Unwed couples who get pregnant are more likely to move in together than to get married, according to government data collected over the past decade. Cohabitation has surpassed “shotgun weddings” as the most common reaction to an unplanned pregnancy by an unmarried couple, a growing trend that creates an unstable environment for children.
Justin Carroll left his home in Tennessee and his job as a carpenter in mid-November for what he thought would be a two-week journey to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to bring his two adopted sons home to his wife, Alana. Eight weeks later, Justin and the couple’s toddler boys, Neema and Canaan, are still waiting to come home.
Carroll is one of five families with newly adopted children stuck in the DRC because the government has suspended exit permits for the children.
Unmarried friends can legally adopt and co-parent, according to an unprecedented ruling by a New York judge last month.
Judge Rita Mella of New York County’s Surrogate Court named “two loving adults” in a “solid, decade-plus friendship” the legal parents of a toddler adopted from Ethiopia.
Religion | The most widely used Chinese Bible translation turns 100
