Does a Changing World Mean a Changing Family?

 Recently there have been a lot of changes in family trends in the world. Some of these current trends include having either less or no children, delaying having children, living alone, divorce rates, marriage age and rates, and births to single mothers. There are a lot of controversial topics here and I would like to present some information on some and just give some of my personal thoughts.

Divorce. Probably one of the main reasons people don't get married. "Why get married, if I will just divorce later?" This can be a common question among single people. There is a statistic that says that half of all marriages will end in divorce. This is simply not true. Current data shows that the divorce rate in the United States is between 3 and 3.25 divorce per 1000 people. This is significantly lower than 50%. However, this lower divorce rate is also causing other problems. Maybe the rate has dropped because more people are not getting married. It is far more common to just cohabit. People say it’s easier and you can see if you really like or even love the person you are living with. The data shows however that you are more likely to divorce if you get married after cohabiting. So yes overall, lower divorce rates, but at the same time less marriages.

On the topic of marriage, people are waiting longer and longer to get married. The  average age for men is 29.5 and for women it is 27.4 years old. Even amongst young adult members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, where we are encouraged to get married and there is pressure to do so at a younger age, the average age is still around 27 for men and 24 for women. Why is this an issue? Maybe for you it isn’t. For one minute, lets talk about marriage age and having children. Now if you don’t want to have children (which will be discussed a little later) that’s fine, but let’s say that you do. Going off of the ages above you’re 27 or 29 when you get married, on average people tend to wait 3 to 5 years, so now you’re 30 to 34 years old when you have your first child. At that rate you may only have one or two. This just makes me think of something my professor said. He said that some people he has met have always regretted not having more children. I have only been married a year and my wife and I are expecting our first child in June. I know that we are both college students and money may be tight, and you may be thinking that we are crazy, but having children is one thing that we both really wanted and would be the most important thing that we could do in our lives.

Returning to not wanting to have children (I said we would come back to this). I just try to understand why some people who are perfectly capable of having children would not want to. Now I’m not saying that if you don’t that you should, to each his own, but with all respect, do you not want to have someone that you teach how to play baseball or how to fish or how to do any other number of things? Honestly that’s what I am most excited about with my son. It will be such a joy to teach him all the things that I like to do and to see him grow up. I’m sure there will be lots of stress in raising him, but it will be worth it.

So, lots of trends. Honestly though, everyone has to do what’s best for themselves. At the same time, just because the world is changing, that doesn’t mean you have to conform to those changes. The family however is a powerful force to be reckoned with.