RSS Feed MenuThe first thing I ask a student of mine who tells me she’s pregnant is, “Are you going to marry the father?”
Traditional me thinks that’s the solid and most focused reaction. The kids, however, laugh at me and they laugh hard when I bring up the concept. For all but a couple of my many students who have become pregnant, marriage isn’t in the equation with the baby’s father.
When one of my shot put and discus throwers was walking his two lap warm-up at a track meet last spring, hundreds of meters behind the rest of the team, I knew something was wrong. While the rest of the team stretched, he told me the girl he was fooling around with had missed her period; his jaw was on the track – he had no idea what to do.
Traditional me told him to man up. I told him his life wasn’t all about him anymore – that his responsibilities were to the girl and the baby. He mentioned abortion as a solid option. I asked him what the girl would think about that. He didn’t know what she’d say. Exactly, I told him. It’s not about what’s easy for you now. You do what’s right for the girl and the baby. He mentioned not being able to buy new shoes or jeans. I told him that was a good place to start cutting
back.
A few days later, he told me it was all a scare and she wasn’t pregnant after all. I asked if he’d learned his lesson. He mentioned something about being lucky and using condoms. I told him he hadn’t learned anything at all from the experience if that was all he was thinking about.
That marriage is in decline in our country is no shocker. It’s frequently cited that about 40-50% of marriages end in divorce. The average age at first divorce is 30.5 for males and 29 for females, so even those taking the nuptial challenge early on aren’t necessarily sticking with it. By taking marriage out of the equation, or putting it off until the “right time, as many of my peers say they want to do, our society is losing an important part of life’s “script.”
It’s this script, says Kay Hymowitz, a City Journal editor and prominent writer on the topic of marital decline, which focuses people and gets them planning and saving for the future. Hymowitz has written that a caste system has formed in our country between the middle and upper classes, which have higher rates of marriage, and the lower classes, which tend to have much lower rates of marriage. Committed and strong marriages are a foundation for society, and as they decline the society slips.
Weak, broken or non-existent family structures are among the major reasons for failed schools. In the last two years, our school held parent/teacher conferences three times per year. Teachers had to stay until 7 p.m. The same two or three parents would visit me each time. I had well over 100 students. Strong schools and parental involvement go hand in hand; parents hold students, teachers and administrators accountable in these environments. Lacking parental involvement, students lose what should be their biggest advocacy group. Bad schools are great places for bad teachers to hide out in and it’s made all the easier when strong families aren’t demanding excellence for their students.
Hymowitz explained that the collapse of marriage creates a sense of drift, especially among low-income kids. The script that leads to a middle class life in this country is “increasingly lost,” for these kids, she says. Every disruption in a low-income child’s life – every time the pantry is empty or there’s no parent around to support them at an after school activity – chips away at the middle class script. Marriage used to be a way to “keep your eyes on the future,” says Hymowitz. Lower income folks are making what she calls “the accidental family – where you’re stumbling into making a baby. The whole idea of a planned pregnancy is a middle class concept.”
It isn’t just book knowledge that’s creating an achievement gap between lower income and upper income students. The consistency of a middle class lifestyle brings planning and goals for the future. That consistency is given a major boost when parents are married and involved in every aspect of their child’s life. Hymowitz says middle class parents are often “obsessed with their child’s achievement.” Lower income kids, on the other hand, can often “grow into an adult and not have a tremendous amount of socializing or shaping.” The childhood of a middle class child is geared towards going to college. The childhood of a lower class child is more geared towards survival.
DFL // Aug 7, 2009 at 9:04 am
This is an excellent essay and points to one of the major problems in American society- the decline of marriage and the family in lower strata America. I don’t know whether there is a solution now that family dysfunction is now four generations old for millions of Americans. Daniel Patrick Moynihan sounded the warnings in the 60s but the response was ineffectual right, left and center. Maybe it is an unsolvable problem which, in the words of James Burnham, means it is not a problem at all. The poor we will always have with us said Jesus and He was right.
ottovbvs // Aug 7, 2009 at 9:44 am
………Actually the incidence of middle class and upper middle girls who become pregnant before marriage then marrying the father of their child has also dropped dramatically. Exhibit 1 the Palins. So I’m not sure this is so much a class thing as a change in social attitudes to single parents and a much greater unwillingness on the part of young girls to be trapped into marriages with young men who they would never have married in the normal course of events and who are probably quite unfitted for parenthood anyway. Preventing unwanted pregnancies ultimately comes down to education in birth control and prudence . The schools do their best although right wing idealogues constantly try to obstruct the process. This is supplemented by, or supplements, input from parents. Middle and upper middle class kids probably get more of this and operate in a more goals oriented environment than those in a less socially or financially stable environment which makes the role of schools doubly important. We can complain about it but that’s how it is.
balconesfault // Aug 7, 2009 at 10:52 am
This is a no silver bullet issue.
camus // Aug 7, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Hey, I am much more concerned with young girls having children when they cannot be supported then the decline of marriage, never play down the importance of using condoms and being smart.
Publius // Aug 8, 2009 at 9:29 am
A thoughtful piece, Thomas, but one which begs the question. How do these children learn to get married?
Think it through. We all take our first, deepest and most lasting training at home, from observations of our parents. So many of your and my students couldn’t, to quote one of mine, “Pick their fathers out of a line-up.” As a male authority figure you have undoubtedly been as frustrated as I have been to be ignored by your students and then see them jump when any female authority figure speaks. In fine, most of our students had no direct male guidance in the home and therefore cannt conceive of how male guidance is necessary for children.
View the world from the perspective of a teenage girl raised in such an environment. If Mamma goes out for the evening and doesn’t come home till the next morning, or if Mamma goes out and brings home her choice who performs his function and leaves, Mamma thereby teaches daughter that the man’s sole functions are sex and support, and that support is not essential to this equation. How, Thomas, is this girl to learn the value of marriage and committment?
View the world from the perspective of that girl’s brother. His view of adult male success is to parade from bed to bed to bed. While all adolescent males, black, white, green, paisley, would think of this as the Promised Land, how does this young man learn to commit himself to his children as an integral part of his existence. His mother is content to receive the service without putting up with the bull so why shouldn’t he believe himself entitled to act the same.
True conservatives believe everything has a price that the desirer must pay. Perhaps, if we really want to have parents involved with their children’s lives and educations, we should pay for that behavior.
Let’s have the schools pay parents to come quarterly to meet with their children’s teachers. At the very least, it will eliminate the excuse that Mamma or Papi didn’t know that the child is truant, inattentive, disrespectful, not working or whatever other inappropriate behavior is being manifest. After all, if we believe that amending the tax structure has an impact on investment and consumption behavior and that Money Motivates Millionaires, why shouldn’t Money Motivate Mamma?
curiousaboutconservatives // Aug 8, 2009 at 12:01 pm
I’m a fan of tradition. And I think traditions exist for a reason. But I also am a fan of results. I wonder why we think it’s disappointing that an accidentally pregnant couple would not consider marriage. There are two situations I can think of. In the first, the couple was being responsible in terms of birth control and safe sex, but a pregnancy ensued anyway. If these generally responsible people agree that marriage would be an inappropriate choice, who am I to long for them to make a different one. Better they should make other choices about the future of the pregnancy (including having the baby in a way they feel they can responsibly support that child) than get into a marriage brought on by circumstance.
In the other case, the pregnant couple because they were being irresponsible in their sexual behavior, not practicing birth control/safe sex, etc. And in that case I know almost certainly that I’m relieved if they don’t get married. Already they’ve proven I think that they make bad decisions as a couple (hence the pregnancy as a result of their behavior). Why would I long to doom a child to being raised by people who make bad decisions together. At least unmarried they might have a chance to do right by the child without the distraction of being unhappily married to each other.
Marriage seems like a fine tradition to me, but given the number of marriages with divorces, infidelity, and general unhappiness, I wonder if it should be as widespread as it is. I guess I’m saying that I’m not sure why it’s often touted as the preferred configuration for people to live their lives. It seems as good an option as many. And people should choose what works for them. No?