Posted on 03/03/2007 9:38:09 PM PST by carlo3b
Numbers Drop for the Married With Children
Institution Becoming The Choice of the Educated, AffluentBy Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 4, 2007; Page A03PORTLAND, Ore. -- Punctuating a fundamental change in American family life, married couples with children now occupy fewer than one in every four households -- a share that has been slashed in half since 1960 and is the lowest ever recorded by the census.
As marriage with children becomes an exception rather than the norm, social scientists say it is also becoming the self-selected province of the college-educated and the affluent. The working class and the poor, meanwhile, increasingly steer away from marriage, while living together and bearing children out of wedlock.
"The culture is shifting, and marriage has almost become a luxury item, one that only the well educated, one that only the well educated and well paid are interested in," said Isabel V. Sawhill, an expert on marriage and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Congratulations to the scumbag liberal Democrats.
Apparently, they are winning their war against traditional American culture.
Conservatives and Christians need not worry that the selfish and egocentric aren't reproducing. I just had my 4th child and face daily the incredulity of a public taught to view with disdain parenthood. I think it is simple, those that reproduce will inherit the Earth the others shall pass into extinction. I consider it a matter of faith and as I have held onto that faith things have worked out.
Marriage is now for the rich elites?
It's hard to tell if anything in the article resembles reality with the media as it is today. This could be just their dream of the future.
I do think that our culture is coming to resemble the Islamic culture. With men moving from woman to woman to create children but living their lives with other men.
its the divorce laws. so long as a man must take the risks in marriage - the potential for financial ruin, the loss of his children, even when he does not initiate the divorce - that's a barrier to entering into marriage.
Except that men passed those laws.
And the radical islamists continue to multiply.
Sigh.
But we have diversity. And it's our strength.
yeah, male lawyers.
I think there is some (more or less deliberate) misinterpretation of statistics going on in analyses like this one. Baby boomers like Mr. Adler and me are the rat going through the anaconda. Our two girls are now 30 and 26 so that Mr. Adler and I now rate as a childless couple for the purposes of statistical calculations. The fact that we have no children in our home now is simply the result of our having aged and our daughters having grown up. Huge numbers of aging boomers simply skew the overall statistics as we always have and will till we die.
I believe it.. I see the kids that flock to my home on weekends to get a home-cooked meal and watch a classic movie with my grandkids.. It was the same with my kids before they went to college, we were the place were the parents dumped their kids.. and I THANK GOD that I got to enjoy those great kids..
Carlo...I love you...but you didn't read the story.
All it says is that, if you have a good income, you're pretty much likely to marry and have kids.
The negative quotes are from people like "Together, they earn less than $20,000 a year and are living with Roach's father. They cannot afford to live anywhere else."
The headline is sensationalized.
In large part, the destruction of the nuclear family, is the root of all evil in any given society.
College-educated women, whose numbers have risen sharply since 1980, often live with a partner and postpone marriage. But in most cases, they eventually marry and have children, and divorce at about half the rate of women who do not finish high school.
People live a lot longer these days, after the kids are grown and gone, and I really wonder how much this figured into their numbers.
social scientists say it is also becoming the self-selected province of the college-educated and the affluent.
Pseudo-affluent. Largely middle class people who loath their own kind and want to distinguish themselves as better... "Better" by using simple illusions, typically -- not by any real measure.
They used to be called "upward mobile", but now they just declare themselves "there" already, and naturally entitled to high position.
I read the story, I read that the number of families that have a Dad, Mom, and kids has dropped by half since 1960.. Who cares what the grade level achieved and income is? I know that our friends are still marrying, be my country is sinking into the muck..
Not quite accurate, actually.
[its the divorce laws. so long as a man must take the risks in marriage - the potential for financial ruin, the loss of his children, even when he does not initiate the divorce - that's a barrier to entering into marriage.]
Nonsense, you just grow up, become a man, and pick the right woman.
Statistically, I would venture to say that there are far more men who abandon their wives and children, than vice versa.
That is VERY key. The article tries to make this sound like only VERY wealthy people get married and have children.
Ain't so...and they say so later on. It's race, for the most part...and the welfare state...and the culture that says it's okay to breed without a daddy.
This article says all that...but they couch it in terms acceptable to the Washington Post.
You summed it up...YOUR friends are still marrying...and so are mine.
The blame needs to be placed firmly on the shoulders of "The Great Society".
Having grown up, and ... ? ( BEARING in mind the topic of discussion )
liberal male lawyers.
I understand what it is implying, but the numbers of broken homes and fatherless kids is staggering.. I know what the Post is parsing the stats, but the married, unmarried, facts are disastrous.. The article only reminds me of the sorry state of our culture..
Still have doubts about their methods. Remember the left is selling "the village" concept and it does not surprise me in the slightest that their research validates their claims.
"[W]hen People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners,
they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign
Invaders." --Samuel Adams
"The foundation of national morality must be laid in private
families. ... How is it possible that Children can have any just
Sense of the sacred Obligations of Morality or Religion if,
from their earliest Infancy, they learn their Mothers live in
habitual Infidelity to their fathers, and their fathers in as
constant Infidelity to their Mothers?" --John Adams
... since I'm asking you, I'll say that I am an 0 for 2 nongrandad, late in my grandad career.
You know, it's not economics, politics, or morality, it's technology - birth control. Ok, economics, politics, morality AND technology.
Anyway, time was, you pretty much had kids whether you meant to or not.
"That's the way God planned it. That's the way God wanted it to be."
Understand: they want everything in the world. Having things both ways is their specialty.
When they are young, they imitate libertine manners and social values. Eventually, the party ends.
Then they grow old and expect all the admiration that virtue and personal industry can bring. (Not to be mistaken for a trust fund... no, they were blessed by capital investment and so must inflict socialism on the rest of us.)
But yes, marriage is only proper for Beautiful People.
Sorry, I dson't buy it, that is why we are in this state.. I blame the narcissistic baby boomer's methods of raising the past two generations..
I agree completely!
Losers! Not only do my wife and I meet with our children's teachers often, I do the cooking too! Of course my wife would cook, but she prefers me to do it, and so do I lol.
Eaker and TheMom are about to hit 22 years.
Marriage works for some.
It is not longer because we are not older.
We are getting older so it will get longer.
We will be together for ever.
One of her single friends was left at the alter. The guy was a PIG!
This article is somewhat hyperbolic.
22 years.. Bless both of you.. :)
Blaine Harden, Eastern European correspondent, The Washington Post
This article fails to consider the age distribution of the population. Baby boomers, the single largest "cohort" in the population (~75 million people) are now beginning to reach retirement age --- obviously they don't have children living in the same household so their numbers will skew the statistics. The "base year" cited, 1970, would have been when the leading edge of the baby boomers were spewing out children. In the nearly 40 years since then, their children have grown up and left home.
I'd be willing to bet that if you looked at similar age groupings, you'd find little difference between 1970 and now. If this article represents professional level "staff research" by a major newspaper, it is pathetically bad.
A conservative man named Bernard Chapin wrote as to why it's happening (behind the links). Feminists in both parties (definitely not morally conservative) continue to push denial, man-hating propaganda, and anti-family legislation (anti-Second-Amendment VAWA, so-called "Child Support Act" and other legislation introduced by Hillary's girls). There are too many enticements to cohabit/divorce.
The Presumption Against Marriage
http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/chapin/chapin3.html
The Presumption Against Marriage, Part II
http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/chapin/chapin4.html
Exactly.
Have more kids, get a bigger check, let the government take care of the kids and 'mother', who the h*ll knows where the father is or even who he is. And yes, many of them are white trash.
Want you head to blow off?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1794824/posts
It is a good thing we had kids that skew the numbers in favor of marriage, but the norm isn't in our gaggle of friends.. I had a number of businesses that employed a true cross-section of the culture and I assure you, that wasn't nearly as optimistic..
Well, look at this...
Blaine Harden can't make up his mind.
Aug. 14, 2001
Times reporter Blaine Harden noted the significant increase in marriage among blacks, the "widespread agreement among welfare experts that something remarkable has been going on in poor urban communities," the "confluence of positive trends" including falling crime, falling poverty, greater employment, lower drug abuse, and a falling teen birth rate. Liberal child welfare expert Kristin Moore talked of a "tipping point" at which these changes might "pick up speed." Liberal welfare reform foe Wendell Primus--who quit his Clinton administration job to protest the 1996 law--was quoted saying "Whatever we have been doing over the last five years, we ought to keep going."
http://tinyurl.com/3dx6ms
Absolutely correct! This article is, statistically speaking, unsound because it fails to consider the age distribution of the population. The growing population of seniors (i.e., aging babu boomers), simply aren't going to have children at home --- they've grown and gone (and are probably having children of their own).
Since the statistics are bad, the conclusions are bad --- and it is silly to start discussing contributing factors when the truth of the statistical assertion is highly doubtful.
Instead of speculating about "causation" and/or blaiming liberals, it makes more sense to write the Post and demand their reporter be sent to a remedial course in statistics/demographics!
The reduction in marriage is the direct result of the divorce culture that instilled doubt in today's youth. Many avoid marriage for fear of failure. I'm somewhat optimistic believing the trend will turn around.
OMG! lol!
A friend of ours is the chief of police in town and you wouldn't believe what they find in some 'homes'. One place had their kids sleeping in dresser drawers and I don't mean 'little' kids.
Don't even ask what the school nurse finds. It's so sad.
When the 'parents' are too damned lazy to get up and walk their kids to school to EAT the FREE meals I want to beat the crap out of them! So, what do they do? They steal candy from the local convenience store.
Or, how about the 'grandparent's' who use them as prostitutes to pay for their their crack addiction?
This means that you would venture to say that there are far more men who abandon their wives and children than there are wives and children who abandon their men.
I seems like you meant to say that more men DO NOT abandon their wives and children than DO, although you didn't really come close.
We need to bring back public humiliation: I'm all for horsewhipping.
BTW and O/T: I bought those bowls; they are fabulous; if you ever need any, I've got 16 of them. :-)
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