An Old Farts View of Cohabitation

Is this the new way of playing house?

I live in a community that is probably not much different than yours. Within walking distance of my home you find those that are rich or poor but mostly middle class. Some live in trailers, or apartments others live in large beautiful estates while most of us live in comfortable middle class dwellings. Regardless of the socio economic standing within our neighborhood we all have many things in common. Throughout our area I see many broken homes. I see children having children, couples whom have already raised one family now raising their grandchildren or both their children and grandchildren. I see young adults playing house, cohabiting as if they were married yet they have not made a truly serious commitment to each other.

In my own home I have a grandchild I love dearly. Today is his 8th birthday and he is visiting with his mother who he sees infrequently even though she lives only a few miles away. My son and his girlfriend lived together for a few years prior to my grandson’s birth. Like many children born in the United States he was a product of that relationship. In 2005 more than 1 in 3 births in the United States were to unmarried women and this country does not stand alone with this issue.

A 1997 Gallup Poll reported the “United States stands out as the country most evenly divided over the morality of out-of-wedlock births, with 47% saying it is wrong and 50% saying it is not wrong. In fact, the U.S. is the only country surveyed by Gallup in which there is not a clear majority consensus on one side or the other.’ ‘The most liberal countries on this issue -- with 90% or more of adults saying it is morally acceptable -- are Germany, France and Iceland. At the same time, very high percentages in countries such as India, Singapore and Taiwan say it is not acceptable.”

Experts throw out figures of a divorce rate that ranges between 40-50 percent depending upon how it is calculated. While I do not like using statistics I want to make the point that we live in a throw away society of broken relationships, a society that needs to be fixed. Is cohabitation of unmarried couples responsible for this? I do not think that it is yet I truly believe that it is a contributing factor.

Recently while walking my grandson to his friends, the question struck me; do we have many families in the neighborhood where the children are being raised by two parents? One of the first houses we passed is one where the grandparents regularly care for the children of their daughter a single mother. Across the street a young boy lives with his mother and grandmother and his young sister lives in another state with the father. The next house up is one where the children live with their mother and stepfather. Down the street is a home where the father, son and grandparents live together and across from them is a single mother with three young children. In several other homes are children that do indeed reside with two parents. From what I estimated about ½ of the children in our neighborhood live in a two-parent home. Statistically that would place our neighborhood below norm. The 2003 US Census report was much more positive, reporting that 7 out of 10 children live in a two-parent home, a figure that included both married and unmarried couples. Still for us that live in or deal with the problems of broken homes the census offers little comfort.

I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s and things seemed so much simpler. Color television was just being introduced so it was at the top of the “want list” for many families but still unaffordable for most. We did not have computers, DVDs, cell phones, iPods or most of the other electronic toys you see today. ATV’s and PWC’s (Personal Watercraft), such as Jet Skis were something only found in comic books. Kids did not need to make the choice between video games and homework for we did not have video games or what I like to call PBS’s (Personal Baby Sitters). As children we played outdoors until dark and our parents had trouble getting us in. Today you can hardly get children to go outdoors and play. Many parents do not complain about their couch potato children as they know where they are and they are out of their hair while playing with their PBS’s.

As a youngster, two parent households were the norm. While in some families both parents chose to hold an outside job, mothers were not required to do so just to keep up with the neighbors and pay for the expensive electronic and recreation toys. Children seemed to mind better. Was minding because discipline was still in vogue at both the home and school? When I was a child when you got in trouble at school you likely got in trouble at home. Today many of our educators refrain from using even mild discipline techniques for fear that the parent will go after them and the school. Perhaps this has little to do with cohabitation though I believe it has a lot to do with the relaxation of our morals.

While premarital sex naturally occurred it was frowned on in the 1950s and early 60s. The social pressures were greater to marry early. The median age for boys to marry was 22 and girls 19. A girl would often feel like an old maid if she was still unmarried by the age of 30. Today social pressures are much more relaxed when it comes to premarital sex and more girls are earning college degrees, factors that account for later marriages. Today the median age for boys to marry is 27 and girls 24. Many more couples are playing house right out of high school and have many different partners prior to settling down and taking the marital oath.

Times have changed and the future will continue to bring new changes that will make our homes, transportation, entertainment and toys of today look antiquated. Will our morals relax even more? Will it become expected to make sure the shoe fits before we tie the knot? Will marriage become a thing of the past? I do not know the answers to these questions. I do know that many of us old timers while enjoying the benefits of modernization, still prefer the family life of the 1950’s.

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