Week 1: Marriage and Family Trends

This week our class has been covering the many different trends that have increased among marriages and families in America.  Trends such as cohabiting, marriage age, the number of children couples have, the age when married couples have children, teen pregnancy, premarital sex, etc.  We were talking about which ones may be significant, interesting, or incidental.  They were more opinionated rather than factual.  As I looked at the list of trends, I noticed that they all effected the family in some way or form.  For example, cohabiting can lead to marriage at a later age, which leads them having children at an older age, which can lead to the number of children being one or two possibly because they lack energy or youth to have children.  If the couple married at a younger age, they have more time to be able to have children.  So many of the trends correlate with each other.  Teen pregnancy can lead to single mothers that need to be employed.  There are plenty of examples like this.  My insight from class Monday and today is that most of the list of trends are significant to me.