I have been learning so much about the family and how the family has changed over time.  It's difficult to even define what a family is, as that has also changed.  Traditionally, the family was defined as a mother, father, and children living in a household together.  Today, there are many non-traditional families that consist of single adults, single parents, blended families which include step-parents, and step-children, two men or two women which are either married or cohabiting, and those who are not married but cohabiting. 

I will be sharing some ideas about how this change in marriage has impacted the family and the children growing up in them.  This is not a blog to discriminate or to isolate any group of people.  I believe in loving people although we may not always agree or think the same way.  I am simply looking at some statistics and how family dynamics have changed and how it may be impacting our society as a whole.  

In the 1970's, married couples started having smaller families.  This correlated with birth control being legalized in the United States in 1965, and following a book that was published in 1968 called, The Population Bomb.  The book warned of mass starvation of humans in the 1970's to 1980's, due to overpopulation and many other societal upheavals.  It has been criticized because of the inaccurate predictions that were made.  Many of the claims have never been realized and were inaccurate.  However, people were influenced by media and fears about being able to care for growing families.  Today we see that there is an increase of people living alone, sexual intimacy before marriage, and births to unwed mothers.  We also have seen decreasing birth rates, the average is 2.3 children per household in the United States.  This average is even smaller world wide, many countries only have 1 or 2 children.  The average age of marriage has increased with the average age of women marrying at age 28 and age 30 for men in the United States.  Cohabitation averages between 60 -80 %, which has impacted why we see less marriages, many people live together first.

So why are these trends a big deal and how is it impacting families?  We are starting to see depopulation in many countries, meaning that there are less people being born to replace the aging or dying population; this is called replacement fertility.  The only country that is keeping up with replacement fertility is the United States.  It is starting to go down as well.  This simply means that it is becoming more difficult for the younger or middle age people to take care of and support the retiring population.  Many government or pension programs are provided to the elderly by the current working class population.  The systems in place may collapse as the population decreases.  With less people paying into a system, this could incur higher taxes.  I found this information to be staggering with how these things have an on affect the other.  

Families are stressed, parents are stressed, children are stressed, everyone seems stressed and overwhelmed.  As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints we are encouraged to have children.  No one is told or instructed to have a certain number of children, this decision is up to the husband and wife.  We believe that children are a heritage of the Lord, (Psalm 127:3), and that joy is found within the family.  In 1995, our prophet, Gordon B. Hinkley introduced "The Family: A Proclamation to the World". Within this document are doctrinal truths to help our families in sharing responsibilities to care for our children.  Towards the end of the document it says "we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets".  Children are a precious gift to us from God, He wants us to be happy, and He has told us how to be.  I think it's important to study the trends of our day and to become aware of how our decisions affect our families.