Have you ever heard a young couple say that? What they often mean by that statement is that they do not have enough money to have the wedding, reception, and honeymoon that they want.
But frequently, they mean that they can’t afford to buy the house and lifestyle that they want as a married couple. So, instead of marrying, they live together. Often, they even start a family together.
Even though the economic downturn has greatly affected older adults, the young, lower-education, working class adults are having trouble finding the jobs to provide for the lifestyle they expect.
A recent article, "The Generation That Can't Move On Up," by Andrew Cherlin (professor at Johns Hopkins University) and W. Bradford Wilcox (director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia) explains what is happening.
Working-class couples still value marriage highly. But they don't think they have what it takes to make a marriage work. Across all social classes, in fact, Americans now believe that a couple isn't ready to marry until they can count on a steady income. That's an increasingly high bar for the younger working class. As a result, cohabitation is emerging as the relationship of choice for young adults who have some earnings but not enough steady work to reach the marriage bar.
However, we know that cohabitating relationships don’t last. Children who are born to cohabitating parents are more than twice as likely as children born to married parents to see their parents break up by age five.
This problem compounds in a child’s life when parents get on a relationship-go-round, bringing a series of partners or stepparents into the home. Cherlin and Cox also explain how this group’s economic and family situation is affecting their church attendance.
But now, when a transformed economy makes marriage and steady work more difficult to attain, those who in better times might have married and attended church appear to be reluctant to show up. Thus, working-class men and women aren't going to religious services as often as they used to.
Culturally, we have set up these young adults for unrealistic expectations of marriage and the prestige of money. Money has taken first place. As Christians, our role can be to avoid letting income levels become the basis of social acceptance, to embrace and encourage these young couples.
How can Christians today reach out to these young, working class adults who are avoiding church and marriage?
