Unmarried With Kids: A Shift In The Working Class

by Jennifer Ludden
December 6, 2010

The path to adulthood used to be clear — love, marriage, baby carriage — and no one embodied that more than America's working class. But today, for those with only a high school education, that order no longer holds; in fact, a new study suggests that marriage is foundering in Middle America.

Andrew Felices, 26, and Mellissa Giles, 27, are this new face of the American family. They've been living together since before their son, A.J., was born. He's 2 1/2 now, and he shrieks gleefully as he sprawls on the basement floor with dad, building a train track. The couple bought a cozy condo in Frederick, Md., last summer. A home, a child — but neither is in any rush to tie the knot.

"We're still young," Mellissa says. We're enjoying the time as it is."

What's important, says Andrew, is "having your life the way you want it, your lifestyle in place. Getting married is really the cherry on top."
 the rest

Culturally, it's certainly much more acceptable to have children without being wed. But there's still an argument for marriage: Wilcox says unmarried parents are more than twice as likely to break up by the time their child is 5.

The Changing Culture War

UK: Unmarried parents 'to blame for rise in broken homes'
Nearly half of children born today will be living in broken homes by the age of 16 as growing numbers of families split up, according to analysis of official figures...
'Faith gap' seen among married
In addition to an "education gap" in marriage, there is also a "faith gap," says the new State of Our Unions report on marriage.
"Middle America has lost its religious edge," wrote W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, looking at trends over the past 40 years.

In the 1970s, the moderately educated — blue-collar, working-class Americans with high school diplomas or some college — were more likely to go to church every week than people with college degrees.

That has now reversed: Today 34 percent of college graduates attend weekly religious services, compared with 28 percent of moderately educated Americans, said the report...