"Life Without Children: The New Nurture Gap"

"Life Without Children: The New Nurture Gap
February 3, 2009
Image by Brian Snelson

“The percentage of American households with children has dropped from nearly five out of ten in 1960 to slightly more than three out of ten today. And this proportion is projected to decline further. According to Census Bureau projections, by 2010, households with children will account for little more than one-quarter of all households—the lowest share in the nation’s history.”

—Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, Ph.D. and David Popenoe, Ph.D., Life Without Children: The Social Retreat From Children And How It Is Changing America
Researchers in America and Britain have recently identified several key indicators signaling that child care occupies less of the average adult’s lifetime in the 21st century than in past decades. The social implications for the future of the family in these two countries could be enormous.

Helicopter parents who hover over their offspring may not have gotten the most recent memo: a 2008 report from The National Marriage Project at Rutgers University forecasts that “American society is changing in ways that make children less central to our common lives, shared goals and public commitments.”

The report’s title, Life Without Children: The Social Retreat From Children And How It Is Changing America, does not imply that Americans have become anti–child or have stopped having babies. The birth rate in the United States remains at replacement level, well above the declining rates of many European and Asian nations. However, the authors, social historian Barbara Dafoe Whitehead and sociologist David Popenoe, do point out that the American adult’s life experience is changing dramatically and becoming less child-centered.

Similar concerns are also being expressed in Britain. In September of 2006, an independent inquiry was commissioned by The Children’s Society, a prominent United Kingdom children’s charity, to “renew society’s understanding of modern childhood and to inform, improve and inspire” parent-child relationships. The ongoing study, culminating in the February 2009 release of a book titled A Good Childhood: Searching for Values in a Competitive Age, echoes the findings of its American counterpart. “Life for children today is very different to what it was like when their parents were growing up,” says the U.K. summary report. Citing fragmented families as one of the key factors that contribute to increased childhood distress, the researchers also suggested that individualist values have created a world for children “where many people are trying to make life better only for themselves and not for other people.”

The U.K. team recommended several approaches to restoring a more child-centered community, among them noting that “when young people grow up and before they start their own family they should receive education on how to be a good parent, build relationships and raise a child.”

Though perhaps not all previous generations in the U.S. and the U.K. would have accepted the nurturing of children as a societal norm, at least through much of the 20th century most would have anticipated that child care would play a central role in the expected pattern of adulthood, marriage and family life. Young adults, after completing school, would marry and have children in their early 20s. Twenty-five or so years later the nest would be empty. As mature adults with their parenting work behind them, they would hope that the remainder of life would permit them some years of serenity in retirement.

However, in 21st-century America and Britain, the expectations for the adult life experience are shaping up to be dramatically different: researchers in both nations have identified several key indicators signaling that child care occupies less of the average adult’s lifetime. Whitehead and Popenoe believe that the social implications for the future of the American family are enormous.


DEMOGRAPHIC DECLINE

Since the post World War II “baby boom” period, when American parents, community services and governmental agencies were consumed with the concerns of families with children, the number of households with children has dropped significantly. Decades of decline in the proportion of child rearing households has contributed to a lack of focus on child rearing issues, and American households with minor children are no longer the demographic majority.

“The percentage of American households with children has dropped from nearly five out of ten in 1960 to slightly more than three out of ten today,” notes the Rutgers report. “And this proportion is projected to decline further. According to Census Bureau projections, by 2010, households with children will account for little more than one-quarter of all households—the lowest share in the nation’s history.”

The American researchers attribute this decline to the fact that today’s couples express a yearning for companionship, intimacy and personal fulfillment in marriage. These so-called “soul-mate” relationships require high levels of maintenance involving time and attention to thrive. Children, who also require considerable time and attention, can be seen as competitors hindering the hopes for couple contentment.

“In recent decades,” say Whitehead and Popenoe, “marriage has been deinstitutionalized—that is, it has lost much of its influence as a social institution governing sex, procreation and parenthood. Legally, socially, and culturally, marriage is now defined primarily as a couple relationship dedicated to the fulfillment of each individual’s innermost needs and desires.”

Such redefining of marital expectations is weakening the bond between marriage and parenthood. Traditional marriage, once widely recognized as society’s best setting to provide economic stability and emotional security for children, now competes with other socially-acceptable options for the bearing and caring of children.

Steady increases in births out of wedlock and in cohabitation and divorce rates have resulted in more fragmented families. Increasingly, lone adults bear the burden of caring for children, which means that fewer biological parents are living the majority of their adult years in the presence of their children.

“Births to unwed women rose from 5.3 percent in 1960 to a record high of 38 percent in 2006,” says the Rugers report. “More than half of all births to women under thirty are now outside of marriage.”

In this too, Britain’s Children’s Society echoes Whitehead and Popenoe. “Family structures are changing,” they note in their launch report. “Between 1972 and 2004 the proportion of children in the U.K. living in single-parent families more than tripled to 24%.”


DISENGAGED DADS

These same factors increase the likelihood of a biological father’s absence, and when men are missing from the parenting equation, it alters family dynamics and affects everyone. (See “Are Fathers Necessary” and “Like Father, Like . . . Daughter.”)

The Children’s Society contributes to the existing body of research on absent fathers with a finding from their own study of U.K. runaways, noting that “Children living with one birth parent are twice as likely to have run away and children in step families are three times as likely to have run away as those living with both parents.”

While citing statistics that indicate nearly 80 percent of African-American children are born to single mothers, Whitehead and Popenoe caution that “father absence is not limited to one group. It is a commonplace feature in a society where marriage and parenthood are splitting apart.” In fact, say the researchers, “Compared to children in mid-twentieth century America, the proportion of children living apart from their biological father has increased sharply, from 17% in 1960 to 34 percent in 2000.”


HONEY, WE SHRUNK PARENTING!

Another factor contributing to the shrinking share of time adults spend caring for children is that young adults are postponing childbearing to pursue college education and careers. Additionally, relationship instability and the resulting uncertainty about the future may discourage women from having children.

Today, says the Rutgers report, the median age for a woman’s first marriage has risen to about 26 from the 1970 median of about 21. Women who have achieved a four-year college degree or higher may not enter their first marriage until nearer to the age of 30.

Even when they do marry, says the report, “women are waiting longer before they have their first child. In 1970, 71% of married women had a first birth within the first three years of marriage. By 1990, the percentage had fallen to 37. Consequently, married women today spend a greater number of “child-free” years before they become mothers.”

Furthermore, an increase in life expectancy means that a larger portion of one’s life span will be spent living in a household without children. The “empty nest” years are expanding as life expectancy increases.

The resultant reality is that the span of both pre– and post– child rearing years is widening for the average American adult. These “child-free” years are often portrayed in popular culture as years of fun and freedom, while the child rearing years are increasingly seen as a temporary and transitional stage of adulthood, an interruption in the pursuit of personal fulfillment.

Are these sociological indicators just blips on the sociological screen? Or are nations like the U.S. and the U.K. witnessing the development of a genuine “nurture gap”?

The Judeo-Christian ethic considers children a blessing from God (Psalm 127:3). But if these reports from either side of the Atlantic are to be taken at face value, children—once commonly accepted as contributing to an adult’s personal fulfillment—seem to be increasingly viewed as a potential hindrance to personal fulfillment. Are children becoming more of a burden to adults than a blessing?

Indeed, “how is childhood viewed and valued today?” asks the U.K. Children’s Society report. As Whitehead and Popenoe explore the question, they can only conclude that 21st-century culture may be shifting “from a society of child-rearing families to a society of child-free adults.”

TOM FITZPATRICK

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Life Without Children: The Social Retreat From Children And How It Is Changing America
The Good Childhood Inquiry
http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/article.aspx?id=12776


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- The human gene pool could use a little chlorine

Quote
m4p
Researchers in America and Britain have recently identified several key indicators signaling that child care occupies less of the average adult’s lifetime in the 21st century than in past decades... The resultant reality is that the span of both pre– and post– child rearing years is widening for the average American adult. These “child-free” years are often portrayed in popular culture as years of fun and freedom, while the child rearing years are increasingly seen as a temporary and transitional stage of adulthood, an interruption in the pursuit of personal fulfillment.

They say that like it's a bad thing.

No one is stating the one glaringly obvious fact. That child-rearing (ho I love that phrase, rearing!) is for boneheads. It's the most boring thing people can do in life. It's for people who are thick. People who are unimaginative, uninspired, unintelligent and have frankly given up on themselves and are eager to pass the baton. Want more kiddies? Maybe stop educating your population, then. Or if an intelligent population is our collective goal, then quit your crying that fewer and fewer people find child-rearing somehow fascinating, fun, or exciting.

BTW, the Children's Society report also damned women for having the temerity to want to work and -- gasp! -- have their own money. And it's NOT an independent report in any way shape or form as reported above. The Children's Society is a Christian organisation, so naturally it's going to ram their misogynistic agenda down everyone's throats.



CAPTCHA: hey it's a sign for a bathroom for small magical people! ELFWC

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