The aspect of life that has the most potential to bring Americans together may be the one that is currently dividing them the most.

It is the relationship that people have with the traditional family — consisting of a mother and a father and children.

The Census Bureau recently released a report about the living arrangements American mothers have when they give birth to their first child. It did not paint a pretty picture.

"There have been sweeping changes to marriage and family structures in the United States over the last several decades," said the report. "Fertility rates dropped to historically low levels. Marriage rates declined while cohabitation became more common. Childbirth increasingly occurred outside of marriage as legal and cultural norms shifted."

The Census Bureau's analysis indicated that since the early 1990s there has been a fairly consistent percentage of mothers who were married when they gave birth to their first child. But this percentage was always above 60 percent, leaving nearly 40 percent of first-born children in a household that was not a traditional family.

In the period from 1990 through 1994, according to the Census Bureau, only 62.2 percent of first-born........

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