The daily news is filled with disturbing social trends portending awful consequences around the corner, next year or for generations to come. The economy is sluggish, our safety net is unraveling, Social Security and Medicare are running out of money, and we can’t fix any of it because the government is broke and we’re buried in debt that will be passed down to our grandchildren.
It can all be very depressing.
But there is at least one social indicator that for two decades has been moving in the right direction, and it’s one that bodes well for our future: The number of births to teen-age mothers has been in a 20-year free-fall that shows no signs of abating.
