Parenting Classes For Young Mothers: A Growing Social Concern

CONCERNS ABOUT FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS

Over the last 50 years changes in marriage and family patterns have challenged the traditional well-being of family relationships.  Historically the nuclear  family outlined marriage and family as a social institution with rights and responsibilities in regard to spouse, parent and child.  The family provided continuing support and nurture.  The modern era moved away from the institutional family to an emphasis on personal contract in which individuals decide their own terms of relationships.  Women's liberation, no-fault divorce laws, reproductive technologies, and the gay movement challenged lifelong monogamous and heterosexual marriage, creating fluid and flexible family structures.

Divorce Increases

In the early 1970's, no-fault divorce laws gave rise to a rapid increase in divorce.  Each year over a million new children under 18 experienced the divorce of their parents.  Following divorce children could become 30 or more percent poorer.  Custody arrangements create challenges for children and parents.  Twenty-five years following the divorce of their parents the adult children often continue to recall feelings of shock, loneliness and bewilderment.  Many became pessimistic about relationships and marriage, fearing a sudden loss.  1.

A Postmarriage Society

A trend toward a postmarriage society shifted the basis for childbearing and child rearing in America.  By 2011, 24 percent of children in the United States were born to cohabiting couples.  Another 20 percent of children were spending some years in a cohabiting household. 2.

Fatherless Families

Men were increasingly leaving or being left out of family relationships.  By 2014, 24 million children in America - one in three- were living in a biological father-absent home.  Children in father-absent homes were almost four times more likely to be poor.  Children from fatherless homes, by large majorities, were included among youth suicides, homeless and runaway children, rapists with anger problems, high school dropout, adolescents in chemical abuse centers, and juveniles in state operated institutions. 3.

Growing Need for Parenting Education

Many community, religious and national non-profit organizations focused attention on improving marriage and family relationships by offering parenting and relationship classes for couples and single parents.  However, despite efforts to increase the marriage rate, relationships continued to unravel.  By 2013, young adults in middle America, the sixty percent with a high school education but no college degree, were cycling through unstable relationships, hooking up, having babies, hooking up with someone else, and so on.  Sexuality was being viewed as an assumption of dating.  Many teens had already had several sex partners. 4.

This is a difficult foundation for forming strong families.  Young mothers who find themselves 'suddenly pregnant' are in a crisis of confusion, not knowing what is necessary to build strong relationships.  Reaching these new mothers and helping them develop a positive approach to supporting their children is essential. Those who come from broken and dysfunctional homes need guidance, encouragement, direction and a way to think about a positive family life for themselves and their children.

Parenting classes that offer information in positive communication, conflict resolution skills, childhood education information, health and wellness, nutrition, money management and participation in the community are increasingly necessary to help families survive and thrive in our increasingly complex society.  These classes are especially important as young women from unstable backgrounds become parents.

  It is essential that schools, community organizations and religious organizations step forward to offer parenting courses to encourage and support healthy family relationships.

In my blogs between February 21st and April 6th, 2016,  eight parenting sessions are presented that may be used to help parents, especially new, young mothers,  grow into strong, supportive and loving mentors for their children.   These sessions have been successfully used to guide young mothers who came to  a pregnancy care center for help.  The women responded well to the materials and expressed appreciation for the help.


References:
1.  Wallerstein, Judith S. Ph.D. and Julia M. Lewis, Ph.D. 2004. "The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: Report of a 25-Year Study."   Psychoanalytic Psychology.  Vol. 21, No. 3:353-370.
2.  Institute for American Values.  2011.  Why Marriage Matters, Third Edition: Thirty Conclusions from the Social Sciences.  New York, NY.  pgs. 6-8, 46.
3.    Statistics on Father Absence.  National Fatherhood Initiative.  2014.  "The Father Factor".  http://www.fatherhood.org/media/consequences-of-father-absence-statistics.
       The Fatherhood Generation. 2014.  Statistics.           http://wwwthefatherlessgeneration.wordpress.com/statistics..
4.    Lapp, Amber and David.  2013.  "Looking for Marriage in Middle America".  Propositions 11. New York, NY: Institute for American Values.