Posted on 11/26/2006 5:02:22 AM PST by shrinkermd
....More American women than ever are putting motherhood before matrimony. New data released by the Centers for Disease Control show that nearly four in 10 U.S. babies were born outside of marriage in 2005—a new high. These unwed moms aren't all teens—last year teen pregnancies fell to their lowest levels in 65 years. Some—like 44-year-old Mary Lee MacKichan, who used a gay friend as a sperm donor—are professional, older women who want to have babies before their biological clocks run out, but most are low-income twentysomethings. (Unwed births among 30- to 44-year-olds are up 17 percent since 1991; among those 25 to 29, they're up 30 percent.) And some 40 percent of those moms aren't going it alone—they're cohabiting, at least for a while. That's creating a major shift in what a generation of children are coming to call a family. "Marriage is still alive and well, but it has a lot of competition," says Wellesley College sociologist Rosanna Hertz, author of "Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice."
Ironically, sociologists say, marriage may be on the decline precisely because it has become so idealized. People expect more from marriage than they did a century ago, when it was mainly a practical arrangement to provide financial stability for women and a place to raise children. "Now it's not only love and romance but also self-fulfillment and personal growth," says Pamela Smock, professor of sociology at the University of Michigan. Since there's no longer much of a stigma attached to getting pregnant outside of marriage, many couples have replaced "shotgun weddings" with "shotgun cohabitations
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
I just thought as another stupid engineer I'd say "hello".
Well, anyway, it definitely looks like we are on the same track (and apparently attracted to the same kinds of threads!). Enjoy your karate!
It's scary what is raising the next generation. It's going to affect us all. There's no getting around it.
there will always be hoes who choose hoe-dom
guilty conscience accy???????
Pretty much every post you've made on this thread identifies you as an elitist, classist snob. If I'm wrong, then why have so many other Freepers independently come to the same conclusion? But let's look at a particular example:
If I went out with a soldier especially an enlisted man, I'd probably have nothing in common with him. I don't know many Army guys who enjoy wine tasting, art museums, and political lectures, all hobbies of mine. And I really don't enjoy camping or watching football...*snip*...I enjoy going to museums and concerts and other intellectual pursuits. I don't think that someone who flips burgers for a living would enjoy these things.
OK, how about a couple of questions...
Do you enjoy wine tasting, art museums, concerts and political lectures because they appeal to you personally, or because you were taught to do so in college?
Do you believe that "Army guys" are taught to enjoy camping and football during basic training, or maybe at the burger-flipping academy?
And finally, what do you think makes you "intellectual"?
Yep between $80,000 and 100,000 right after graduation
DREAM on oh promiscuious one
Your posts are out of line.
In other words, given a choice as a role model for children between someone who is honest, kind, loving, generous, Godly, and flips burgers for a living, versus Ken Lay ... you'd choose Ken Lay?
When you get around to the idea that you need to hold the father of your children as indispensable to them as you are, and when you get around to the idea that men aren't just meal tickets any more than women are just cooks, you will have made some progress.
My grandmother worked when her kids were grown. She worked at a department store. That was in the 50s.
I think women did more then you think.
Friday night football in Texas is a very fun activity!
I was in the band in Dallas when I grew up, and it was tons of fun. You didn't have to be great to participate, but I wanted to be great. I worked hard to get on the Color Guard for marching season, and then I worked hard to get into the first band.
My parents were not into any of it. They are not musically inclined. They are into sports, and I'm not a sports person.
I did all of it for myself, and I loved it!!!!!!!!!!!! I wish I could do it for fun now.
I bet you still live at home and the parents are footing the bill for your school (am I right?). Before you start throwing fast food employees, soldiers, and mechanics under the bus, take a walk in their shoes.
This thread is turning into a bizzaro counseling session to help you to get an MBA and a rich date.
You are putting waaaaay too much emphasis on MBA programs. You seem consumed by the prospect of getting into an elite b-school.
A desire to get sufficient education to pursue a rewarding career is laudable. People with the most useful skills will do far better than those who fritter away all their time on a PS3.
That said, balance between work and family is important, and getting harder for professionals whose employers expect very long hours for the hefty paychecks. Someone wise once observed that when a person approaches the end of their life, they rarely lament that they should have spent more time at work.
I gather from your previous posts that you are too young to have experienced the 1950s firsthand. So where are you getting all of your "facts" about life during that period?
Books, television and movies? See bottom of post #360.
I do all the week's cooking over the weekend and put it in the fridge.
Try it.
Cheers!
I agree with your comments about family-work balance. You are absolutely right.
The "pot roast", June Cleaver sophistry is rubbish.
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