Even in the U.S.A.(Brief Article)

The first of my ancestors who came to North America, in the 17th century, were Dutch. They settled in a colony called New Amsterdam. Then the English took over. New Amsterdam became New York and New Jersey, and my ancestors had to put aside their Dutchness. Today, even Americans who live in old New Amsterdam no longer consider the Netherlands a mother country. When we think of the Dutch--which isn't often--we picture a small, oddball nation that permits many of the things we still regard as unlawful: euthanasia, prostitution, marijuana, same-sex marriages.

Yet, without knowing it, we Americans are becoming a little more Dutch all the time--a society embroiled in rapid change, breaking down old structures and trying out new ways to live. The latest U.S. Census, conducted last year, shows that the presumed bedrock of our society, the nuclear family--Mom, Dad and 2.4 kids--is breaking down fast. Fewer than 25 percent of all U.S. households now consist of married couples raising children, according to Census figures released two weeks ago. In part, that's a consequence of societal aging: a growing portion of the U.S. population is now beyond the child-rearing stage. But it also reflects a steep decline in the popularity of marriage, even for people who want to have children.

About a third of all babies are now born to unmarried women, compared with only 3.8 percent in 1940. The number of families headed by single women has risen 25 percent since 1990, to more than 7.5 million households. (The number of fathers raising kids on their own has increased at an even faster rate, to just over 2 million families.) Demographers predict that more than half of the American children born in the 1990s will spend at least part of their childhood in a single- parent home.

Today's single mothers don't fit the old stereotype of dark-skinned teenagers on welfare. Though ...