From the beginning family has been the basic unit of society; and marriage - the union of one man and one woman - the foundation of the family. Current social science research confirms that marriage is still the safest place for men, women and children. An intact home with married parents provides children with the most promising life prospects.
Today more than half of our nation’s children will spend all or part of their child-hood in never-formed or broken families. The collapse of marriage is named the principal cause of child poverty in the United States and a main contributor to domestic violence.
The National Crime Victimization Survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice show that married women with children suffer far less abuse than single mothers, and that children of divorced or never-married mothers are much more likely to suffer from serious child abuse than children raised by both parents in marriage.
Data from Britain show rates of serious abuse of children lowest in the intact married family, six times higher in the step family, 14 times higher in the always-single mother family, 20 times higher in cohabiting-biological parent families, and 33 times higher when the mother is cohabiting with a boyfriend who is not the father of her children. (Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 1732 March 2004)
Writing on “The Mother-infant Relationship in Single, Cohabiting and Married Families: A Case for Marriage?” Stacy R. Aronson notes that, “Married mothers showed greater psychological well-being, less ambivalence and conflict, and greater love and intimacy in their relationships with their (marriage) partners than cohabiting or single mothers.” (Journal of Family Psychology, vol.18. Number 1,2004.)
In the Journal of Marriage and the Family, Volume.58, May 1996, William S. Aquilino compares childhood living arrangements and young adult outcomes of children born out of wedlock. He finds that illegitimate children reared by grand-parents, other relatives or in a step-family, did not appear to lead more successful lives than those reared by never-married mothers. Only when their mothers married their fathers or placed them in adoptive families, did children born out of wedlock move significantly ahead of peers reared by never-married mothers.
Martha and Mary House offers pregnant women in crisis a safe haven, an opportunity to consider God’s design for family, motherhood and fatherhood, and how to provide the best for their unborn child. They consider parenting plans - marriage or the possibility of adoption. True parental love means loving your child enough to choose what is best for him or her, sacrificing your own selfish wants. One young birth-father who chose to place his baby daughter for adoption said to the adoptive father: “I love my daughter and want the best for her. I can’t provide it, and I am grateful you can.”
We provide pre- and post- adoption counseling, as well as marriage counseling and parenting classes for a pregnant mom and the father of her baby who choose to commit themselves to marriage and parenting.
