Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
Well, it does concern me if the women having these children are not in a long term committed relationship, at least from what I'm seeing here in the U.S.
There's the economic implications, as Bicicleur has pointed out. The poorest people in our society are single mothers and their children. Even if they're not on welfare, a lot of them have to get food stamps, housing help, medicaid etc.
Then, with only one parent to help with child care, and the mother working the children don't get the supervision they need or the help with discipline.
Maybe I'm really old fashioned, but I think children need two parents. I don't see anything good happening as a result of this. I'm glad to see that Italy has relatively low rates for this.
Estonia stands out for single mothers and unmarried couples
A comparative analysis done by Statistics Estonia shows that only 39 percent of marriageable age Estonians are married. This is the lowest figure in the EU.
In Estonia, roughly 50 percent of couples who live together are married. In Cyprus, Greece and Malta, for instance, this figure is around 80 percent.Researchers have noted that marriage is generally more popular in the tradition-loving southern European countries, whereas northern Europe stands out as a hotbed of non-traditional cohabitation forms. The statistics also show that the popularity of marriage is directly linked to the spread of religion in a country.According to the analysis, every fourth single-family household in Estonia consists of an unmarried couple. The number of cohabiting couples is higher only in Sweden (27 percent).The need to protect the children born to such families and other family members is what led the government to pass the cohabitation bill last fall.In addition to cohabiting couples, Estonia also stands out for single parents. One in five Estonian families is made up of a single mother and her children. Only Latvia has a higher number of single mothers (28 percent).Estonia also ranks high for the number of divorcees. According to the last census, 14 percent of over-15 year-olds are divorced and have not remarried. Once again, only in Latvia is this figure even higher.Psychologist and family therapist Sirje Agan said that nowadays people value a good and happy relationship over a marriage certificate. "In the past, people lived in larger communities and the support network was not limited to one's partner. Today, the partner tends to be the primary supporter a person has. Families are small, hence, the quality of the relationship is of utmost importance. People spend more time deliberating on their life together and the state of the relationship," she said.
Apparently, the rate of births to unmarried women is increasing in western Europe.
See: View attachment 7685
Is that something that should be concerning?
Well, it does concern me if the women having these children are not in a long term committed relationship, at least from what I'm seeing here in the U.S.
I want to say something about Greeks. The article I cited about Estonia is correct when it says " the popularity of marriage is directly linked to the spread of religion in a country"
But it would be wrong to assume that the Greeks marry because they are religious. Most Greeks (~75%) are "religious" twice a year, on Easter and on Christmas.
PS. Anecdotally, I just met the most beautiful, good natured and smart baby yesterday. Child of a single woman and dad from a sperm bank. Go figure.
I'm not saying it is a best way to raise a child, but it might not be the end of the world. Perhaps, good genes will always produce good human being, regardless of one good parent or two?
Also addictiveness, psychopathy or adrenalin high might be in this group. In this case, no matter what parents do, a child will be drawn to the "Dark Side", or "Tempted" to do menacing and antisocial acts. Breaking rules give some people feeling of excitment, a natural high.Beauty and intelligence are highly hereditary, but so is temperament (things like natural curiosity, kindness, sociability, extraversion, neuroticism, orderliness, novelty-seeking, risk-seeking, promiscuity, etc.).
There might be genetic impact on some families which split leaving a single mother with a child. Unwillingness to compromise, stubbornness, emotional explosiveness, lack of self restraint, addictiveness could be overwhelmingly genetic in their nature. People with these traits are unable to hold family together. Kids inheriting these traits from parents will be problem kids in home, street and school. By measure of old school, behaviour of these kids will be blamed almost strictly on single parent environment, single mother in most cases. However, in many case it could have been all father's genetics doing. If father was the one with difficult character and if child inherited these difficult traits from him, one will destroy family union, the other will be a difficult child. No matter if a mother was the best wife and mother in the world.There is no way that this is a good situation in my opinion. All the statistics are against it, showing that neurosis and virtually all forms of social pathology are higher among such children, whether the parents were initially formally married or not. Unless the relationship between the parents is really toxic, it's better for children if the marriage or long term relationship stays intact. Nothing is 100% genetically determined. Environment, acting on a given genetic profile has some part to play.
As for the impact of religion, it's not as simple as more religious equals less single mothers. I know my own area of Italy very well. While people may say they believe in God or Christ the churches are empty and people pay absolutely no attention to Church teachings about sexuality. If you don't believe pre-marital or extra-marital sex is a sin, then it's not going to affect whether you go to heaven after death or not. That's been the case for decades, if not longer, and yet I don't see virtually any single mothers with children. (Indeed, in the 19th and early 20th century many peasant marriages were celebrated after the wife was already pregnant, and that was the case in many European countries. So long as the parents married, pre-marital sex didn't result in a huge social stigma.)
Even in the U.S. there's no perfect correlation. Black Americans are very religious and yet have extraordinarily high rates of single mother headed households. The same is true in the American south and in most rural areas where church attendance is high.
Even when I stand defending single mothers I believe, like you, that mother and father are the basic family union and should raise kids together. This should give best results. By extension of this philosophy having grandparents around and extended family should be even better. We just can't calculate, how much of a "lesser" child, it will be, without all the help and attention. In my mind the difference might not be so great or visibly great. Just few statistical points here and there possibly.I in no way want to throw mothers under the bus in this discussion. I know single mothers who are heroic in their devotion and are doing the best they can in difficult circumstances (as are couples who have inherently difficult children). Nor is this a situation that was unknown in prior periods. In more perilous times, many families lost a mother or a father. My point is that while this situation is sometimes unavoidable, it isn't the optimum situation for a child, and I think that in many cases it can be an irresponsible choice. I see too many parents who put their own selfish needs and desires above the needs of their children, and that's a trend that is increasing in modern society in my opinion, and results in a younger generation with far too many badly socialized children.
In the US births out of wedlocks are often linked to single mothers. That is because the country is so religious and most couples who decide to have children and live together do get married. But in the northern half of Europe religion is irrelevant (except Poland and Ireland) and the only people who are getting married do it for legal reasons or because the woman (usually) wants to hold a wedding party. Belgium is more religious in average than France, Britain, the Netherlands or Scandinavia, but most of the weddings I have attended there had nothing to do with religion. Often people just have the wedding party without going to church at all. Even those who do decide to have a ceremony at the church may not be Christian or not believe in god. It's more tradition than anything else.
Note that the rate of births to unmarried women correlates almost perfectly with the lack of religious affiliation, the least religious countries being East Germany, the Czech Republic, France, and Nordic countries. More religious countries like Poland and Italy have virtually no marriage out of wedlock. Even poorer Bulgaria is far less religious than neighbouring Romania, Turkey and Greece, and that also translates in lower marriage rates.
About half of the Belgian people I know who have children aren't married, but live together just as if they were. In fact I noticed that unmarried couples are less likely to separate (I won't use the term divorce as they aren't married) than married couples. Among the people I know, 80% of the parents who split up were married. I think there may be a psychological factor in play too. Couples who feel the need to get married may be the ones who feel more insecure about their relationship and feel that officially sealing their union will help keep them together. Of course that doesn't work at all.
I do not personally know any woman in Belgium who had children without being in a committed relationship with the father. There are single mothers, but all those I know divorced/separated many years after the births of their kids. Usually parents who don't get along anymore wait until their children are teenagers before divorcing/separating. I think that the situation is very different in the USA.
What does marriage have to do with religion? You don't have to have a ceremony in a church to get married. This makes no sense.
This thread has been viewed 17892 times.