I’ll take unmarried couples living together over an unmarried, single parent, as better for the kids. No contest here.
What about mothers with serial partners or boyfriends who left? In my experience, “committed cohabitaion” is especially prominent in the educated, upper class, not in the working class or minority populations. My prescription was not a marriage license. The only hope is a spiritual awakening, but, I believe, it is too late for Western culture, absent a miracle by God. We are too weak, too spoiled, too distracted, and too amoral for any transformation.
You are wrong. Society is falling apart in the US, especially in the inner cities because of this.
Don’t believe me? Walk through Oakland, CA at night by yourself or take a nice little jog through East LA on a weekend at night. Tell all those kids without fathers (the one’s with gang tatoos who got out of prison yesterday) that you’re a cool, tolerant, and hip liberal just trying to see if there is a crime problem in LA. Not your scene, try San Bernardino, CA, maybe for a little scenic drive on a Friday?
Also, the middle class is just increasingly accepting out-of-wedlock births (in the last decade or so) believing it’s no big deal. Give it time and a few more generations and middle class non-marital births might start competing with the inner cities. Offhand, black non-marital children comprise 70% of all births. For Latinos in the US, it’s probably 30-40%. Again, patience. Give it a little time.
If we throw more money at it, though, or get a new fancy government program designed by academics, costing a few billion, maybe it’ll change?
