Kudos to Amy Sullivan on her insightful article in Time magazine voicing concern over recent increases in childbearing among unmarried adults.

Her reference to the Murphy Brown/Dan Quayle controversy helps us remember that while nonmarital childbearing seems to have only recently recaptured the public interest, this issue has been with us for many years—in fact nonmarital childbearing has been increasing almost nonstop for decades now.

The issue of nonmarital childbearing was first raised at the national level back in 1965 with what has come to be known as The Moynihan Report. Back then, nonmarital childbearing occurred predominantly among the African-American Community, with roughly one third of African-American children born to unmarried mothers (compared to less than one in ten children born to unmarried mothers overall). Hence, the Moynihan report focused on the fraying fabric of the African-American family unit and it became mired in controversy for its racist and classist overtones.

This just in from Massachusetts about a pack of little girls who decided to get pregnant together.  This is exhibit #50928345 in a basic reality today: our culture and its constituent parts--parents, media, faith leaders, elected officials and more--have failed in one of our most critical and basic jobs, which is communicating to the next generation about what babies need and deserve.  And what are those things?  The list includes having adult parents who are deeply and sincerely committed to each other; who are willing to be active, devoted parents for decades; and who have done the best they can to get educated so that they and their children need not struggle with poverty.  I cannot believe that if these girls had been surrounded by a culture and families who were clear and explicit about these simple facts that they would have been so reckless.   

Why didn't they just go get tattoos together or do some other innocuous adolescent thing?  This Massachusetts story provides a possible answer:  casual, non-marital child-bearing among teens as well as older individuals has become so common and inconsequential that it actually now IS the consumer equivalent of a tattoo: meaningless.