we had a kid now, it would make more sense for us to remain unmarried and have one person claim the child tax credit.
Summed up, marriage is a lot less about religious values and a lot more about logic and economics within the millenial generation.
I'm sorry but I have to highlight the BS in this post. You can go down to the courthouse and get married without spending thousands of dollars let alone tens of thousands of dollars. My parents have been married for 32 years now and they got married at a courthouse and looking back my mother in her sixties could care less that she didn't have a big wedding. The best days of there lives was when there children were born not there wedding. The whole cost of a wedding argument against getting married I find beyond stupid since it's not a valid excuse preventing marriage. It's simply people usually the wife wanting a big expensive wedding to try and reenact some Walt Disney bs fantasy wedding they have stuck in there minds. If a woman I was considering proposing to told me she wanted to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a wedding I would never propose to her. Not because I couldn't afford it but because it's fantasy BS and I honestly would doubt things would work out with her if her head is in the clouds and not in reality.
As far as finances go you get tax breaks for being married and you have combined income and you will be living together that more then makes up for the $5,000 just in not paying rent for living in two different places (assuming you two don't live together).
Also that number would include people who are in relationships but not married. Just because the parents aren't married, doesn't mean the child will grow up in 1 parent household.
But its certainly much more common; which I think is the point. Children not supported even by a father is quite common.In fact its getting more common for mother to not even name deadbeat fathers to avoid the custody problems later. Often the childs last name is same as mothers.
Used to be that the only way a child could be supported, was if the father worked, and the mom took care of home and child...not the case, so much, anymore. Now, moms work, or are supported by welfare (meaning all of the working folk are paying her way...)so there's really little incentive for folks to take responsibility for themselves.
This is where our government is letting Americans down...they should be fostering MORE personal responsibility...not less. And, Americans should take PRIDE in supporting themselves.
You might be unaware of this but since the Clinton Administration there is no such thing as permanent welfare. There are currently three assistance programs that Americans are eligible for under certain narrow circumstances. They are: Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (formerly Aid to Families With Dependent Children), Supplemental Security Income, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (what people erroneously call food stamps).
U.S. Health and Human Services says 23.1% of Americans received one or a combination of those in 2013 (during one of the worst economies we've seen since The Great Depression). That includes all recipients of all ages, not merely millennials. It would be virtually impossible to live off those programs unless one was living very modestly and received all three. Your remark suggests that people can get up in the morning and say to themselves, "I don't feel like working. I think I'll collect welfare." If you ever tried to get on any of those programs you would find that it's very difficult ... and even harder to remain a recipient for any length of time.
In fact, there is plenty of incentive for people to work. And most people who earn only minimum wage have to have more than one job or have a partner who also works if they expect to live anywhere except in the most low COL areas.
This is just another sign of a society that is falling apart, and a country in steep decline. Expect more of the same and worse. Expect more poverty, and a lower standard of living. A society with these kinds of morals will continue to disintegrate.
I'm more against marriage then for because people get taken to the cleaners far to often from divorce. I think the legal contract aspect of marriage needs to be stripped down to bare bones compared to what it is now (ie your spouse dies you get there possessions).
In reality though people have unrealistic ideas about what marriage is and don't want to work out there problems and that is what has lead to the extremely high divorce rate in the United States.
I myself wouldn't have a child with someone that I truly can't see myself marrying. I've only really been in one relationship and we were very committed, monogamous and was looking to get married after she finished college. We didn't because we broke up but we were truly in love and had issues we went to counseling for. I wasn't planning on getting her pregnant prior to her graduation but if we did, we did. I am pretty sure the cousin I mentioned is the same way as I was. It's just a matter of time before they marry.
I'll be the outsider and say that for me, having the marriage in place before kids did create more of a commitment. We did get married before having our first child, but just barely. I think in the early years of parenthood, we might have thrown in the towel and split up a few times had we not been married. For one thing, it was a logistical thing - divorce is a hassle no matter how you slice it. Even with the most amicable split, you need to do filing, hearings, child custody mediation, division of property, etc. It wasn't just a matter of packing up one's clothes and CD's and moving out one day.
For another, both my husband and I took our vows seriously. It's not that we weren't serious about one another before, but both he and I had that "til death do we part" mentality. FWIW, we didn't have a church wedding, we just got married in front of a justice of the peace, no guests or reception or anything. (We were going to later on have a real wedding later on, but never got around to it.) But we still took our promise to one another seriously.
So, I think for us, being married did keep us in a two-parent household.
Plus it does make things more legitimate when dealing with various bureaucratic... things. Like insurance.
Children out of wedlock and marriages that last 2 weeks mean the same thing.
Society has changed and I am concerned about its future. Children raised in single parent households are less likely to have a well established family when they become adults. The model is simply disappearing.
In the future people will live their lives like single atoms floating in vacuum with no anchor or relation to others.
I am not sure people understand that this model had never before tested before, in the history of mankind or even in primate societies.
So what?
Children born out of wedlock.
THIS is "new" how?
Lemme see, in 1900 my grandmother was an "illigitimate child" by defintion, born to two unmarried parents who were each married to someone else. SHe was given a false name. My grandmother's mother was born illigitimate too, her mother not marrying the man who impregnated her, and wasn't even sure who was the father {??!!}...in 1865. My grandmother's grandmother was born iligititmate too, seems a pattern in those times in those Appalachian mountain towns. MAybe no "preacher man" was available. Obviously they didn't believe in "shot gun weddings" either. Shot guns and ammo were for huntin', not for marryin', why waste a bullet? Was it "bad for the country then"?
My Father's parents married the month he was born so he wouldn't be a "illigitimate child", but the marriage didn't last, and my father has siblings who were born thusly out of wedlock, too, since his mother never married the fathers. They were given false names, too. This was in the 40s out in the west. Was that bad for the country during the war when men "got some" before heading off to war, not always stopping at the JP or church on the way to "getting some"? that was what happened here.
So what is the point about millenials? Better to NOT get married than to become yet another divorce statistic maybe? How is divorce better than being "ligitimate"? then they are still from a "broken home".
The article itself says " ...and while we can talk about reviving marriage, it’s at best a hypothetical.".
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
