21st Century Families: No More Mommy, No More Daddy - Just Casual Sex and Emptiness

I wanted to post this yesterday from The State of... however I just couldn't make that effort so I decided that I should post this today. I would be very concerned about this going on in Canada and to a lesser extent this could happen here as well. The State of... also connects this to the plight of black families here in the states as well. First let's go to the springboarding article...

The Affleck family didn't imagine things were going to turn out the way they did.

After all, George Affleck's parents were a conventional family of the '60s who got married and stayed married, raised four children and lived in three Vancouver suburbs.

But today, the Affleck clan represents all the trends sweeping through Canadian families.

The unmarried now outnumber the married as common-law relationships, single-parent families and single-person households continue to increase, said 2006 census figures released by Statistics Canada on Wednesday.

George is a single father with joint custody of his two children, with a girlfriend who may soon be moving in.

His two best friends are gay men in long-term relationships.

Two of his three sisters were single mothers for part of their lives and now have blended families.

His nieces and nephews have lived at home well into their 20s. And his mother, who never remarried after his father died 21 years ago, lives on her own in White Rock where she has an active social life with many other widows and widowers in the same situation.

It's his one sister, who's been married to the same man in a traditional marriage all her life, who sometimes seems like the odd one out.

"I think the 1970s had a huge impact on all of us," says Affleck.

The State of... take is this...

TheStateOf . . . 21st Century Families. If we look at what the breakdown of the family has done to black America's stability, imagine what will happen when it spreads to the rest of America . . .

I wonder how cohabitation has become an alternative to tying the knot? If you hear experts and politicians make speeches about the black family some will claim the welfare system did it. Especially since daddy wasn't supposed to be at home with his kids and their baby momma (btw, I hate that term baby daddy and momma).

I can understand why a lot of people don't get married. My parent's marriage wasn't the best and neither were so many others in my family on both sides. Relationships are funny you know things go well earlier on then things go downhill from there. Then things are rocky at the start but go up from there. On top of that you may have to question why some are couples in the first place. Especially if one concludes that so&so is trouble while the other isn't considered trouble.

I suppose people don't want too much trouble in getting out of a situation. Meaning that I can understand people not wanting to go thru the legalities of divorce. Dividing up the assets and all. Still there are a lot of questions worth asking here.