I agree with you there!
I've been reading a lot lately books like Robert Putnam's Our Kids: The American Dream In Crisis and Charles Murray's Coming Apart: The State of White America which detail this trend, if you will. It was once thought of as a "black problem" when detailed in the 1970s by Daniel Patrick Moynihan (himself no conservative or racist as he was sometimes branded at the time). Obviously, we've grown up to mostly see beyond this, but it's really sobering how here in the US, society is splitting into two distinct sections. On one hand, you have a decreasing group who do thinks somewhat traditionally, such as securing a job, marriage, then kids, and so on versus another contingent that's increasingly having kids outside of marriage and unable to generate a stable life in almost any sense of the word.
The odds are firmly stacked against any kid born out of wedlock. Not insurmountable, because I know people personally who have overcome them, but stacked nonetheless. Obviously, I believe our Savior has a huge say about this and can overcome anything(!!), but this is the 800 lb elephant nobody really wants to address outside of adhering to their proper political perspective's traditional fixes. What's so strange and yet fascinating about it, is that the educated set where rates remain stable tends to hold a more liberalized view of marriage, but that doesn't always translate to them exercising that belief.
By the way, Moynihan was alarmed by a 1/4 birth out-of-wedlock rate in his time. The overall national rate now stands at 2/5, with the black community now at 7/10 and the white community growing at 3/10. A lot of these rates are highest in the south.
