Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site mnetor.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcs!mnetor!sophie From: sophie@mnetor.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Re: Re: marriage |= (necessarily) commitment Message-ID: <1828@mnetor.UUCP> Date: Mon, 19-Aug-85 15:52:00 EDT Article-I.D.: mnetor.1828 Posted: Mon Aug 19 15:52:00 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 19-Aug-85 17:32:23 EDT References: <616@ttidcc.UUCP> <3657@cornell.UUCP> <1773@mnetor.UUCP> <155@unc.unc.UUCP> Reply-To: sophie@mnetor.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) Organization: Computer X (CANADA) Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada Lines: 35 In article <155@unc.unc.UUCP> fsks@unc.UUCP (Frank Silbermann) writes: >In article <1773@mnetor.UUCP> sophie@mnetor.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) writes: >> >>In some countries in Europe. more and more unmarried couples are having >>children. I remember reading somewhere that in Sweden the figure was >>somewhere around 40% and in France close to 15%. >> >>I think that society "used" to see childrearing and marriage as synonymous, >>but that this is all changing very much (where society here = america + >>western Europe). > >Do you think this change is for the better? I have strong doubts. >My guess is that most of the children of unmarried couples >are actually not being raised by an unmarried couple, but rather >by just one of the parents. Often, these children grow up >in poverty, and with low-quality (if any) adult supervision. > > Frank Silbermann I do not have any figures for this, all I know of are the people I know. Most of my divorced cousins in France who are getting a second shot at parenting are doing so without getting married, but as couples anyway. I am not talking about kids here. Most of these people are in their mid-thirties to mid-forties. As far as I know, their children are fairly normal children with about the same amount of problems as most other children. My cousins are certainly doing a better job of parenting the second time around than they did the first time even though they were more married the first time. And I don't think that this is so because they are not married, but simply because they are more mature now. I know quite a few other unmarried couples with children, and they all have pretty average problems at a pretty average rate. -- Sophie Quigley {allegra|decvax|ihnp4|linus|watmath}!utzoo!mnetor!sophie