Post by April Daniels Hussar
According to the National Marriage Project, 58 percent of first births in lower-middle-class households and 40 percent of all U.S. births are to unwed mothers. A recent article in the Atlantic looks beyond those statistics; the author makes the case that no one is asking women how they feel about being unwed mothers -- a good question, and one that I can answer on my own behalf. For the first three years of my daughter’s life, I was an unwed mother, and I didn’t like it, AT ALL. Ten years later, it turns out I was merely ahead of the celebrity trend (first baby, then engagement!), but at the time, not having that “piece of paper” made me feel vulnerable and not quite rooted.![]()
According to the National Marriage Project, 58 percent of first births in lower-middle-class households and 40 percent of all U.S. births are to unwed mothers. A recent article in the Atlantic looks beyond those statistics; the author makes the case that no one is asking women how they feel about being unwed mothers -- a good question, and one that I can answer on my own behalf. For the first three years of my daughter’s life, I was an unwed mother, and I didn’t like it, AT ALL. Ten years later, it turns out I was merely ahead of the celebrity trend (first baby, then engagement!), but at the time, not having that “piece of paper” made me feel vulnerable and not quite rooted.