Unmarried Couples with Children

Unmarried Couples with Children PDF Author: Paula England
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610441869
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Today, a third of American children are born outside of marriage, up from one child in twenty in the 1950s, and rates are even higher among low-income Americans. Many herald this trend as one of the most troubling of our time. But the decline in marriage does not necessarily signal the demise of the two parent family—over 80 percent of unmarried couples are still romantically involved when their child is born and nearly half are living together. Most claim they plan to marry eventually. Yet half have broken up by their child's third birthday. What keeps some couples together and what tears others apart? After a breakup, how do fathers so often disappear from their children's lives? An intimate portrait of the challenges of partnering and parenting in these families, Unmarried Couples with Children presents a variety of unique findings. Most of the pregnancies were not explicitly planned, but some couples feel having a child is the natural course of a serious relationship. Many of the parents are living with their child plus the mother's child from a previous relationship. When the father also has children from a previous relationship, his visits to see them at their mother's house often cause his current partner to be jealous. Breakups are more often driven by sexual infidelity or conflict than economic problems. After couples break up, many fathers complain they are shut out, especially when the mother has a new partner. For their part, mothers claim to limit dads' access to their children because of their involvement with crime, drugs, or other dangers. For couples living together with their child several years after the birth, marriage remains an aspiration, but something couples are resolutely unwilling to enter without the financial stability they see as a sine qua non of marriage. They also hold marriage to a high relational standard, and not enough emotional attention from their partners is women's number one complaint. Unmarried Couples with Children is a landmark study of the family lives of nearly fifty American children born outside of a marital union at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Based on personal narratives gathered from both mothers and fathers over the first four years of their children's lives, and told partly in the couples' own words, the story begins before the child is conceived, takes the reader through the tumultuous months of pregnancy to the moment of birth, and on through the child's fourth birthday. It captures in rich detail the complex relationship dynamics and powerful social forces that derail the plans of so many unmarried parents. The volume injects some much-needed reality into the national discussion about family values, and reveals that the issues are more complex than our political discourse suggests.

Unmarried Couples with Children

Unmarried Couples with Children PDF Author: Paula England
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610441869
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Get Book Here

Book Description
Today, a third of American children are born outside of marriage, up from one child in twenty in the 1950s, and rates are even higher among low-income Americans. Many herald this trend as one of the most troubling of our time. But the decline in marriage does not necessarily signal the demise of the two parent family—over 80 percent of unmarried couples are still romantically involved when their child is born and nearly half are living together. Most claim they plan to marry eventually. Yet half have broken up by their child's third birthday. What keeps some couples together and what tears others apart? After a breakup, how do fathers so often disappear from their children's lives? An intimate portrait of the challenges of partnering and parenting in these families, Unmarried Couples with Children presents a variety of unique findings. Most of the pregnancies were not explicitly planned, but some couples feel having a child is the natural course of a serious relationship. Many of the parents are living with their child plus the mother's child from a previous relationship. When the father also has children from a previous relationship, his visits to see them at their mother's house often cause his current partner to be jealous. Breakups are more often driven by sexual infidelity or conflict than economic problems. After couples break up, many fathers complain they are shut out, especially when the mother has a new partner. For their part, mothers claim to limit dads' access to their children because of their involvement with crime, drugs, or other dangers. For couples living together with their child several years after the birth, marriage remains an aspiration, but something couples are resolutely unwilling to enter without the financial stability they see as a sine qua non of marriage. They also hold marriage to a high relational standard, and not enough emotional attention from their partners is women's number one complaint. Unmarried Couples with Children is a landmark study of the family lives of nearly fifty American children born outside of a marital union at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Based on personal narratives gathered from both mothers and fathers over the first four years of their children's lives, and told partly in the couples' own words, the story begins before the child is conceived, takes the reader through the tumultuous months of pregnancy to the moment of birth, and on through the child's fourth birthday. It captures in rich detail the complex relationship dynamics and powerful social forces that derail the plans of so many unmarried parents. The volume injects some much-needed reality into the national discussion about family values, and reveals that the issues are more complex than our political discourse suggests.

Promises I Can Keep

Promises I Can Keep PDF Author: Kathryn Edin
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520241134
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
The authors provide a wholly new framework for understanding why poor women have lower rates of marriage and have children outside of wedlock.

Unmarried with Children

Unmarried with Children PDF Author: Victoria Pade
Publisher: Silhouette Books
ISBN: 9780373098521
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description


Unmarried with Children

Unmarried with Children PDF Author: Brette Sember
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1440515220
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
As unmarried parents, you face many unique legal, financial, and child-rearing challenges that married couples do not. How do I explain this situation to my child? Can I leave the paternity or maternity section blank on a birth certificate? How much do I need to tell my child's teacher? Award-winning author and attorney Brette McWhorter Sember provides real-life scenarios and resources to help guide you through the myriad issues that face unmarried singles and couples today. This first-of-its-kind parenting manual covers these and other important topics, including: Custody concerns Paternity issues Adoption laws Children's rights Unmarried with Children has answers to all your questions that have gone unanswered-until now. Brette McWhorter Sember, J.D. is an award-winning author, mother of two, former attorney, and freelancer whose writing career began eight years ago when she left her law practice to stay home after the birth of her second child. The recipient of the Mothers at Home 1999 Media Award, she has written more than twenty books, including The Everything Pregnancy over 35 Book, How to Parent with Your Ex, and Gay and Lesbian Parenting Choices. Her freelance work has appeared in more than 130 publications, including American Baby, Child, ePregnancy, Writer's Digest, Personal Journaling, Divorce Magazine, Home Business Journal, Pregnancy and Conceive. Technical Reviewer:Dr. Phil S. Hall, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist and licensed school psychologist, and is the principal author of two nonfiction books on children, Educating Oppositional and Defiant Children and the upcoming Parenting Your Defiant Child. He holds a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Montana. Dr. Hall currently specializes in working with behaviorally challenged children and adults on American Indian Reservations and for various Plains States school systems.

On Our Own

On Our Own PDF Author: Melissa Ludtke
Publisher: Random House (NY)
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 488

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Book Description
Unmarried motherhood: we debate it, discourage it, even legislate against it, yet it has continued to increase, in a steady rise that epitomizes the enormous changes of the last half-century. In 1950, only four percent of American babies were born to mothers who were not married, and many of these children were subsequently adopted. Almost fifty years later that figure is up to nearly a third of all births--more than one million babies each year--and their mothers, whether they are teen- agers or professionals in their forties, now usually raise these children on their own. This rapid and staggering change in family formation is the target of much vigorously argued commentary, but too little commonsense analysis. Melissa Ludtke, a career journalist who has specialized in writing about children and the family, has finally produced the first in-depth, objective examination of this emotionally charged issue. The result of years of research as well as interviewing and questioning experts representing all sides of the issue, the book is nevertheless a deeply personal one, interweaving Ludtke's findings with her own decade-long debate over whether to raise a child on her own. Her accessible approach takes us behind the statistics, framing mothers' vividly told remembrances with current scholarly insights, but never losing sight of the private, everyday details of women's lives. Recognizing that unmarried mothers come from widely differing age groups and backgrounds, Ludtke focuses on the two extremes: teenagers and women over the age of thirty-five. While examining their contrasting circumstances, she locates surprising areas of common ground among these women who, regardless of ageor income, have chosen to bypass marriage and raise children on their own, in spite of the struggle and the loneliness, in spite of society's harsh judgment. This ambitious, insightful, and moving investigation has already been endorsed by political leaders, sociologists, doctors, and journalists as the essential book on unmarried motherhood in our time.

Handbook of Father Involvement

Handbook of Father Involvement PDF Author: Natasha J. Cabrera
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135654239
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 689

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Book Description
This book brings together experts from diverse scientific disciplines who share an interest in the topic of father involvement. Unlike most books in the field, which tend to solely draw from a psychological perspective, this Handbook merges theories and research from the unique fields of psychology, economics, demography sociology, anthropology, and social policy. For the most part, research on fathering is motivated by concern for children's well-being. Social scientists share a core set of questions, including: *"Who are fathers?" *"What is father involvement and how does it affect children and families?" *"What are the determinants of father involvement?" *"How do cultural contexts shape fathers' roles in families?" This Handbook sheds light on how a cross-disciplinary approach to the study of fathering can advance knowledge about these fundamental questions. This integrative approach is fundamental to a comprehensive understanding of human development generally, and to fathering more specifically. At the core of this book are the goals of describing and understanding the nature, antecedents, and consequences of father involvement across biological status, family structure, culture, and stages in children's development--both within and across scientific boundaries. Each of the scientific disciplines represented offers unique methodological and theoretical approaches to the study of fathering and to the interpretation of behavioral patterns that characterize ecological systems that include--as well as extend beyond--family units. Together, the chapters offer provocative and challenging insight into the nature and meaning of fatherhood and father involvement by questioning longstanding assumptions about fathers' roles in the lives of families and children in current history.

Unmarried Motherhood in the Metropolis, 1700–1850

Unmarried Motherhood in the Metropolis, 1700–1850 PDF Author: Samantha Williams
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319733206
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
In this book Samantha Williams examines illegitimacy, unmarried parenthood and the old and new poor laws in a period of rising illegitimacy and poor relief expenditure. In doing so, she explores the experience of being an unmarried mother from courtship and conception, through the discovery of pregnancy, and the birth of the child in lodgings or one of the new parish workhouses. Although fathers were generally held to be financially responsible for their illegitimate children, the recovery of these costs was particularly low in London, leaving the parish ratepayers to meet the cost. Unmarried parenthood was associated with shame and men and women could also be subject to punishment, although this was generally infrequent in the capital. Illegitimacy and the poor law were interdependent and this book charts the experience of unmarried motherhood and the making of metropolitan bastardy.

Unmarried Parents' Rights (and Responsibilities)

Unmarried Parents' Rights (and Responsibilities) PDF Author: Jacqueline D. Stanley
Publisher: SphinxLegal
ISBN: 1572485302
Category : Parent and child (Law)
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
As a parent, you have certain rights and responsibilities in the care and upbringing of your children. Sometimes those rights are challenged, and you need to know what to do if that happens. Unmarried Parents' Rights (and Responsibilities) contains detailed information on the issues single parents and divorced parents face. It provides a step-by-step guide to taking legal action. This book helps you take control of situations and provide for your children in the best possible way. Find valuable shortcuts to get to the heart of your matter. Look for: -Tip boxes on subjects like how courts determine custody, visitation time and child support -Extensive references to websites, organizations and agencies that can be contacted for information and assistance -Sample legal forms to speed you through the court process Being a single parent is hard-Unmarried Parents' Rights (and Responsibilities) makes it a little easier.

Contemporary Readings in Sociology

Contemporary Readings in Sociology PDF Author: Kathleen Odell Korgen
Publisher: Pine Forge Press
ISBN: 1412944732
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
This reader was developed to be used in numerous courses taught in sociology. It is appropriate for an introductory course, as well as a social problems or special topics course. The readings have been selected from numerous well respected sociology journals and they have been edited to make them more "user friendly" for the undergraduate student. This reader allows undergraduate students to read about the major topics in sociology in the words of the original authors. The reader includes a topic guide to help the instructor better integrate the material into their course and well-crafted section openers place each article in context for the student. This series of readings has been vetted by an Advisory Board of sociology instructors to ensure quality.

Out of Wedlock

Out of Wedlock PDF Author: Larry Wu
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610445600
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 445

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Book Description
Today, one third of all American babies are born to unmarried mothers—a startling statistic that has prompted national concern about the consequences for women, children, and society. Indeed, the debate about welfare and the overhaul of the federal welfare program for single mothers was partially motivated by the desire to reduce out of wedlock births. Although the proportion of births to unwed mothers has stopped climbing for the first time since the 1960s, it has not decreased, and recent trends are too complex to attribute solely to policy interventions. What are these trends and how do they differ across groups? Are they peculiar to the United States, or rooted in more widespread social forces? Do children of unmarried mothers face greater life challenges, and if so what can be done to help them? Out of Wedlock investigates these questions, marshalling sociologists, demographers, and economists to review the state of current research and to provide both empirical information and critical analyses. The conflicting data on nonmarital fertility give rise to a host of vexing theoretical, methodological, and empirical issues, some of which researchers are only beginning to address. Out of Wedlock breaks important new ground, bringing clarity to the data and examining policies that may benefit these particularly vulnerable children.