Archives: Childbearing

New book by architect of health care reform plan

01.06.2012 4:07 PM

And Barry, it’s in cartoon form!

I was priveleged last night to see Jonathan Gruber interviewed by Chicago Public Radio personality Steve Edwards at my local library. Great discussion and it certainly helped me bone up on what’s happening with the health reform plan and what’s next for the nation and each of us. (I also got to ask my question, which went something like this: “On this issue I’m a complete bleeding heart liberal. The plight of the uninsured, and my fear of becoming one of them, has been a big worry of mine for my whole adult life. With the new plan, when do I get to open the New York Times and read the good news about families who didn’t have insurance who now do? When can I know that if my husband and I lose our jobs we’ll still be able to get insurance?” Gruber’s answer: About 2014.

Something to look forward to.

Health Care Reform: What It Is, Why It's Necessary, How It Works

 


Categories: Aging, Disability, Death, Dying, Childbearing
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New Child Trends Brief on Unwed Childbearing

12.29.2011 1:01 PM

Having children outside of marriage–nonmarital childbearing–is increasingly common in the United States. A new Research Brief, Childbearing Outside of Marriage: Estimates and Trends in the United States, describes how the population of women bearing children outside of marriage has changed, often in ways that challenge public perceptions. Nonmarital childbearing remains a significant public concern as it is linked to negative outcomes for women and their children across a range of measures, as well as with a reliance on public assistance.


Categories: Childbearing, Marriage
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David Brooks on debt, divorce then and now

12.29.2011 12:13 PM

…The progressive era still had a Victorian culture, with its rectitude and restrictions. Back then, there was a moral horror at the thought of debt. No matter how bad the economic problems became, progressive-era politicians did not impose huge debt burdens on their children. That ethos is clearly gone.

In the progressive era, there was an understanding that men who impregnated women should marry them. It didn’t always work in practice, but that was the strong social norm. Today, that norm has dissolved. Forty percent of American children are born out of wedlock. This sentences the U.S. to another generation of widening inequality and slower human capital development…


Categories: Childbearing, Children of Divorce, Marriage and Money
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State of Our Unions 2011: How Parenthood Makes Life Meaningful, and How Marriage Makes Parenthood Bearable

12.04.2011 10:45 PM

An event this Thursday, December 8th at our Center for Public Conversation in New York City, at which Institute president David Blankenhorn will interview co-authors of the newly-released report, Brad Wilcox and Elizabeth Marquardt, as well as Institute researchers and co-investigators of the Love and Marriage in Middle America project, David and Amber Lapp, who are the parents of a newborn son.

The report is co-published by the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and the Center for Marriage and Families at the Institute for American Values.

For more information and to learn how to RSVP, view the invitation. We’d love to see you at this event!


Categories: Childbearing, Marriage, The Future of Parenthood
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USA Today: ‘Doctors see surge in babies hooked on their mother’s pain pills’

11.14.2011 12:59 PM

Saw this headline in the paper left outside my New Orleans hotel room this morning. So sad. The online article has even more information than the print version on this apparent trend.

…Doctors want to intervene early to get pregnant addicts into rehabilitation. But some expectant mothers hide their addictions from their obstetricians because they fear government social workers will take the child, Solomon says.

A pregnant woman can’t quit cold turkey because as she goes into withdrawal, the baby will, too, says Mary Newport, medical director of neonatal intensive care at Spring Hill Regional Hospital in Spring Hill, Fla. “The baby could have seizures in the womb. They can miscarry,” she says.

One in 20 babies born in the semirural community north of Tampa is addicted to painkillers, Newport says. The number of babies treated in the neonatal intensive care unit for withdrawal from prescription painkillers has more than doubled from 37 in 2008 to 88 in 2010.

“There’s a misconception that because these are prescription drugs, they aren’t going to be harmful to the baby,” she says.

“I didn’t go to medical school to become a pain management doctor for a newborn. It’s been thrust upon us. We feel very, very sorry for the babies, and it’s very, very difficult for us to understand why these young women think it’s OK. Most are addicted before they get pregnant.” more


Categories: Childbearing
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‘In their own way, these girls may be doing the best they can’

10.30.2011 10:21 PM

Below I posted an excerpt from a BioNews story about women as young as 18 looking for sperm donors. There are some very thoughtful comments; be sure to look at all of them.

In the meantime, I wanted to highlight this comment from a commenter who signed in as “Hello.” Even if you don’t agree with what she/he has to say (I suspect it is she, so I’m going to use the feminine), it strikes me that she has her finger on something. Something big, having to do with gender distrust and mother-daughter relationships and aging societies and much, much else in this strange 2011 world in which we find ourselves:

Many a girl and young woman are coming of age and spending their lives in dysfunctional neighborhoods and regions where marriage-worthy men are few and far between.  Many, if not most, of these guys are chronically unemployed, addicted, in prison etc. Even if they want to marry these girls see their chances as slim, and if they wait until marriage for motherhood they’ll probably never have children.  18 may seem young, but these girls’ mothers, aunts, and grandmas are not so young.  And since they’re the ones these girls will rely on for childcare and support they’re better off having kids before Mom and Co. start breaking down in their 50s and 60s due to smoking, unhealthy diet, sedentary lifestyle etc.  Having a kid at 18 won’t hinder a girl’s career prospects if (pre-baby) she finds high school too difficult get a diploma.  If she don’t have a career that gives her life meaning and purpose kids are the only thing she can produce that will give her life meaning.  And if she can’t rely on a husband for love and companionship her kids will be even more important to her because they’ll be her only family after the older generation passes.  So, in their own way, these girls may be doing the best they can.


Categories: Aging, Disability, Death, Dying, Childbearing, Dating, Mating, Hooking Up, Love & Marriage in Middle America, Motherhood, Reproductive Technologies, The Future of Parenthood
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Winners of the Hastings Center’s Bioethics Contest

10.19.2011 12:42 PM

The Hastings Center announced the winners of their recent bioethics forum questions, which covered the sex or non-sex having of trans humans, the medical practice that will be inconceivable in 50 years, and the writing of a caption to a cartoon featuring a test tube family with a human baby.

See here for winners as well as a recap of many interesting submissions…


Categories: Aging, Disability, Death, Dying, Childbearing
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“Fewer Babies, For Better or Worse”

10.19.2011 11:10 AM

The New York Times recently asked this question at their Room for Debate blog: “As European, Chinese and American women have fewer children, is the global economy endangered? Or is this easing the burden on a crowded planet?”

Brad Wilcox, who co-authored the recent report by the Social Trends Institute, The Sustainable Demographic Dividend, argues that declining fertility rates and marriage decline is one factor in the global economic crisis. Says Wilcox:

[O]ne reason that some of the world’s leading economies — from Japan to Italy to Spain to the euro zone as a whole — are facing fiscal challenges is that their fertility rates have been below replacement levels (2.1 children per woman) for decades. Persistent sub-replacement fertility eventually translates into fewer workers relative to retirees, which puts tremendous strains on public coffers and the economy as a whole. Indeed, one recent study finds that almost half of the recent run-up in public debt in the West can be attributed to rapid aging over the last two decades.

See here to read more.


Categories: Childbearing, General, Marriage
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End of Life and Sperm Donation Collide

10.19.2011 8:46 AM

In today’s “Dear Judy…” column this question was posted:

“Dear Judy,

I had prostate cancer two years ago, and before undergoing surgery, etc., I banked my sperm for later use. I am married with one child (7 years old), and my question is weird:

My wife and I are considering separation and very probably divorce. She had two affairs, and I didn’t know about either until two months ago.

Here’s the good news: My wife doesn’t know about my frozen sperm. I just decided to bank it on a whim before surgery and chemo, and saw no reason to tell her about it either then or – naturally – lately. But what if I remarry, then die of cancer, and a future wife decides she wants to carry my child even though I am dead? How can I make sure a) she receives my sperm and it isn’t destroyed by my current wife – should she learn about it; and b) that any baby born of that sperm will inherit?

I’m asking all this, as you might have guessed, because I have a future wife in mind. Can you help with this, or is it too weird to answer?

Mike”

Judy responds that he is not weird and that his question will be far more common in the future since the use of reproductive technology is on the rise.  She tells him to go to a lawyer and specify what he wants done and who gets what, etc…But she concludes that death and conception are always more complicated than we think.

Perhaps all advice columns devolve into “What if…” scenarios but this one in particular reminded me of the Casuists, who wrote intricately laid out documents advising you on every possible scenario for your life that they could think of and then, of course, advising you as to what you should do in every situation.  I laughed thinking that you could spend your whole life thinking about how you should live instead of actually living or paying attention to any of the people actually living around you.  Such as the child that might be conceived by a current or ex-wife after you are dead.  I realize that many people live far more dramatic lives than I do, but Mike’s questions seemed to point to either a new John Grisham novel, “The Tube,” or to a really sad episode of Threes Company.

I also thought of John Irving’s novel The Fourth Hand about a man who donates his hand to another man.  We follow the hand and each character, including the widow of the man who donates his hand, who wrestle with whose hand it really “belongs” to.  The eternal debate of essence and accidents.  Where does “me” start and stop…and how much control over “me” do I really have?

So, I commented to Judy that I am someone who never thought that I would think about sperm donation as much as I have in the last few years but am thankful that I have, and that she should read “My Daddy’s Name is Donor” as well as visit Anonymous.us.  What would you tell her or Mike?


Categories: Aging, Disability, Death, Dying, Childbearing
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A Dragon Mom, Indeed

10.17.2011 9:54 AM

When I first began serving in hospice care as a chaplain, I was surprised to learn that we cared for babies and toddlers.  On the one hand, many diseases that once took the lives of infants and children are quite treatable and thus beatable, but still there are children who die.  Most of these children are born with genetic anomalies that effect the growth of the heart or with brain encephalitis.  Many of these infants can even develop normally for some time, but the shadow of death never leaves.

I have been stunned to learn that most of the conditions that cause death in children are incredibly cruel.  I learned of Tay-Sachs disease about a year ago.  We were preparing to admit a 3 year-old with the disease and none of us on the team had heard of the disease so we looked it up.

“Infants with Tay-Sachs disease appear to develop normally for the first few months of life. Then, as nerve cells become distended with fatty material, a relentless deterioration of mental and physical abilities occurs. The child becomes blind, deaf, and unable to swallow. Muscles begin to atrophy and paralysis sets in. Other neurological symptoms include dementia, seizures, and an increased startle reflex to noise.”

Without a feeding tube most children die before age 3.  Our team sat in stunned silence.  Just when you think that there couldn’t be a crueler way to die, one presents itself.

I do not have a child with a terminal illness, but I have witnessed parents that do, and they are amazing people.  When our first son was born, I sat in stunned silence realizing that there was now someone in this world whose death would devastate me in ways that my own never could.  My own existence seemed like folly to the weight of wanting this little person to survive and thrive.  There is a fierceness and grace and even normalcy to parents of a terminally child that renews my hope in the seasons of existence and that love is worth it, no matter the length of time given to love.

Yesterday, a powerful piece by Emily Rapp, a mother of a son living with Tay-Sachs, was in the NYTimes Opinion pages.  Her words touch the heart and she closes with these words to all parents:

“This is a love story, and like all great love stories, it is a story of loss. Parenting, I’ve come to understand, is about loving my child today. Now. In fact, for any parent, anywhere, that’s all there is.”

 

 


Categories: Aging, Disability, Death, Dying, Childbearing, Childhood
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Which part of America are you thinking about?

10.12.2011 7:02 PM

“When we think of family, many of us still picture people within a certain age bracket; we tend to think about 30- to 40-something parents with young children. However, it’s not only parents of young children who seek work-family balance and yet experience high degrees of work-life conflict. Work-family issues remain meaningful across the life course.” (Huff Post Business)

Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes, PhD, good try, but what planet are you living on? Among the grad-school educated set people may be raising young children up until their 40s, sure. But most children in America are born to women in their twenties. By their late forties some of these women may be grandmothers — grandmothers with aging parents, no less. How’s that for a sandwich generation?


Categories: Aging, Disability, Death, Dying, Childbearing
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Roiphe: ‘Shaming the single mom’

10.07.2011 6:14 PM

A commenter on my last post drew my attention to Katie Roiphe’s new piece at Slate, about being a professor mom raising a six year old and a toddler with different fathers, neither of whom she’s currently with.

It’s an aggravating but interesting piece. For one thing, Roiphe is a distinctively gifted writer, steeped in the English literature she teaches and adept at the elegant turn of phrase.

Leaving aside my personal thoughts for now (as someone who, myself, grew up with a divorced mom and a half sibling) of how her children might feel now or later about all this, I will say that Roiphe makes a good point about how the educated class talks wild but acts sedate, and the subtle moralism (or, when you’re on the receiving end of it, apparently the not so subtle moralism) they/we use to police behavior. Her essay is in part a catalog of the ways the literati make clear to one of their own that it’s not cool to have a baby out of wedlock.

At the same time, I’d like to correct a couple misleading omissions. Roiphe writes:

It’s worth noting, though, that nearly four in 10 babies in this country are currently born to single mothers, and a rapidly growing percentage of those mothers are adults.

Actually overall it’s now more than four in ten, but it’s probably more relevant to Roiphe’s world to note how many college educated women have children outside of marriage: about six percent. Having a child without a husband is just not something that college professors like her do, much.

Roiphe also writes:

Here someone is bound to say, “Studies have shown …” But as far as I am concerned the studies can continue to show whatever they feel like showing. There are things that can’t be measured and quantified in studies, and I imagine the multitudinous varieties of family peace are among them. Not to mention what these stern studies fail to measure: which is what happens when there is anger or conflict in the home, or unhappy or airless marriages, relationships wilting or faltering, subterranean tensions, what happens when everyone is bored.

In fact there is much work on the impact of divorce and high conflict marriages and other such matters on children. The short version is that high conflict marriages are bad for kids, but only a minority of marriages that end in divorce are high conflict. Most end for other reasons, like the boredom Roiphe refers to (“it seemed to some as if I were getting away with something, as if I were not paying the usual price… [of] take-out Thai food and a video with your husband on a Saturday night”). In a national study I co-investigated some years ago, my colleague and I found that while high-conflict marriages are indeed bad for children, so-called “good” divorces are harder for children than low-conflict but unhappy marriages.

Roiphe’s made her choices; her kids have a hard-working, educated mom and with luck and grace they’ll be fine. But to other Slate readers who haven’t yet had their babies I guess my advice, as a mom married this week for 15 years, about the same age as Roiphe, well-steeped in the boredom and comfort and challenge and spark that comes with sticking with somebody for life, I’ll just say about her vision, don’t try this at home.


Categories: Childbearing, Children of Divorce, Motherhood
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Worse Things Have Happened

10.06.2011 11:41 PM

I suppose now is the time to announce to the world…

I’m expecting. A child that is- and best news is, I know who the father is!

The second best news is I didn’t even have to pay him.

We’re very proud of our child’s conception story, though I won’t go into detail about it here. We brought forth new life naturally, with a lot of love and respect. I am already jealous of our child’s life. Even if the kid grows up to hate me and thinks of me as a horrible mother, I know I did one thing right.

But I see why many women delay pregnancy until it’s too late or very difficult. The career crowd isn’t much impressed by your happy news all the time.

We told my family. We told his family. We told my friends. Now we’re starting to tell his friends. We’re entering the second trimester and it’s just now starting to get more real. But there was one person I just couldn’t bring myself to tell until yesterday- my music manager.

When my fiancĂ© and I first became engaged, I was so happy. Everything about the way he did it was special and beautiful and really confirmed what a great guy he is. When I told my manager, the first thing she said to me was, “we can’t tell anyone about this.” Not only people in the music industry, but also my fans.

The second thing she said was, “Don’t get pregnant.”

Whoops… When I told her about the pregnancy, she approached it gently and as politely as she could, but her true feelings showed through when she said, “We’ll deal with it… Worse things have happened.”

Worse things?!

Worse things?!!!

I get pregnant on the first try, without spending thousands of dollars on dangerous fertility drugs- with my enthusiastic, capable, and loving fiancĂ©, as a healthy young woman with a stable middle-class financial situation and I’m told: worse things have happened?!

Society is crazy I’ve decided. She told me that music industry people will be nervous as to your decision to start a family and may think that you aren’t taking your career seriously.

I went into music because I thought it would be a great avenue for being a great mom. You get to pick your hours, make royalties, and can spend a lot of time at home (especially if you have a home recording studio). This choice of mine was affirmed this summer when I met Swedish music royalty Jenny Wilson. She told me, “Being a mother and musician is ideal! You can pick your hours! My only advice is make sure you pick out a great Dad.”

Thanks Jenny! Done. Snagged him.

Is it true that big career success is probably easier for the childless? Sure. I can’t imagine Lady Gaga getting away with what she does if she had little kids. Then again Madonna has a few.

The truth is, I’ve  been hearing stories of how painful childlessness is since I was 5 years old. It started with my mom and her battle to conceive, then when I sold my eggs I got a fresh earful of stories of woe- women who used birth control for years and waited for just the right moment and just the right man and just after they got the promotion they wanted… And now as I operate The Anonymous Us Project, the words are always different but the point is always the same:

Having a child is one of the most important things I will ever do with my life.

Unfortunately for most people, it took them up until too long to figure that out. I have the benefit of many people’s stories and wisdom. And now that a new soul has chosen me as its mother, I’m not going to abort that opportunity just because it makes a few people in the music industry nervous.


Categories: Childbearing, Dating, Mating, Hooking Up, General, Marriage, Motherhood, The Future of Parenthood
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Marriage, Fertility, and the Economy

10.03.2011 1:20 PM

UVA’s National Marriage Project has released a new report, “The Sustainable Demographic Dividend.” A HuffPo interview with lead author Brad Wilcox, here.


Categories: Childbearing, Marriage and Money
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Global Demography Trends

10.03.2011 9:52 AM

Phillip Longman has a quick wrap up in the current issue of Foreign Policy:

…The human population will continue to grow, though in a very different way from in the past. The United Nations’ most recent “mid-range” projection calls for an increase to 8 billion people by 2025 and to 10.1 billion by century’s end.

Until quite recently, such population growth always came primarily from increases in the numbers of young people. Between 1950 and 1990, for example, increases in the number of people under 30 accounted for more than half of the growth of the world’s population, while only 12 percent came from increases in the ranks of those over 60.   But in the future it will be the exact opposite.

and

In just 35 years, both Iran and Mexico will have a larger percentage of their populations over 60 than France does today. Other places with birth rates now below replacement levels include not just old Europe but also developing countries such as Brazil, Chile, China, Lebanon, Tunisia, South Korea, and Vietnam.

and

Another related megatrend is the rapid change in the size, structure, and nature of the family. In many countries, such as Germany, Japan, Russia, and South Korea, the one-child family is now becoming the norm. This trend creates a society in which not only do most people have no siblings, but also no aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, or nephews. Many will lack children of their own as well. Today about one in five people in advanced Western countries, including the United States, remains childless. Huge portions of the world’s population will thus have no biological relatives except their parents.

And even where children continue to be born, they are being raised under radically different circumstances, as country after country has seen divorce and out-of-wedlock births surge and the percentage of children living with both of their married parents drop sharply. So not only is the quantity of children in the world poised to shrink rapidly, but on current trends, a near majority of them will be raised in ways that are today strongly associated with negative life outcomes.

 


Categories: Aging, Disability, Death, Dying, Childbearing, Children of Divorce, General
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Babies, Habits, and Aristotle

09.19.2011 11:13 AM

With a baby on the way (six weeks away, if he comes close to his due date!), I’ve been thinking some about how I want to live. I have a tendency to set goals and cast grand visions, but to put off the daily practice that will get me to those goals. One example: I’ve been wanting to get into the habit of exercising my whole pregnancy. And now that it’s almost over, I’m finally buying a yoga mat.

When I’m a parent, though, how will I be able to teach my son to save his money, for example, if I myself don’t have a budget? It seems that we learn the most from our parents by what they do, not by what they say. I don’t ever remember my mom lecturing me about spending money wisely, but I did watch her cut coupons out of the papers and compare prices in the sales ad while making her grocery list. And she passed her habit down to me. I don’t remember her telling me to be generous, but I do remember her taking meals to neighbors after they’d had babies or been sick. I don’t remember her lecturing me about living a life of faith, but I do remember seeing her take a moment in the afternoons while us kids were playing to sit in her pink lazy boy to read, pray, and journal.

This also struck me when I was reading through some of the posts in “The Virtual Thrift Club” at The Dollar Stretcher.com, In one thread called “Childhood Memories of Money” people recall how their parents dealt with tough financial times (like the Great Depression), and note how this has affected their own thrift habits. I know that’s why my mom is thrifty—because her Iowa farmer parents had to be.

Of course, I hear parents all the time talking about how they’re not perfect and that they make mistakes—and I know that there’s no sense in having a guilt complex over every missed opportunity or fault. But I do feel like becoming a parent is going to act as a kind of check on my behavior. It’ll make me do a double take before I reach for that package of Oreos at the grocery store. It’ll make me pray more. It’ll make me manage my time better. Perhaps I’m being naïve, though. Maybe some of you more experienced parents can fill me in if that’s the case? :)

The point, though, is that parents model a life for us, and we often learn our habits from them. And this matters, because as Aristotle noted, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.”


Categories: Childbearing, Childhood, Motherhood
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‘You’re Only as Happy as Your Saddest Child’

08.24.2011 11:10 AM

I once heard a therapist say that, now new research from Karen Fingerman at University of Texas at Austin bears it out.


Categories: Aging, Disability, Death, Dying, Childbearing
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Is Cohabitation Unstable in Europe Too?

08.17.2011 8:09 PM

Yesterday’s report, Why Marriage Matters, from the Institute for American Values and the National Marriage Project is getting some good press. In the National Public Radio story, psychologist John Gottman suggests that cohabitation is more stable in Europe, where it receives more cultural and legal recognition. This is a view held by many academics and journalists (including Lauren Sandler who weighed in at Slate). Sandler believes that “cohabitation is only a problem because it’s not normal yet.” By contrast, in Sweden (the land of sweetness and light), where it is “normal to parent without a marriage certificate” all is supposed to be well.

But is this true?

No. In his work on European family life, UCLA demographer Patrick Heuveline finds that

in most [European] countries children born to cohabiting families are two to four times more likely to see their parents separate than are children in married households.

Even in Sweden, children are worse off when mom and dad cohabit. Demographers Sheela Kennedy and Elizabeth Thomson find in their recent study that children born to cohabiting parents are 75% more likely to see mom and dad break up, compared to children born to married parents.

So, in part because cohabitation does not offer the same rituals (a big ceremony), norms (commitment), and practices (fidelity) to partners, their family and friends, and their communities as does marriage, my bet is that cohabitation is not soon likely to deliver stability to kids in the way that marriage does–even in fair Sweden.


Categories: Childbearing, General, Marriage
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Rape Victims Ordered To Pay Child Support

08.16.2011 10:19 PM

So a man gets raped by a woman; the woman gets pregnant and raises the child. Should the father be forced to pay child support? Danny says no; Clarissa says yes. (The question was brought up by this article about a child support case.)

Clarissa argues:

Child support, however, is not about either parent or the process of how they ended up being parents. It’s about ensuring that a child – a separate human being who never asked to be brought into this world and who in no way influenced the circumstances of his or her conception – has adequate means of support. It is the role of the justice system to defend the person who is the weakest and who cannot even speak for him or herself, namely, the child. A justice system that prefers to deprive a child from adequate means of existence in order to avoid being unfair towards an adult is no justice system at all.

The fact that a person was created during the commission of a crime in no way reduces that person’s need for food, clothing, medical care, and education. Imagine baby Anna and baby Jessica. Anna is a product of a passionate loving consensual sex act. Jessica is the product of rape (whether by a man or by a woman). Is Jessica going to eat less? Will she be less deserving of visiting a dentist? Should she have fewer toys than Anna? Can anybody reasonably argue that one of these kids should be punished because she has a criminal for a parent?

As a general principal, I agree with Clarissa. Child support is for the benefit of the child. Certainly, I find men who argue that men should have the “choice” of a “paper abortion” ludicrous; a man’s need to not have to spend money supporting his children doesn’t outweigh a child’s need for support.

But it’s also true that child support is not an absolute.

For instance, if Charlie and Lucy adopt a child together, but are then too poor to support the child, we don’t expect the child’s biological parents to pay child support. In this case, the need for a clear adoption system — in which legal parenthood is definitively passed on to the adoptive parents — outweighs the need for the child to be supported by its biological parents. A similar logic explains why egg donors and sperm donors are not typically held responsible for child support.

Similarly, the need to avoid unjustly punishing rape victims for being raped, should outweigh the need to have two parents financially supporting every child.

But what about baby Jessica’s “need for food, clothing, medical care, and education”? I think the solution is to lobby for the state to step in and provide these things at a generous level — not to make things worse for rape victims.

A few more thoughts:
Read More


Categories: Childbearing, Fatherhood, Motherhood
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Making Love and Babies (Without Rushing Marriage)

07.11.2011 9:49 AM

Daniels, Kentucky—the town that Erica recently moved to—reminds me of her hometown, Maytown, Ohio. When you first pull off the highway, there’s a McDonald’s and a gas station, and a pizza and sub joint, but as you get further into the town, most of the buildings seems to be auto shops or churches. A railroad winds around town and Erica tells me that she loves hearing the trains go by. It’s different than hearing the subway clank or the Amtrak shake—a locomotive has a full-bodied, time-stilling kind of sound. And then there’s the Whippy Dip, housed in a historic-looking white house, a banner advertising 24 different flavors of soft serve hanging across the porch. Beside the Whippy Dip is the park where I wait to meet Erica.

A dust brown Chevy pick-up pulls up, engine roaring. Troy, Erica’s live-in boyfriend, has a cigarette sticking out of his mouth as he drives. He’s an attractive twenty-something, with dark sunglasses and blonde scruff on his chin and muscled arms protruding from a ripped-sleeves t-shirt. Frankie, Troy’s two year old son, is sandwiched in between the couple, clinging to two Woody the cowboy dolls that Erica tells me he takes everywhere, even the bathtub.

Erica, 24, greets me exuberantly, talking almost nonstop from the moment we first meet. She’s short—I’d guess less than five feet—and reminds me of Piglet. She has a pink pixie nose and squinty grey eyes. Today she’s wearing bootcut jeans that fall over top a pair of cowboy boots and a navy blue tee with a white imprint of a guitar. Despite her petite frame, Erica is a mother of two. She’s also in the process of getting a criminal justice degree through an online university and in the process of getting a divorce from her “baby daddy” who lives back in Ohio.

As we talk, Troy and Frankie play on the swing set nearby until their faces are red with heat. They drive off (engine gyrating while Erica rolls her eyes and says “show-off”) and return with a bottle of Big Red. The boys play for a little longer before returning to the pick-up where they scare us with some leftover Fourth of July firecrackers before Erica goes and scolds them. And then, they’re off to the bait and tackle shop and then to a friend’s boat dock. “I take care of two boys, I swear,” she laughs afterwards.

Erica’s story is becoming a common one to me: she got pregnant with her high school sweetheart shortly after graduation, married him at 21, had another baby, separated from him four months later, and is now living with Troy, who works at a tire factory and has joint custody of the son he had with his ex-girlfriend of four years. In Erica’s circle, raising kids in a revolving door of relationships is normal, but Erica is adamant that it’s not ideal. And given the instability of relationships, moms and dads try to proceed with caution. After eight months of dating, Erica just introduced her kids to Troy last weekend. (Erica’s children are currently living with their great-grandparents until she feels she has a more stable situation. These are the same grandparents that raised Erica after her parents divorced and her mom started partying too hard.) And, she always tells potential partners that she is “a package deal.” Like so many other single mothers, her mantra is, understandably, “If you’re gonna be my lover, you gotta love my kids.” Read More


Categories: Childbearing, Civil Society, Dating, Mating, Hooking Up, Love & Marriage in Middle America, Marriage
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