To Be Happy In Marriage, Baby Carriage Not Required

About 85 percent of parents with children younger than 18 described those relationships as a top source of personal fulfillment -- slightly more than relationships with spouses and partners and much more than relationships with mothers, fathers and friends. Free-time activities, along with careers and jobs, were cited as the lowest-ranking sources of fulfillment.

And although marriage for the sake of children is on the wane, many parents talk about how much better a healthy marriage gets when children are added.

In Takoma Park, Dianne Mock, 38, said the decision to marry was not based on having a baby. At the time, her husband said he did not want children. Now, nine years later, they have a 15-month-old son, she said, and "it didn't necessarily improve our marriage -- the marriage was great -- but it opened up a whole new area."

The Pew report says that blacks and Hispanics were much more likely to list children as a key to marital success but that both groups are more likely to have children outside marriage and are less likely to be married in general.

The report also says people with lower education and income levels of any race or ethnicity were more likely to describe children as being important to a successful marriage in addition to good housing and adequate income.

Americans expressed a high regard for marriage overall, the report says, even as it loses ground. Births are up among unmarried mothers, not because of teens giving birth but because more unmarried women in their 20s are having children. Nearly half of people in their 30s and 40s have lived with a partner, the study found. And overall, about half of "cohabiting" relationships end within five years, the study notes, and those that last longer often lead to marriage.

Doreen Byrne, 53, a Baltimore nurse who was part of the survey, remains a believer in marriage despite hers ending in a painful divorce after 23 years. "There aren't a lot of things that people can commit to and stick with," she said. "It's the fact that it's a constant, and I think that in our lives we need that; it grounds us."

Not everyone is happy with the changes in family life. More than 65 percent of Americans say single women having children is bad for society, and 59 percent say the same about unmarried couples. The public is more accepting of divorce when parents are unhappy with each other.

Nearly 70 percent of those surveyed said a child needs a home with a mother and a father to grow up happily.

"I feel like marriage is so important for the parents and the kids," said Temika Stover, 27, of the District, who was interviewed by researchers. "I feel like life will be so much better if people just do it the right way."

But in her own circumstances, Stover acknowledges a certain reluctance. For much of the past 11 years, she has lived with the father of her three children, and they have not married.

"That's a lifetime commitment," she said. "I want to make sure we are strong enough as one before we sign those papers."

It is that sort of complexity that underlies many of the changes presented in the study.

David Joyce, 57, of Forestville, who was also interviewed, said his views have shifted over the years. "I thought children were very important to a marriage, and then I had kids, and I realized that the two people have to agree on things, and if they can't, the children aren't going to help at all," he said. "Having another stress factor isn't a solution."

Joyce, a father of two, has been married 29 years. "Marriage is not a picnic," he says, but it's worth the bumpy road, the highs and lows -- and he laments what he sees as a self-centeredness that has taken hold.

"I think what we're running into a lot anymore is people saying, 'It needs to be about me.' And it doesn't. It needs to be about 'us' or about 'we.' Anything that's based on a 'me' scenario isn't going to last very long."