'Millennials' generation esteem parenthood over marriage

SALT LAKE CITY — You remember the line from the old children's tease — "first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes so-and-so pushin' a baby carriage."

The adage is muddled for members of the Millennial Generation — today's 18- to 29-year-olds — who are not only less likely to link parenthood and marriage together when compared to their predecessors, they're also giving substantially less priority to marriage than to parenthood.

The Pew Research Center released a study Wednesday that compared Millennials to a 1997 survey of the 18- to 29-year-olds of the Gen X era and information provided by the older generations — Gen Xers, Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation.

More than half of the Millennials surveyed by Pew Research — 52 percent – said being a good parent is "one of the most important things" in their life, while just 30 percent said the same of having a successful marriage.

The choices weren't mutually exclusive; respondents could select one, the other, both or neither.

In a 1997 Washington Post/Kaiser/Harvard Survey asking the same question of Gen Xers in the identical 18- to- 29-year-old age range, 42 percent acknowledged the importance of being a good parent and 35 percent underscored the value of having a successful marriage.

In addition to citing the actual percentages of responses, Pew researchers Wendy Wang and Paul Taylor also called attention to the increasing gap between the two responses — that in 1997, the difference between the importance given to being a good parent to a having a successful marriage was 7 percentage points, while a generation later the gap has widened to 22 percent points.

The Pew Research Center conducted its survey Oct. 1-21 last year, contacting 2,691 adults ages 18 and older in the nationwide telephone survey.

Survey results also showed Millennials are likely than adults ages 30 and older to say a child needs a home with both a father and mother present to grow up happily as well as to say single parenthood and unmarried-couple parenthood are bad for society.

Compared to their older counterparts when the latter were at the same age, Millennials are slower to marry — 22 percent, compared to 30 percent of Gen Xers at the same age, 40 percent of Baby Boomers and more than half of the Silent Generation (those now 65 and older).