Children were a source of labor as well as providers for the their parents futures. Today, children, almost all, are economic liabilities, but are bound by emotions to their parents by providing intimacy and genetic mortality. "Although today's children have become economically worthless, they have become emotionally 'priceless'." (Skolnick, 186) Some constraints, as well as challenges, that the family must undergo when parenthood enters the picture include: shifts in identity and inner life, shifts in the roles and relationships within the marriage. Children growing up with both biological parents are likely to be better educated, have better job skills, have a more secure sense of self, and thus enter adulthood with greater chances of success both professionally and personally. (Skolnick, 181) .
Certainly, divorce has to be stressful for our nation's children and adolescents, leading the American family and the nation's future into a state of crisis. It is startling to know, whether through their parents' divorce or never having been married, nearly one of two American children spends part of their childhood in a single-parent family. The increase in the proportion of children living with just one parent has strongly affected large numbers of children. By the time they reach the age of sixteen, close to half of the children of married parents will have witnessed their parents divorce. For nearly half of these, it will be five years or more before their mothers remarry. Close to half of all white children whose parents remarry will see the second marriage dissolve during their adolescence. (Hamburg).
Some of the problems making parenthood more difficult now is the societal freedom of choice of whether or not to have children, more suburban communities, rather than the rural settings of earlier years, women's changing roles in society, increased emotional burden, and developing social policies by our government regarding children.
