CHAPTER 10
TO PARENT OR NOT TO PARENT
LECTURE OUTLINE
I. Fertility Trends in the United States
Significant changes have taken place in American childbearing patterns over the past decades. As overall fertility
levels have dropped, childbearing has increasingly shifted to later ages
A. Family Size
1. A strong preference for a two-child family by married women of all ages is the principal reason for the current
decline in U.S. fertility rates.
2. Women born during the Depression years of the 1930s favored large families.
3. Other causes for the overall long-term decline in fertility rates that began in 1800:
a. With the Industrial Revolution, more employment opportunities opened up to women.
b. Improved health and living conditions led to lower infant mortality rates.
B. Differential Fertility Rates
In general, the more highly educated and well-off families have fewer children. In well-off families children are
more expensive- i.e., they are expected to go to college. People with higher educations and larger incomes have other
options besides parenting.
1. Fertility Rates among Non-Hispanic Whites
Fertility patterns of the non-Hispanic white population are very similar to the total population, although
slightly lower.
2. Fertility Rates among African Americans
a. Although the fertility rate of African Americans blacks has risen and declined along with that of the white
majority, African Americans currently have higher fertility rates than whites.
b. Long-term declines in fertility are largely the result of increased opportunity for economic advancement that did
not begin for blacks until after the Civil War (1880).
3. Fertility Rates among Latinos
a. Latinos have the highest fertility rate of any racial/ethnic minority (2.72 in 2002).
b. Among all Latinos, Mexican-American women have the highest rates.
c. High fertility is attributed to immigration from nations with high birthrates that have Catholic and rural traditions.
d. It is predicted that Latinos will be the nation's largest minority group as a result of their high fertility rate and
continuous immigration.
4. Asian-American/Pacific Islander and Native American Fertility
a. These two groups represent a small proportion of total U.S. births.
b. Fertility rates of Native Americans are somewhat higher than those of whites, although some of the increase may
be attributed to mixed race individuals reporting themselves as Indian.
C. Multiple Births
One of the striking developments in American women’s fertility patterns in recent years has been the dramatic increase
in multiple births.
II. The Decision to Parent or Not to Parent
A. Social Pressures to Have Children
Although the pressures to have children are less pronounced today than in the past, our society still has a pronatalist
bias: Having children is taken for granted, whereas not having children must be justified.
B. Is American Society Antinatalist?
1. Structural antinatalism-Conditions within a society that place parenting couples at a disadvantage.
2. Examples of disadvantages include corporate policies on work leave, neighbor opposition to child-care homes,
and federal cuts to spending programs geared for families with children.
C. Motivation for Parenthood
1. The shift from agricultural to industrial society and the development of compulsory education transformed
children from economic assets to economic liabilities.
2. As children's economic value declined, their emotional significance to parents increased.
3. The idea that children bring unique benefits to parents has been termed the value of children perspective on
motivation for parenthood.
D. Costs of Having Children
1. Children are financially costly in terms of real money.
2. Opportunity costs- Rearing children may reduce the economic opportunities for wage earning and investments,
especially for women.
3. Children reduce a couple’s amount of free time together.
4. Children add to tension in the home and restrict parents' activities outside the home.
E. How Children Affect Marital Happiness
1. A common cost of having children is marital strain.
2. Young children do stabilize a marriage, but reduce overall marital happiness.
3. The arrival of a child in the home is less disruptive to the marriage when parents get along well and have a
strong commitment to parenting.
F. Remaining Child-Free
1. Overview
a. Individuals who choose to remain childless are usually neither frustrated nor unhappy.
b. Voluntarily childless couples typically have vital relationships.
c. Child-free women tend to be attached to a satisfying career.
2. Gender Role Attitudes and Desire for Children
Not surprisingly, less traditional women are more apt to consider not having children.
3. Remaining Childless: The “Decision”
Not all couples are equally committed to remaining child-free.
4. Women's and Men's Reasons
a. Women more often take the child-free position.
b. Men who want to remain childless express less ambivalence than women.
c. When couples disagree about childlessness, wives usually concede to husband's wishes.
d. Substantial marital conflict may occur around this issue before it is resolved.
II. Having Children: Options and Circumstances
A. The Timing of Parenthood
More and more, decisions about becoming parents are being made in a much wider variety of circumstances.
B. Postponing Parenthood
1. Later age at marriage and the desire to complete their education and become established in a career are
important factors in postponing childbearing.
2. Because fertility rates gradually decline with age, older couples tend to take longer to conceive.
3. Early and Late Parenthood: A Two-Sided Coin
a. Programmatic planners usually have unusually high expectations of their abilities to combine work and family. A
child is equally disruptive for couples of all ages.
b. Often programmatic planners miss the child-free life-style, and report impatience for the empty-nest stage.
c. Children of older parents often enjoy economic and emotional stability but may suffer at an earlier age from
anxiety due to their parents' failing health and mortality.
C. The One-Child Family
1. Advantages
a. The proportion of one-child families in America appears to be growing because of a constricting economy, the
high and rising cost of rearing a child, and some women's increasing career opportunities and aspirations.
b. There are no major differences in emotional well-being or achievement levels between only children and others.
c. Parents with only one child can enjoy parenthood without being overwhelmed and tied down.
d. Second children present a new set of family challenges and a new family relationship - that between siblings.
2. Disadvantages
a. Children in one-child families lack the opportunity to experience sibling relationships.
b. Only children are sometimes under extra parental pressure and scrutiny.
c. Parents may fear losing their child unexpectedly.
D. Pregnancy Outside Marriage
1. In 2002, 34 percent of all births were to unmarried women.
2. Forty percent of total births to unmarried women in 2002 were to (non-
Hispanic) white mothers.
3. In 2002:
a. 68 percent of African American births were outside marriage.
b. 44 percent of Hispanic births were outside marriage.
c. 23 percent of non-Hispanic white births were outside marriage.
4. For African Americans the reason is two-fold.
a. The average time spent in marriage has shortened.
b. The number of births in a marriage has decreased, so the percentage of outside births is higher.
5. For Hispanic births outside marriage.
a. There is a high level of cohabitation among Hispanic couples.
b. Unmarried Hispanic mothers tend to be older than other races and more likely to reside with their child’s father.
E. Nonmarital Births to Cohabitants and Other Unmarried Couples
1. Childbearing in a cohabiting relationship is increasingly common.
2. Even less visibly attached married parents may have a more regular relationship than previously thought
F. Nonmarital Births to Older Single Mothers
1. The increase in childbearing among older single women is largely a white phenomenon.
2. As economic opportunities for women grow and the permanence of marriage becomes less certain, the principle
of legitimacy becomes less important economically.
G. Nonmarital Births to Adolescents
1. The United States has the highest teen pregnancy, abortion, and birthrates of any other industrialized nation.
The teen birth rate has declined since the 1950s.
2. Teenage mothers are more likely to suffer complications of pregnancy, miscarriage, stillbirth, prematurity, birth
defects, and neurological disabilities.
3. Teen parents face a bleaker educational future, a stunted career, and a very good chance of living in poverty
compared to peers who do not become pregnant as teenagers, and these consequences tend to be passed on to the
next generation.
4. School support programs have produced good outcomes.
H. Stepparents’ Decisions about Having Children
When people remarry or form a new committed partnership, they have decisions to make about having
children together.
III. Preventing Pregnancy
Not until the 1960s with the development of the "pill" did a significant technological breakthrough in the prevention of
pregnancy was achieved. Before the pill, abortive or contraceptive efforts were largely kept secret. Since the advent
of the pill, contraception has largely been viewed as the female's responsibility.
IV. Abortion
Abortion is defined as the expulsion of the fetus or embryo from the uterus either naturally (spontaneous) or
medically (induced). Abortion decisions are primarily made within the context of unmarried, accidental pregnancy.
Around a quarter of pregnancies ended in abortion in 2000. In 2000, more than four-fifths of abortions were obtained
by unmarried women.
A. The Safety of Abortions
Abortion is now a safe medical procedure when it is performed in a hospital or a clinic in the first trimester, as
almost 90 percent of abortions are.
B. The Politics of Abortion
1. An abortion reform movement begun in the 1960s culminated in the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision
Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion throughout the United States.
2. Those who favor or oppose legal abortion have made abortion a major
political issue.
C. Social Attitudes About Abortion
1. According to a 2003 Gallup poll, the majority of Americans believe that Roe v. Wade should remain the
law of the land.
2. Support for abortion is heavily qualified; 46 percent of respondents (in 2001) described themselves as
pro-choice, while 46 percent chose the pro-life label.
D. The Emotional and Psychological Impact of Abortion
1. For most women, abortion is an upsetting experience.
2. Some women have reported that the decision to abort enhanced their sense of personal empowerment.
3. The decision to abort is often very difficult to make and act on.
V. Involuntary Infertility and Reproductive Technology
Involuntary infertility is the condition of wanting to conceive and bear a child but being physically unable to do so.
A. The Social and Biological Context of Infertility
Infertility originates with females in 40% of cases and with males in 40% of cases. Through advances in health and
medicine, the incidence of involuntary fertility has declined through most of the twentieth century. The psychological
burden of infertility may fall especially hard on professional, goal-oriented individuals.
1. Seeking Infertility Services
a. Almost half of fertility-impaired women sought medical help in 1995.
b. Going through fertility treatment is costly and stressful.
c. Infertility treatment can be successful, but often it is not.
B. Reproductive Technology: Social and Ethical Issues
1. Commercialization of Reproduction
a. New techniques are criticized for dehumanizing children and for treating embryos as products for profit.
b. Legal issues are created that involve the disposition of frozen embryos because of divorce or death.
2. Meddling with Nature
There is controversy over whether unlimited technological alteration of nature is prudent or ethically sound.
3. Inequality Issues
Reproductive technologies raise social-class inequality issues such as wealthy persons do not become surrogates and
poor persons do not buy surrogates.
4. Who Is A Parent?
With donor insemination, courts have had to address the question of who is the father?
C. Reproductive Technology: Making Personal Choices
Choosing reproductive technology depends on one's values and circumstances. Religious beliefs and cultural values
may influence decisions.
VI. Adoption
The U.S. Census looked at adoption for the first time in 2000. In that year, there were more than two million
adopted children in U.S. households, about 2.5 percent of all children. More girls than boys are adopted. Some
children are adopted informally. Adoptions by lesbian co-parents have been attempted in many states.
A. The Adoption Process
1. Public adoption- Take place through licensed agencies that place children in adoptive families.
2. Private adoptions are arranged directly between adoptive parents and the biological mother, usually through an
attorney.
3. More and more, adoptions are open
B. Adoption of Racial/Ethnic Minority Children
1. Today, two in ten adopted children are of a different race than one or both of their parents.
2. Due to controversies over transracial adoption, adoption agencies shied
away from the practice for many years.
3. Some important long-term studies suggest that transracial adoption has
proven successful for most parents and children.
C. Adoption of Older Children and of Disabled Children
1. Although the majority of adoptions of older and disabled children work, disruption (child is returned to the
agency before the adoption is final) and dissolution (child is returned to the agency after the adoption is final) increase
with the age of the child at the time of adoption.
2. Among the reasons for high failure rates is that more children available for adoption are emotionally disturbed or
developmentally impaired. Many of these children gradually develop attachment disorder.
3. Prospective adoptive parents need to think carefully about what they can handle.
D. International Adoptions
1. International adoptions can pose some of the same problems as the adoption of older children.
2. Parents who have adopted internationally have encountered all kinds of difficulties.
3. Any adoption entails both responsibility and risk.
Marriages & Families, 9th Edition
Lamanna/Riedmann
© 2006 by Thomson Wadsworth, a part of The Thomson Corporation