By Janell Ross
THE TENNESSEAN
There was a time little girls used to chant, “First comes love, second comes marriage, then comes so-and-so in the baby carriage.”
But even if they’re still chanting it, fewer and fewer seem to believe it.
About 43 percent of Tennessee children were born to unmarried mothers in 2007 compared with about 40 percent nationwide, putting the state 15th in the nation in that measure. The trend grew fastest among white Tennessee women, but among black and Hispanic mothers, a majority of children were born to unmarried parents, state data released last week showed.
Observers say the figures demonstrate one of America’s most pervasive social phenomena: an increasing number of people who don’t believe marriage and having children go hand-in-hand or, if they do, haven’t been able to make it happen. A smattering of nonprofits are trying to reverse the trend because of evidence that single parenthood has a statistical relationship to higher dropout rates and greater financial and family instability in childhood, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Nikki Schmutz, 37, dated a man for eight years. About two weeks after the couple called it quits, Schmutz found out she was expecting their daughter.
The couple didn’t consider marriage, although Schmutz said she is a strong believer in it and her parents are married.
Schmutz, who is white, doesn’t have a college degree and has worked mostly data entry and clerical jobs. So for financial and emotional reasons, Schmutz and her now 7-year-old daughter lived with her parents for the first five years. Now they’re in public housing.
“You know, it isn’t perfect, but there is nothing like it,” Schmutz said. “It’s a joy — an absolute joy — to have a child.”
Belief in marriage declines
The Washington, D.C.-based Wedded Bliss Foundation is working to encourage healthy marriages, selling the benefits of better health, more lifetime wealth and higher-achieving children. Its executive director pointed out the old rhyme for little girls.
“I don’t think they do that anymore because that’s not even something that I think is absolutely intuitive for kids anymore,” Nissa Muhammed said. “That’s where we are.”
In a 2002 National Center for Health Statistics survey of men and women ages 15 to 44, nearly 45 percent of women and 30 percent of men disagreed or strongly disagreed with the idea that it is better to get married than go through life being single. Nearly 70 percent of women agreed or strongly agreed that it is OK for an unmarried woman to have a child.
The center will release the results of its next social attitudes survey later this year.
There are a few things happening that explain the trend, said Pamela Smock, a sociologist at the University of Michigan’s Center for Population Studies. Fewer Americans — particularly men without college degrees — feel financially secure enough to support a family. At the same time, more Americans think of marriage as something to do once they’re financially secure.
But because of the sexual revolution, a growing number of financially independent women and matters of biology, the same standard doesn’t seem to apply to when to have children.
People aren’t willing to give up the desire to be parents just because they aren’t married,” Smock said. “That’s the irony — it’s the value of family that’s pushing people to write their own family scripts.”
It’s a matter of money
Unmarried childbearing is highest in states where incomes are relatively low, Smock said. What makes the trend a matter for public concern is an issue not of morals but of money.
Children born to unmarried parents are more likely to experience poverty and see their cohabitating parents split and then pair with different partners. They are less likely to perform well in school and to graduate.
“Despite the occasional rags-to-riches story that we in America love to celebrate, the norm is really that most of us stay pretty close to the (social and economic situation) where we were born,” Smock said. “If the economy doesn’t improve in the next two years, we are going to see even more children born under these circumstances.”
In Tennessee, about 9 percent of white mothers delivered out of wedlock in 1980, compared with 34 percent in 2007, the new state Department of Health data show. In the same period, unmarried black women went from representing a narrow majority of black mothers to 77 percent.
The state began collecting data on Hispanic births in 1982, when 11 percent were to unwed mothers. It was 53 percent in 2007.
Vakeyshela Hall, 31, of Nashville was 17 and went to the prom with the man she knew she would one day marry. That night, they accidentally conceived their first child. Before they married, they had a son and then a daughter.
“Back then, I didn’t know anybody, not anybody my age who had a baby,” said Hall, who is black. “You were supposed to go to college, get married, wait three years and then have the kids.”
Her marriage lasted about a year. There were a lot of relationship issues that couldn’t be resolved by wedding rings, Hall said. Today, she works as a substitute teacher and supplements the family income with her earnings working as a manicurist at a downtown shop.
When she’s not pushing her kids to perform in school, Hall said, she spends a lot of time talking to them about families.
“I have definitely let them know that you need to make sure before you even think about having kids you need to be with a God-fearing women or man — your husband or wife — and really sit down and pray and plan because you can save your self a whole lot of heartache,” she said.
Churches minister to singles
Statistically, single parents are becoming such a force that two of Nashville’s largest churches are moving toward ministries for the group.
At Mt. Zion Baptist Church, a predominantly black Nashville church with a 22,000-member congregation and three locations, Bishop Joseph Walker announced a plan to form a ministry geared toward meeting the needs of single parents and kids. The church is gathering information from single parents who attend the church.
At First Baptist Church, a predominantly white, 2,000-member church in downtown Nashville, a new Bible study group for single parents was created in February at the suggestion of two single and divorced moms.
Contact Janell Ross at 615-726-5982 or jross1@tennessean.com.
Or login with:
New Account