Posted on: Friday, January 21, 2005

Family facts you may not yet know

By Doreen Nagle
Gannett News Service

Time, once again, to learn more about who we are, what we think and how we act as American families:

• Each year 1 million children take a cruise vacation with their families.

• 120,000 children are adopted annually in the United States.

• Almost 90 percent of children whose mothers work full time outside of the house spend their day in childcare or preschool.

• Half of children 3 and younger spend some time each week in childcare.

• More than 15 million children go without adult supervision between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.

• One out of three families with young children earn less than $25,000 per year.

• Of the 20 million children in the United States younger than 18 who live with one parent, the vast majority live with their mother. In 2003, 23 percent of children lived with their mothers alone, 5 percent lived with their fathers alone, and 4 percent lived with neither parent. Further, of those 20 million:

• Thirty-eight percent lived with a divorced parent.

• Thirty-five percent with a parent who never-married.

• Nineteen percent with a separated parent.

• Four percent with a widowed parent.

• Four percent had another parent who did not live in the home because of business (or other) reasons.

• The percentage of children living in a home with two parents is on a decline across all racial and ethnic groups: Only 68 percent of children younger than 18 live with two parents married to each other, down from 77 percent in 1980.

• About 5 percent of children suffer from depression at any given time. Children who come from families where depression is prevalent have a higher incidence of the condition themselves, as do children under stress, or who have experienced a loss or have a physical disorder.

• Ninety-two percent of parents deem their kindergartners eager to learn. Kindergarten teachers say 75 percent of their students are happy to be in school.

• Growth spurts are real. Young children grow in fits and starts, not continuously. In fact, 90 percent to 95 percent of the time young children are not growing. An unusually good appetite generally precedes a growth spurt (and • have noticed a deeper voice follows the spurt).

• Two separate studies at the University of Chicago show that as long as a family can afford the basics (food, healthcare), having money for life's little luxuries does not make a difference in how a child behaves.

• As childhood obesity soars, 62 percent of parents describe their children as junk-food junkies.

• Need a vacation? You're not alone: 67 percent of moms who work outside of the home say they haven't gone on a vacation of a week or more in the past year.

• The birth rate for teens has been on a steady decline since 1991: 23 births for every 1,000 girls 15 to 17 years old in 2002, which is down from 39 per 1,000 in 1991.

• Defining family: A nuclear family is comprised of parents and their children together. An extended family includes grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. A blended family occurs when a single, divorced or widowed parent marries another parent.

Doreen Nagle is author of "But I Don't Feel Too Old to Be a Mommy"; HCI, $12.95.