I think Emily misses the mark on this one. Divorce & the middle-class sqeeze really do go hand in hand. Emily seems to be trying to pull those two ideas apart, but does not do so successfully. As the middle-class & working poor have been squeezed over the years (stagnant wages, ever-increasing health care costs, etc) the number of divorces and out of wedlock births has increased. But as Emily states in her article, for the upper-middle class and college educated this is not true. I don't think this fact can be ignored. The most stressful problem within marriages is money issues, a fact often cited by marriage counselors and other marriage experts. An unwed mother may state a man's "immaturity" as her reason for leaving, but I guarantee if he was able to bring home a more stable environment, she would see his foibles as just that, personal traits she can laugh at and love, not character flaws used as an excuse to discard him with. Divorce rates have actually decreased in recent years while the number of marriages has also decreased leading me to believe many lower income women are choosing to not even deal with a man who can't take care of the household. Why take on another mouth to feed if he can barely pay for his own way and will contribute nothing to the household?

But this seems to miss the Yoffe's point: why have a child with a man who is useless? In a world where there are birth control measures that work 99.99% of the time without permanently damaging fertility, why would any woman get knocked up by a man who can't pull his own weight?

If she's morally opposed to birth control, why is she sleeping with a man who isn't her husband anyway? If she can't afford birth control, why does she think she can afford a baby?

Reminds me of the scene at the beginning of The Rock. The girlfriend is pressuring her boyfriend to marry her and says, "Look, I'm unmarried, I'm Catholic, and I'm pregnant. This presents a problem for me!" Yet living with her boyfriend was perfectly okay. Women like that deserve the situations they put themselves in.

ASlyJD wrote: "But this seems to miss the Yoffe's point: why have a child with a man who is useless? In a world where there are birth control measures that work 99.99% of the time without permanently damaging fertility, why would any woman get knocked up by a man who can't pull his own weight?"

Because he's a hunk. This will impress her girlfiiends and ensure her kids have the "right" genes. Meanwhile, the fact that he's useless often takes some time to determine - and he's such a sweet talker! There's always another excuse.