Voluntaryly Childless Couples

The family shows both continuity and changes which can be seen by looking at nuclear families and single parent families respectively. Before 1940s, marriage was considered an important part of society and thought to be a social institution essential for order. Divorce and single parent families were considered dreadful, sex outside marriage was not acceptable, it was a moral offense. The tempo of divorces was very low, but this social behavior soon ended in the post war era. By 1960s, this was no longer the case, as women started to work. They became much more independent, laws were changed and increase in divorces and cohabitation rates had shown that marriage was not compulsory in one’s life.

152) required their reproduction and choosing to be childless was “non-normative” (p. 152). One participant believed that choosing to remain childless would be more readily accepted by those that did not intimately know him and viewed more negatively by those closest to him (p. 151). I feel this is a very apt assessment of society’s views on childlessness; it is easy to justify the projection of one’s personal beliefs onto someone that we closely know as opposed to a stranger. However, I also believe it depends on the projecting person’s ideas about social norms. I know several single and married couples that have decided to either delay childbearing or refrain altogether and I find no fault in their decision. I do not necessarily believe that it is imperative a person and/or couple have children. Nevertheless, I believe the subject belongs in the “Spouses-Only Area” (Hammond, Cheney, & Pearsey, 2015), and is not one I should pass judgment on. People should be allowed to make a decision that best suits them and not judged or pressured to fit some preconceived mold or

About four in every ten children born in America in 2008 were born outside of marriage, and they are disproportionately minority and poor. “Only about 6 percent of college-educated mothers’ births are nonmarital versus 60 percent of those of high school dropouts” (5). Scholars responded to this by studying single-parent families.

The changing position of women in today’s society is in part responsible for the increase in family diversity. Women are now mens equals and can become very senior in their chosen professions through hard work and dedication. Because of this, women are less likely to want to have children early on in their careers and prevent themselves from getting pregnant until they have established themselves with a distinguished career. This trend is giving rise to smaller families of dual earners and thus increasing the family diversity in today’s society. Also, some of these women focus so heavily on their careers they never actually find a partner. And so, when they feel ready to have children they either go through the IVF process or adopt a child, again widening the diverse family types in Britain’s society today.

Children born to single or unwed parents causes serious problems and discussions not only within society, but also the welfare system. Becoming a parent seems to be one of the most beautiful things life has to offer to people. The laughter of children warms the heart like nothing else can, and the way their eyes light up when they receive something as small as a piece of candy reminds us all that the little things in life are the most important. However, children require time and money which often gets overlooked by many people. Raising a child with two married parents seems difficult enough, but today many people are having children out-of -wedlock which also seems to create more single parent homes and puts more pressure on that one parent who struggles to support the child. From 1960 to 2000, out-of-wedlock births grew by 600%

Marriage a long-standing fundamental to functional society. Marriage is a perspective of what used to be socially the beginning of a nuclear family. A nuclear family consisting of a father, mother, and children. In the twentieth century it was considered proper in society to be married before having children. However, this is no longer the case in modern United States. What aspects are there that make our generation susceptible to cohabitation instead of marriage?

Through the use of personal anecdotes, McKibben argues that adults today should not be pressured to have a large family or create the stigma of an only child being a spoiled brat. He begins his essay with a trip to the doctor's office in which he is thrown an abundance of questions about the circumstances of having more children, for example, “Would more children be in your picture now if your financial circumstances improved significantly?” (119). By the use of these various personal anecdotes, this supports his argument of plausible reasons why adults decide not to have children and why it is better to have a few. Adults in the 21st century are just too busy, are career focused, or are simply not ready to take that route. He emphasizes that

THE NO-BABY BOOM, by Anne Kingston, published in March 2014 was about the social infertility rates of twenty-first century women. Kingston uses credible evidence that shows that she wants to promote awareness and change the perception of how society views the topic of infertility. The way Kingston presents the information to the reader is by providing statistics, personal stories, and her personal opinion on the idea of the “childless” mother. Readers this is most likely to appeal to is people who are struggling with infertility. The concern and values throughout this article is the infertility rate of women and the way it affects their life styles. The reason that Kingston published this article is to let people become more aware of the

People think that marriage is all about children but it is not. The choice is up to the adults whether or not they want to have children, According to the author. Some people have specific reasons as to why they do not want to have children such as not being ready or not knowing if they have what it takes to be a parent. Also they do not see the need that they should have children when they are already happy with one another as it is. “Childfree by Choice” by Kelly Welch explains it well as to why people do not need to have children.

According to data from the Urban Institute, birth rates among 20-year-old women declined 15% between 2007 and 2012. Research shows that only 1/3rd of couples are choosing to start families. There are many reasons as to why birthrates have decreased. For newlywed couples who are looking to start a family, money and debt may play a serious role. On the other hand, as more women graduate college the need for advancing in their career outweighs the need for children. For others, the idea of kids, in general, may be unsettling. Finally, there is a growing sentiment that having children may be the selfish thing to do.

Contemporary Home, by Jack O. Balswick and Judith K. Balswick comprise of various approaches in biblical, theological, cultural, and sociological perspectives. The author focus is strictly to “integrated view of contemporary family life based on current social-science research, clinical insights, and biblical truth. The background of the author’s work is from a previous edition upgraded with current changes in our “modern society including a section on marriage, mate selection, cohabitation, expansion of family life, parenting, rearing children, adolescent, challenges of the later-life premarital cohabitation, recognition of the importance of biosocial influence, and the interactive effect of bio-psycho-socio-cultural factors to understand family dynamics. The audience of this book are for families and marriage in conflict, every life stage, maintaining balance through the joys, pains, ups, and downs,

However, Blackstone and Stewart (2016) provide lucidity through comprehensive considerations of previous research, which examined the process by which individuals decide to have children, with the intent to provide insight into many individuals’ decision to remain childfree. Furthermore, Blackstone and Stewart (2016) continued to identify insufficiencies in prior research throughout their article, as they recognized that many former researchers primarily focused on women’s experiences rather than men’s and typically explored why couples’ have chosen to remain childfree rather than how they have reached their decision to remain childfree (Agrillo & Nelini, 2008; Clausen, 2002; Gillespie, 2003; Houseknecht, 1982; Letherby, 2002; Edin & Kefalas, 2011; Hertz, 2006; Mollen, 2006; Mueller & Yoder, 1999; Park, 2005; Settle & Brumley, 2014; Lunneborg,

Impacting multiple areas of society, “fatherlessness is a link with virtually every social ill you can name” (Marche, 2013). The numbers are staggering and statistics show, “65 percent of all our children are growing up without a father in the home” (Chiles, 2010). Chiles (2010) also states, “one third of our babies live in poverty and when a child grows up without a father, they are 20 times more likely to end up in prison.” Poverty and fatherlessness is without a doubt a contributing factor to current societal issues. Data shows that the amount of unmarried women giving birth is in an upward spiral. According to Marche (2013), “in 2008, 41 percent of births involved unmarried women compared with 28 percent in 1990.” This information shows the digression of the family unit, and the decreased level of commitment among men to engage in as the husband and father to their family. Currently, an “estimated 24.7 million children (33%)” live without their father” (“U.S. Census Bureau”, 2010). The epidemic is not only evident in the unwed partners, but divorce contributes as well to the troubling effect upon children. Botèro (2012) states “children of divorce without enough father contact are prone to have poor social skills; to struggle with the five D’s (depression, drugs, drinking, discipline and

I resonated with the idea that there are societal ideals at play in the expectation that couples should have babies. This strong social narrative is imbedded with values such as a “selflessness” that could come from being a parent. The video entitled Just the two of us: Childless by choice provides us with the perspective that some individuals do not feel this is the only way to be selfless. Another value in our culture is the narrative of all the joys of being a mother. While this could be very real, this narrative can bring disappointment to many mothers. The article by the Huffing post entitled Why Childfree Couples Have It All notes that “when a social role like motherhood is difficult, romantic myths need to surround it to keep it in

Evidence suggests associations between couples' childbearing choices and individual and couple characteristics. Wagner et al (2015) thought social networks would differentiate parents and childless couples. In particular, they thought those who chose to be childless would differ from those childless by circumstance.  They studied social network interplay with dyadic and individual characteristics. They looked at three types of couples with and without children. They sampled 248 German early-midlife adults (n = 41 voluntarily childless, n = 35 involuntarily childless, n = 48 traditional parental dyads). Their analysis revealed differences in social network characteristics. Differences existed between deliberate and non-deliberate childless couples. Attitudes