MRM Editor's Note: This article demonstrates how marriage has been separated from children and family in the minds of the majority. For a start, marriage can be reconnected to children and family by simply substitution the following phrase for marriage, or for marriage between a man and a woman: "The institution that unites children with their mom and dad." That is what marriage reality is and what marriage reality does. Become part of a resistance movement by asking, "Do we need a civil institution that unites children with their mom and dad? Yes or no?"
(The Stream) Millennials who get married before having children are likely to be more successful, the American Enterprise Institute and Institute for Family Studies reported this month. But over half of millennial parents had kids first.
“The new norm doesn’t seem to be a healthy one,” New York Times columnist David Leonhardt wrote Wednesday.
Jennifer Cannon-Murff, president of Millennials for Marriage, agrees.
Millennials who forgo marriage are “missing opportunities to build some character and something they wouldn’t have built if they’d stayed single,” she told The Stream.
Millennials Value Parenthood Over Marriage
In 2011, Pew Research Center reported that 52 percent of millennials ranked “being a good parent” over “having a successful marriage.” Today, that seems to hold true. Fifty-five percent of Generation Y parents had their first child while single.
Cannon-Murff believes this preference for parenthood stems from millennials’ upbringing. A high number grew up in divorced homes. They may think “I turned out just fine,” she said, and not see the value in marriage.
As Leonhardt writes, “it’s easy to point to children who thrived without married parents and to those who struggled with married parents. But it’s worth distinguishing between exceptions and the norm.”
Cannon-Murff also noted that Baby Boomers “put parenting at the forefront of their life.” Millennials who are close with their parents want to pour into their future kids in the same way. Since their parents didn’t make their marriage a priority, they don’t see it as an important factor in good parenting.