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.
I'm not endorsing the report, but if we can set aside that controversy for a moment, the report offers us a critical bit of historical perspective—back in the day, the notion that any segment of the population saw nearly one in three children born to unmarried parents sparked a national sense of urgency, at least for a while.
Today, nearly every segment of the population sees at least one in three children born to unmarried parents, and for the population overall this rises to nearly four in ten. Yet, as nonmarital childbearing has become increasingly commonplace, our sense of urgency has waned rather than increased.
Perhaps most of us have sided with Murphy Brown. But the problem is, this isn't about Murphy Brown—actually it never was. Both in 1992 when Murphy Brown had her baby and now, less than 10% of unmarried adult women having kids are over the age of 35. Both then and now, roughly half of unmarried adult women having kids are age 20 to 25. That's pretty young to be raising a child either on one's own or as part of a couple that's still getting on their feet and unsure of their future together, especially given that most pregnancies to unmarried twenty somethings are unplanned.
Not that it can't be done. I'm just saying....
We have sided with Murphy Brown (or, more accurately, with "family diversity")... to our peril. Take a look at Barbara Dafoe Whitehead's classic article from the Atlantic Monthly, titled, Dan Quayle Was Right: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/family/danquayl.htm.
This is from the article summary (this says it all): "Moreover, the author argues, family diversity in the form of increasing numbers of single-parent and stepparent families does not strengthen the social fabric but, rather, dramatically weakens and undermines society."
And it should be noted that Barbara is no right wing loony. She is just someone who has the facts in front of her.