The devaluation of marriage continues...

According to a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics:

The birth rate for teenage girls rose 5 percent between 2005 and 2007, according to the report.

The previously reported increase in 2006 ended 14 straight years of declines. The rate rose again in 2007 by 1 percent over the prior year to 42.5 births per 1,000 girls aged 15-19.

But wait, that's not all. I literally gasped when I read this finding:

A record 39.7 percent of babies in 2007 were born to unmarried women, including 71.6 percent of black babies and 51.3 percent of Hispanic babies, the report found. (You can read the entire article by clicking here.)

Note that more than three-quarters of these women were 20 or older. Stop for a minute and allow the percentage numbers above to sink in. Now, take a deep breath, sigh heavily, and get ready for a dose of reality. Our children are growing up in a culture that glamorizes single motherhood, minimizes the role fathers play in the lives of their children, and overall devalues God's standard for marriage. One can only imagine the trickle down effect this trend will have on a generation of children where nearly half will not know the joy of being raised in an intact, married household. Aside from the financial burden this will place on taxpayers, it will have devastating emotional and spiritual consequences, as well. The nuclear family, as we know it, is on the endangered list and nearing extinction with each passing year.

Recognizing this disturbing trend, I addressed the devaluation of marriage as a major conversation in my book, 5 Conversations You Must Have With Your Daughter. Below is an excerpt from the book that highlights information about marriage that you will not hear the media reporting:

When was the last time you heard the media address the overwhelming and consistent findings by such reputable sources as the Journal of Marriage and the Family and the American Journal of Sociology that “married persons, both men and women, are on average considerably better off than all categories of unmarried persons (never married, divorced, separated, and widowed) in terms of happiness, satisfaction, physical health, longevity, and most aspects of emotional health.?” Given that God created marriage, should it really come as a surprise that marriage is, in fact, good for you?

Mothers, it’s up to us to extol the benefits of marriage to our daughters as a God-ordained union that can bring much happiness and, most importantly, honor to Him. The National Marriage Project states that the burden of changing attitudes about marriage rests with parents. “Contrary to the popular notion that the media is chiefly responsible for young people’s attitudes about mating and marriage, available evidence strongly suggests that young people get many of their ideas and models of marriage from parents and the parental generation.” That’s the good news. The bad news is that the same study also found that “many parents have had almost nothing good to say about marriage and often say nothing at all,” claiming the negativism and/or silence could be due to “the parental generation’s own marital problems and failures.”

Further, when polling young people about their attitudes regarding marriage, many in the study have unfortunately grown up with unhappily married or divorced parents. They have no baseline for determining what a healthy marriage even looks like and have therefore been left with a tainted picture. Some even described a good marriage as “the opposite of my parents.” Moreover, a number of participants in the study said they received “no advice” or “mainly negative advice” about marriage from their “parents and relatives.” Reading that last statement should cause a collective shudder among us all.

In my book, I go on to outline the need for new PR campaign for marriage. The sobering truth is that our children will get most of their ideals regarding marriage from us. Do your children know that you value marriage? Have you talked with them about the benefits of marriage? Do they understand God's purpose for marriage? Are they aware that teen pregnancy and single-motherhood is anything-but-glamorous?

Or how about this: Will your children grow up to be among the 70% of couples who opt to live together outside of marriage? If so, are they aware that cohabitation actually increases the risk that the relationship will break up before marriage? In fact, a study by the National Marriage Project found that those who live together before marriage have higher separation and divorce rates and regardless of whether they go on to marry their cohabitation partner or someone else, they are more likely to have extramarital affairs.

Another large-scale national study found that married people have both more and better sex than do their unmarried counterparts. Not only do they have sex more often, but they enjoy it more, both physically and emotionally. We need to make sure our youth are fully aware of the risks before they leave the nest and buy into the lies of the culture. Don't assume that your child is exempt from buying into this lie by default of being raised in a Christian home. I am floored by the number of young adults who grew up in the church, yet shack up before marriage and shrug it off to "the changing times." (I address this trend in more depth in my book and offer specific talking points for mothers when discussing this topic with their daughters.)

It's time to start talking up the institution of marriage with our children and make sure they are crystal clear on the fallout that can come when we attempt to write our own rules to the game and ignore God's standards. Our children need to know that building a healthy and happy marriage is hard work, but well worth the effort. Pure and simple: They need to know that those who play by God's rules, are the real winners in the end.