I wondered

[BDBoop]

As a pastor, the trends that interest me most involve the sharp decline of marriage in the USA and the rise in non-clergy-officiated weddings.

These are the changes that matter, rather than the modern substitution of cupcakes for a wedding cake. The dropping number of marriages and changing face of officiants will shape the lives of American couples — and their children — for decades to come. These shifts merit some thought as we wrap up this year's wedding season, which runs May through October and typically covers 70% of all ceremonies.

Fifty years ago, about three-quarters of American adults 18 and older were married. Today, about half are. Nearly 40% of respondents to a Pew Research Center survey last year said marriage is becoming obsolete. If you think this is just demographic background noise with no real consequence, think again. This shift ultimately will harm kids because children in married family households are far less likely to live in poverty than those in single-parent households.

Interesting. Although, not being married does not perforce equal "single-parent households."

 

[Tank]

Call it what you want, a man and a woman should stay together to raise kids.

 

[California Girl]

Link too much effort?

 

[BDBoop]

Link too much effort?

All apologies.

Column: Wedding days are losing their way

 

[coolhealth]

Marriages are needed,make a family to raise children.

 

[editec]

We're making next to economically impossible for young couples to even think about getting married and raising a family and then we wonder why young couples aren't getting married and raising a family?


Family values?

This nation doesn't value families, this nation doesn't value anything but profit.

 

[California Girl]

We're making next to economically impossible for young couples to even think about getting married and raising a family and then we wonder why young couples aren't getting married and raising a family?


Family values?

This nation doesn't value families, this nation doesn't value anything but profit.

And why is it that we don't value families? Because of decades of liberal policies.

 

[Divine Wind]

We're making next to economically impossible for young couples to even think about getting married and raising a family and then we wonder why young couples aren't getting married and raising a family?


Family values?

This nation doesn't value families, this nation doesn't value anything but profit.

Unfortunately truer than many would like to admit. It's the product of 60 years of intense consumerism enhanced by television. Saturday morning cartoons is the first phase of children being indoctrinated with the idea that they need to have a specific material item if they want to be happy. By the time they are adults, it's latest model of car/truck or proving they love their wives by buying them the biggest diamond trinket on the market.

As for children and parents, children do benefit from a stable parental relationship. If the parents are constantly fighting or there is abuse, then they are better off with a single parent or relative. Is there a benefit between straight parents and gay? I think so, but do not doubt that children benefit from loving, caring and nurturing parents regardless of gender or sexual preference.

 

[Gem]

We're making next to economically impossible for young couples to even think about getting married and raising a family and then we wonder why young couples aren't getting married and raising a family?

You're still better off as a pair, sharing economic responsibilities and pooling resources then you are on your own. One of the best ways to keep yourself out of poverty is to get married and stay married...and to not have children until you are married.

 

[Divine Wind]

We're making next to economically impossible for young couples to even think about getting married and raising a family and then we wonder why young couples aren't getting married and raising a family?

You're still better off as a pair, sharing economic responsibilities and pooling resources then you are on your own. One of the best ways to keep yourself out of poverty is to get married and stay married...and to not have children until you are married.

Better yet, don't have any children at all. They are expensive little bastards costing upwards of a half a million bucks each for a middle class family.

Cost of Raising a Child Calculator | BabyCenter

 

[editec]

We're making next to economically impossible for young couples to even think about getting married and raising a family and then we wonder why young couples aren't getting married and raising a family?

You're still better off as a pair, sharing economic responsibilities and pooling resources then you are on your own. One of the best ways to keep yourself out of poverty is to get married and stay married...and to not have children until you are married.

So if marriage is entered as a rational means of reducing costs to stay out of poverty, why bother marrying at all?

Get a roommate and split the expenses if marriage is nothing but a financial strategy.

That way if things don't work out, you bothy save a small fortune in legal fees.

 

[Iridescence]

What a horrid last response, Divine.Wind... As a mother of four, I'd likely bitch smack your idiot ass.

Partnerships matter in the structuring of our children's psychological development. It has been my experience that even and especially within the most difficult of marriages, the most trying of partnerships, there are profound and beneficial accomplishments possible if the better things are grasped... retained... stressed upon by the whole unite. I don't mean that there are not consequences to delusional, dysfunctional, even narcissistic relationships... but those consequences are sometimes most beneficial to the offspring than they are consequential to the paired partners.

Children ARE NOT likely the victimized parties within degenerative marriages, especially when it is obvious that both parents are successful parents independent of one another... However, when the relationship of the paired two takes on a psycho/socio/etc... pathic personality... and the home a haven of and for bottled up pathological behavior... it is up to the visionary within the home to utilize such an atmosphere to best serve each member accordingly. NOT an easy task considering how spiritually blind and resistant most everyone seems to be both inside and outside of said atmosphere.

*he*arts* as *he*ads*

It is an amazing journey... this creation...

 

[BDBoop]

What's with the splitt*ing words with *? It's disconcerting, and causes an immediate cessation in thought tracks.

 

[BDBoop]

And why do you care if somebody doesn't want to be a parent? At least they know! You're not better for wanting/having them, they're not better for feeling the opposite.

 

[Iridescence]

What's with the splitt*ing words with *? It's disconcerting, and causes an immediate cessation in thought tracks.

Good... sometimes pauses in the thought process within some is most beneficial to no one more than themselves. And I only do it within my posts to provoke others to perhaps pay more attention to their own words for what they potentially are... and represent. Perhaps I am erroneously attempting to play the spiritual preschool teacher... but people matter to me seemingly more than they prove to matter to themselves.

And why do you care if somebody doesn't want to be a parent? At least they know! You're not better for wanting/having them, they're not better for feeling the opposite.

Nope.... I am far from assuming I am the better... however, the postings are obviously forming conclusions toward partnerships in parenthood, why post at all if one has chosen to purposefully not have children? Is that not an immature/premature judgement call and puts the said poster for same such predisposed judgement? I don't know, BDBoop... I, personally and intentionally refrain from such judgement calls toward those in which have an atmospheric lifestyle that I cannot directly relate to. That may be another one of my infamous flaws... but I save not only myself but many others a great deal of unnecessary grief in BEing collectively considerate, however poetic in nature.

 

[BDBoop]

No. It provokes me to wonder why the fuck you're splitting words up with *.

 

[Iridescence]

but you aren't listening to the why, BDBoop, or you would instead reconsider your own posts... Or perhaps not.

 

[BDBoop]

Yeah. I did hear why. It didn't work.

 

[Divine Wind]

What a horrid last response, Divine.Wind... As a mother of four, I'd likely bitch smack your idiot ass.

Which is, no doubt, probably how you treat the four and the significant other.

However, when the relationship of the paired two takes on a psycho/socio/etc... pathic personality... and the home a haven of and for bottled up pathological behavior... it is up to the visionary within the home to utilize such an atmosphere to best serve each member accordingly.

Which one are you?

Sorry, babe, but just because you chose to go on that little journey doesn't mean everyone else has to follow suit. I chose not to have children and, when dating in my 20s/30s, deliberately chose women who could not have children so there would be no conflict. That's my choice in life. What you choose to do is your choice. While I like being an uncle, I never felt the narcissistic need to replicate myself as some kind of validation of my life.