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“Much of the increase in unmarried births has occurred among parents who are living together but are not married, cohabitation arrangements that tend to be less stable than marriages, studies show.”  40% of children are now raised by un-married women in the US.  They could be less stable, but there’s no indication that they are less stable.

Count me as one of the few that thinks this is not an alarming trend.  I’m not down with placing stigmas on women who are raising their children the best they can be, even if that means without a husband or in a “non-traditional” manner.  Because we know that non-traditional is just code.

However, the NY Times article in question, does point out that while these rates are higher in other countries (66% in Iceland, 55% in Sweden), those countries also have more government/familial support for unmarried parents.  Couple are more stable and the government offers more assistance.

“In Sweden, you see very little variation in the outcome of children based on marital status. Everybody does fairly well,” said Wendy Manning, a professor of sociology at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. “In the U.S., there’s much more disparity.”

Children born out of wedlock in the United States tend to have poorer health and educational outcomes than those born to married women, but that may be because unmarried mothers tend to share those problems.

Oh, so maybe we should be alarmed by this trend in the US. To me this indicates, not a problem with raising children married versus unmarried, but with a problem in the US regarding child support.  Unfortunately, the article perpetuates the stigma attached to being an unmarried mother in the US.