Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The flight from marriage

Thank you for this.  I was very happy when my children went against statistics and didn't make me a grandma/mama.  But now?  My oldest daughter is 29 and has broken off her engagement and pursuit of another suitor in favor of her career.  My son has been married for four years and no children. My youngest son is 21 and running away from any girl who wants to turn him into a husband.  If it helps you any more, we're African American.  I'm afraid I gave that sex talk too well.  I'm afraid that I scared them out of children.  I'm afraid that they're just too insecure, selfish, or carefree to have children.  But if they are all of those pejoratives and more, then I'm proud they haven't added a child to the mess.  Let the planet adjust to the folks who are presently crowding out the flora and fauna.  Life will find a way - it always does.  And to be real blunt, romance will never go out of fashion.  Someone is going to light a candle, play some music, and then 40 weeks later a stranger will call.  Never fear, they always do.

On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 2:12 PM, Yona Maro <oldmoshi@gmail.com> wrote:

In 83 countries and territories around the world, according to the United Nations, women will not have enough daughters to replace themselves, unless fertility rates rise. In Hong Kong, for example, a cohort of 1,000 women would be expected to give birth to just 547 daughters, at today's fertility rates. In some Western countries, a quarter of people in their 30s are cohabiting or have never been married, while half of new marriages end in divorce. Marriage continues to be the almost universal setting for child-bearing in Asia: only about 2% of births took place outside wedlock in Japan in 2007.

In 2010 a third of Japanese women entering their 30s were single. Perhaps half or more of those will never marry. In 2010 37% of all women in Taiwan aged 30-34 were single, as were 21% of 35-39-year-olds. This, too, is more than in Britain and America, where only 13-15% of those in their late 30s are single. If women are unmarried entering their 40s, they will almost certainly neither marry nor have a child.

http://www.economist.com/node/21526329 

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La Vonda R. Staples

Adjunct Professor, Department of Social Sciences

Community College of the District of Columbia

314-570-6483

 

"It is the duty of all who have been fortunate to receive an education to assist others in the same pursuit." 

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