Having written about gender, dating, and reproduction for years, I’m struck by how blithely these admonitions to get married skate over people’s lived experience. On the rare occasions that women are actually asked about their experiences with relationships, the answers are rarely what anyone wants to hear. In the late 1990s, the sociologists Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas interviewed 162 low-income single mothers in Camden, N.J., and Philadelphia to understand why they had children without being married. “Money is seldom the primary reason” why mothers say they are no longer with their children’s fathers. “There are women that are just out here trying, and the men aren’t ready,” she told me.

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Persons: I’m, people’s, Kathryn Edin, Maria Kefalas, “, “ ghosted, ”, Camino, William Julius Wilson, Nora Ephron, Kearney, Daniel Cox Organizations: American Enterprise Institute Locations: Camden , N.J, Philadelphia