"Today, a third of American children are born outside of marriage, up from one child in twenty in the 1950s, and rates are even higher among low-income Americans. Many herald this trend as one of the most troubling of our time. But the decline in marriage does not necessarily signal the demise of the two parent family - over 80 percent of unmarried couples are still romantically involved when their child is born and nearly half are living together. Most claim they plan to marry eventually. Yet half have broken up by their child's third birthday. What keeps some couples together and what tears others apart? After a breakup, why do fathers so often disappear from their children's lives?" "An intimate portrait of the challenges of partnering and parenting in these families, Unmarried Couples with Children presents a variety of unique findings. Most of the pregnancies were not explicitly planned, but some couples feel having a child is the natural course of a serious relationship. Many of the parents are living with their child plus the mother's child from a previous relationship. When the father also has children from a previous relationship, his visits to see them at their mother's house often cause his current partner to be jealous. Breakups are more often driven by sexual infidelity or conflict than economic problems. After couples break up, many fathers complain they are shut out, especially when the mother has a new partner. For their part, mothers claim to limit dads' access to their children because of their involvement with crime, drugs, or other dangers. For couples living together with their child several years after the birth, marriage remains an aspiration, but something couples are resolutely unwilling to enter without the financial stability they see as a sine qua non of marriage. They also hold marriage to a high relational standard, and not enough emotional attention from their partners is women's number one complaint."--BOOK JACKET. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

About the Authors	vii
Part I Introduction	1
Chapter 1 Unmarried Couples with Children: Hoping for Love and the White Picket Fence	3
Part II Couple Relationships Among Unmarried Parents	23
Chapter 2 Forming Fragile Families: Was the Baby Planned, Unplanned, or In Between?	25
Chapter 3 Everyday Gender Conflicts in Low-Income Couples	55
Chapter 4 Expectations and the Economic Bar to Marriage Among Low-Income Couples	84
Chapter 5 Steppin' Out: Infidelity and Sexual Jealousy Among Unmarried Parents	104
Chapter 6 Anatomy of the Breakup: How and Why Do Unmarried Couples with Children Break Up?	133
Part III Parenting Together and Apart	157
Chapter 7 #1 Father or Fathering 101?: Couple Relationship Quality and Father Involvement When Fathers Live with Their Children	159
Chapter 8 Blended but Not the Bradys: Navigating Unmarried Multiple Partner Fertility	183
Chapter 9 Gatekeeper Moms and (Un)Involved Dads: What Happens After a Breakup?	204
Chapter 10 Child Support Among Low-Income Noncustodial Fathers	228
Part IV Mixing Qualitative and Quantitative Methods and Data	253
Chapter 11 Mixing Methods: Reliability and Validity Across Quantitative and Qualitative Measures of Relationship Quality	255
Chapter 12 Data from the TLC3	277
Index	293

Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.