<p>I think he means society’s opposition to two adults bringing children here willy nilly is waning.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In past generations, the teenage unintended parents just got married at the barrel of a shotgun, right? But perhaps an important difference is that a high school graduate or dropout back then could find a family-supporting job.</p>
<p>(Of course, back then, people did not want to talk about pregnancies resulting from rapes.)</p>
<p>The US birth rate is dropping. Education is still the key to a better life for everyone, especially young mothers. There are programs in my area that help with housing and support while they get training and jobs. They are very effective. I can’t see how stigmatizing them will help the situation, we are not going back to the 1950’s mindset.</p>
<p>Or perhaps they possessed sense enough to take adult precautions before engaging in adult behaviors. </p>
<p>I actually have no idea. xD</p>
<p>Maybe stigmatizing is for prevention.</p>
<p>“re-read your first post. Apparently you are capable of judging that fewer arranged marriages, tolerance for living together before marriage, and support for gay marriage are all good things.”</p>
<p>Yes. </p>
<p>I never said everything is great. I said each generation progresses. That is not the same as saying everything is great. </p>
<p>You don’t have to agree with me either, argbargy.</p>
<p>I am enjoying reading the posts here and all the stories including </p>
<p>Blueiguana’s, kajon’s and cptofthehouse’s stories. Sorry if I missed mentioning anybody that has told stories.</p>
<p>I do care about my kids’ choices. I just want their choices to be their choices. I had my turn. Now it is their turn. I am not that hung up on mistakes either. I am ok with mistakes as long as they don’t hurt themselves.</p>
<p>I have only given my 26 year old daughter 3 pieces of advice over the last several years. (I am not perfect because I did give her advice. :))Also, my kids have heard my stuff when they were growing up. They don’t need to hear it anymore. </p>
<p>I told my 26 year old daughter not to marry a man way older than her. Do not marry a man who drinks too much. You won’t be happy several years into the marriage when he comes home drunk late at night. Take the 5th actuary test. That is about it. I just listen.</p>
<p>I think progress is hard-won, family by family. My H’s immigrant grandfather regularly lost it and beat his wife (1920’s). She divorced him when they both cleared age 60 and all 10 kids were out of the house. </p>
<p>When their son (my H’s dad) married in 1941, he made and kept a personal vow to never strike his wife. So in one generation, my FIL turned that monster behavior around. He did, however, smack his 5 sons around sometimes if they weren’t behaving, which was pretty much all the time. </p>
<p>When those 5 became fathers in the 1970’s/ 80’s, they each determined to raise their kids without a raised hand. </p>
<p>That said, I thank my kitchen appliances daily for liberating me. Start to finish, I can put a fresh-produce cooked family meal on the table in 30 minutes flat, while the permapress laundry chugs away in the next room. In 1960, as I stood by her side, a comparable meal took my grandmother a half-day and she devoted one full day to Laundry. We both had 3 children, but what a difference! Not unrelated, she had to drop out of school after 8th grade to sew for a living; I have two masters degrees. More progress.</p>
<p>the demise of the family unit is certainly not progress</p>
<p>Dstark, what if they hurt other people?</p>
<p>I don’t think kids should be stigmatized for having deadbeat parents should, but sexually active adults should find it uncomfortable to have babies that they aren’t going to be responsible for. And they should know that if they get pregnant, they are going to be stuck with that sex partner in their lives for a long time.</p>
<p>My kids aren’t going to hurt other people. I wasn’t quiet with my kids when my kids were actually kids. 
And my wife was great with the kids.</p>
<p>My kids are in their 20’s. If they want advice, they can ask for it, but really, they are very independent. They want to make their own decisions. I understand that not everybody is that independent. </p>
<p>If the kids don’t want to make a choice, hopefully that is also their choice.</p>
<p>
I would like one too, please - and not just because who doesn’t want to be in the same club as blueiguana and garland? 
I was present (but unseen and, for most of the guests, unsuspected) at my parents’ wedding. They married because I was on the way. It was a deeply unhappy marriage, despite my parents being good people. All of us suffered, including my younger brothers - and I do not use that word lightly.</p>
<p>Progress is not having to explain to my daughters why they must take home economics in junior high and can never, ever take machine shop. Progress is not having to explain why married couples in my home state of Connecticut do not have the right to use contraceptive drugs or devices (as they didn’t, until 1965). Progress is not having to explain why there are “whites only” lunch counters or drinking fountains or seats on the bus. Progress is not having my daughters’ pediatrician warn that they shouldn’t take accelerated science classes in high school because being a doctor is no profession for a wife and mother. (Which would not have happened because all of their pediatricians were wives and mothers.)</p>
<p>I’ll take today.</p>
<p>I’m sure they are independent. I just wonder, based on your earlier post, if you would have been as concerned about mistakes along the way that might have hurt other people as you stated you were about mistakes that could have hurt your own kids.</p>
<p>
I believe that what is trying to be said here is not that the child should be treated differently, but that the idea of having children outsie of marriage in general should be looked down upon more.</p>
<p>Frazzled1, another person conceived before marriage. I am surprised by how many posters were conceived before marriage. I think I have led a sheltered life.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter when a child was conceived, it matters that the parents both raise the child. That’s why I support gay marriage. Family values. Marriage is good for individuals, families and society.</p>
<p>I also know several women who have brought up or are bringing up a child without marrying the father. In the cases I am thinking of, this was the better choice. One is about to see her lovely daughter graduate from college after very rewarding hs and college experiences (smart kid, star of all the plays at school, lovely person to be around.) Her father was totally out of the picture till she got older, and he got sober.</p>
<p>The other is a young woman I’ve known since she was born. Initially she had a close relationship with the dad, but since he got involved with petty crime and drugs, it’s been better that she’s not married to him. She is engaged to a stable, employed, kind young man who her daughter thinks of as her father. The daughter (my close friend’s granddaugher) is a joy to be around. I shudder to think that someone thinks she should be considered an “illegitimate” person, or worse.</p>
<p>It’s just not that cut and dried.</p>
<p>It’s a special person to raise a child alone. It’s not ideal and fathers shouldn’t be let off the hook. They certainly shouldn’t be considered cool for spreading their seed.</p>
<p>I think there are some fathers (or mothers for that matter) two just described by garland (and certainly my grandfather) that its not a matter of ‘letting them off the hook’, it’s a matter that their presence in either the mother or child’s life would be toxic.</p>
<p>I do agree. In the first case, the father became a part of the daughter’s life when she was older, and has contributed monetarily as well. It really did take him turning his life around and marrying a senseible woman who had him deal with his obligation.</p>
<p>In the second case, there have been threats of custody/immigration fights, and the mom, who is owed an unfathomable amount of back support, would be content at this point to move on, as she is in a stable relationship (heading towards marriage), and she and partner both have good jobs and can support the D. She spends a lot of hard-earned money with lawyers to contend with the father’s intermittent custody issues, which always go nowhere when he messes up legally/monetarily again.</p>
<p>Obviously, neither father was brought up by a mother like you, Zoosermom! :)</p>
<p>When my H’s grandmother was in her early 30’s her husband died, and she could not support her 4 young children. She could only afford one. She was able to send one to live with a relative, but the other two (one being H’s mother) was sent to local orphanages. No education beyond 6th grade because why do women need education. No good jobs available because women just aren’t emotional capable of being anything other than nurses, teachers or seamstresses. No social security, no help, no nothing. </p>
<p>It is not just divorce or out of wedlock births that leave children abandoned and not cared for by a loving family. I’ll bet poverty and lack of equal opportunity, for women and for minorities, did a whole lot more damage to children’s health and happiness than some of these other factors.</p>
<p>Hayden, that is a rough story. Wow.</p>
<p>“it’s a matter that their presence in either the mother or child’s life would be toxic.”</p>
<p>Yeah. I could see this. A friend of mine’s mother used to count how many toilet paper squares he used when he went to the bathroom. He grew up upper middle class.</p>