North American's Zone

Hello Pals!

Generally in United States, there is no specific rules or laws for marriage or children about how many children a couple can have, whether a woman must take her husband’s name or what name children are allowed to call.  The average number of children comes out to two to four and you will sometimes hear a couple with two to four children used to mean as average family.  Most of the women hyphenate their last names when they marry, for example, if Susan Smith marries Bill Jones, then she becomes Susan Smith-Jones and their children, however, usually have the father’s last name.  Families are modern and difficult in the United States.  The divorce rate is 1 out of 2 marriages, so there are a lot of families with only one parent or with stepparents.

Women usually work at least part-time outside the home, and so many children who are too young for school spend their days in some day care centers.  Most of the families try to eat their meal together at home during the evening period, but this is often not possible because of work schedules or school activities.  There are also many couples who live together without being married or live together for a period of time before they marry and this relationship is sometimes called as a term “partner”.  Homosexual couples with children are increasingly common, although mostly in large cities where people tend to be a little more open-minded.