A hundred years ago if your unwed daughter came to you and announced that she was having a baby your response might have included a shotgun and a preacher being rousted out of bed!
Like everything else, the world is now a very different place.
According to CNN’s Jessica Ravitz: “Nearly 40 percent of babies born in the United States in 2007 were delivered by unwed mothers…”
The National Center for Health Statistics shows that 1.7 million out-of-wedlock births, of 4.3 million total births, marked a more than 25 percent jump from five years before.
In fact, for more than a dozen years prior to that report the out of wedlock birth rate was declining.
The good news is that the stigma of being born out of wedlock has diminished to the point of disappearing altogether.
The bad news is that if the trend continues at 40% of all births in the United States resulting from unmarried parents, our countries financial resources may be stretched to the limit.
Why? The high school dropout rate for these children is higher than the average…and the cause of that is probably tied to the fact that children born out of wedlock are more prone to live in poverty.
More poverty means more people on some kind of government assistance…and our social welfare system is already financially strapped.
As a grandparent how should you react? That is, of course, up to you. But remember that nothing can be gained by a negative response except hard feelings and abortive alternatives.
This is your innocent grand child about to be born and the child will need your unconditional love and support.
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