A married family is a wonderful way to bring a baby into the world.

 

One time I was playing jump-and-I-will-catch-you with my little boy at the pool. He loved leaping into the air and being caught in my arms just as he hit the water, and we both laughed every time.

 

Then a friend spoke to me and I turned my attention to her, just as Benjamin jumped again, trusting that I would be ready. But I was not, and he went under for a few seconds before I scooped him up.

 

He came out flailing and gasping, and I held him close to calm him down. It took awhile to regain his trust.

 

I did not want to frighten him, but I was not ready. It is good to be ready before you catch a child. 

 

Babies are born into the arms of women who want to hold them close. But experience shows us that if those women have husbands, the embrace will be much stronger. Poverty is one measure of life's difficulties. Women who wait until marriage to have children are far less likely to be poor.

 

I heard a presentation about a Head Start program in DC where they asked the kids whether any of them had been to a wedding. None had. In fact not one of the hundred or so children in the room knew anyone who was married: not their parents, not their grandparents. So the staff staged a wedding to show the children what one was like. 

 

Four out of ten babies are born to unmarried women, and their lives will involve struggles that could be lessened if those mothers were more ready to catch them. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://lists101.his.com/cgi-bin/mailman/SmartMarriages/swish.cgi?query=poverty+marriage&submit=Search!&metaname=swishdefault&sort=swishrank

Photo by Robin Trautmann

www.caringformarriage.org