Making a Love Connection documents the powerful connection between still-high rates of teen pregnancy and the public policy focus on increasing the proportion of children who grow up in healthy, married families. 

One-third of girls in the United States get pregnant by age 20 and half of all first out-of-wedlock births are to teens. The authors note that young people are in the dark about the economic and social benefits of a low-conflict and long-lasting marriage for men, women, and children and outline ways to help teens develop positive expectations for their current and future relationships and family life.

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About the Authors, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead and Marline Pearson.

Foreword from Making a Love Connection:

“Authors Barbara Dafoe Whitehead and Marline Pearson argue that we need to teach young people about healthy relationships at the same time we teach them about avoiding risky sexual behavior and the value of waiting. Not after – or as is too often the case – not at all. They make clear that the order of some of life’s major events is critically important. Get an education, get married, then have children – in that order. Whitehead and Pearson also convincingly argue that if we want to help ensure that children are born to two parents, happily married and ready and able to take on the difficult job of parenting, then preventing teen pregnancy is a good place to start.”

- William Galston and Stephen Goldsmith, National Campaign Board members, from the foreword of Making a Love Connection