Who needs fathers anyway?

A friend recently quoted her pastor as saying that what one generation accepts, the next embraces. It's a scary thought precisely because it rings true. For example, divorce became acceptable a generation ago, and today I think it's fair to say it's been embraced. In my neck of the woods, divorce has become almost a rite of passage. It's no big deal, and no big reason is expected for it anymore.

In our generation, celebrities have led the way toward society's acceptance of out-of-wedlock births. The very expression sounds old-fashioned!

A recent survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control found that 64 percent of males now agree, "It is okay for an unmarried female to have a child." The number was 50 percent in 2002.

So it shouldn't come as any surprise that a Pew Research Center report released in May shows that 41 percent of American births were to unmarried women. In 1990 it was 28 percent. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 72 percent of all births to African-Americans in the United States are to unmarried women.

Yes, I think it's fair to say that the trend is moving from being accepted to being embraced.

In fact, writing for The Heritage Foundation, Robert Rector reports the following: "Few out-of-wedlock births are accidental. The overwhelming majority of young adult women who have a non-marital birth strongly want to have children. . . . Most are also interested in marriage, but they do not see marriage or a stable relationship as an important precondition to having a baby."

But here's the rub, based on more data from The Heritage Foundation: "When compared to similar children raised by two married biological parents, children raised in single-parent homes are more likely to fail in school, abuse drugs or alcohol, commit crimes, become pregnant as teens, and suffer from emotional and behavioral problems."

The bottom of that slippery slope is not a happy place.