As marriage with children becomes an exception rather than the norm, social scientists say it is also becoming the self – selected province of the college – educated and the affluent. The working class and the poor, meanwhile, increasingly steer away from marriage, while living together and bearing children out of wedlock.

In recent years, the marrying kind have been empowered by college degrees and bankrolled by dual incomes. They are also older and choosier. College – educated men and women are increasingly less likely to “marry down”…that is to choose mates who have less education and professional standing than they do.

When you have a child, everything changes. It’s no longer just the two of you, footloose and fancy – free. Suddenly, you need to check on the budget and maybe change how you manage them. You are looking at increased expenses, physical and emotional changes and only a few short months to go from being two to three.

It takes time for you and your partner to learn to work together as a team and to build a solid foundation. That teamwork and foundation will support the couple through the trials of adjusting to the enormous changes a child brings into a relationship. On average, experts feel that couples married 2 to 3 years before seriously considering having a child.

Having children too soon can cause friction and difficulty. Now, do not take this to mean that parents who have children before that time are worse than those who wait. It just means that if you are asking the question, that you are considering whether you want to try and conceive or you want to wait. Choosing when to have a child is an option available to married couples through birth control.

When society debates what children need to grow into healthy, happy, productive, well – adjusted adults, many things are listed as essentials: access to healthcare, nutrition, good schools, safe neighborhoods, love and plenty of encouragements. All of these are important to proper child – development, but the discussion often ignores the one factor that is prior to all these others: marital status of parents. All things being equal, children with married parents consistently do better in every measure of well – being than their peers who have single, cohabiting, divorced or step – parents, and this is a stronger indicator than parental race, economic or educational status, or neighborhood.

The most essential socio cultural patterning of a newborn human organism is achieved by the family. It is the first and most efficient sculptor of human material, shaping the physical, behavioral, mental, moral and socio cultural characteristics of practically every individual. From remotest past, married parents have been the most effective teachers of their children.

Children are a wonderful part of life. They can enrich and deepen a relationship as the married couple bonds in the new state of parenthood. But they should be the result of a loving relationship where the bond existed before the parental one in order to support both the individuals and the marriage.