Unmarried With Children Summary

Do you think women are choosing to have children unmarried? In some instances that is true, but most of the time it is a mistake. Today one in three children are born to an unmarried mother. Researchers like Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas took a bold step and wrote an article that gives the different points of view about being unmarried with children. In Unmarried with Children, Kathryn Edin and Marie Kefalas, use personal credentials, statistics, external sources, and cause and effect to appeal to the readers’ credibility, reasoning, and logistics to convince them that many single mothers might have been better off if they had finished high school, found a stable job, and married their child’s father first. Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas begin their article with building on their personal credentials to gain the reader’s trust before allowing the audience to delve
External sources are quotes or experiences from experts or other people that are educated on information about the specific topic. Jen, a single mother that had her son Collin at age fifteen says, “I know I could have waited [to have a child], but in a way I think Collin’s the best thing that could have happened to me…so I think I had my son for a purpose because I think Collin changed by life” (Edin, 392). Through interviewing Jen, this enlightens the readers to see how Jen feels about being a single mother, and also how her thoughts counteract with the authors. The authors state that women who have children out of wedlock suffer from a low self-respect, but in her interview, Jen appears to have no regrets in the way her life has transpired because of her son. She clearly states that her son is the best thing that has ever happened to her, thereby insinuating that she has a high level of self-respect. She respected herself enough to take responsibility for her actions, stop doing the things that are wrong and taking care of her