Forty percent of American youth and 80 percent of all minority children are born out of wedlock. What happened to the vows at the altar?

Right now, l million teens--l2 percent of all "women" aged l5-l9--become childbearing each year. Of those, 70 percent have no husbands.

So Jodie Foster peered from PEOPLE with headline sporting: "And Baby Makes Two!" No dad, and proud of it. After all, according to Ms. Foster, I'm my own woman!

Remember Murphy Brown? Then U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle got it on the lip for criticizing Hollywood's unwed mother du jour back in 1992. After his watershed speech at the Commonwealth Club of California, forty-one percent of TV watchers tuned in to see Ms. Brown for themselves; commercial earnings shot off the charts and Candice Bergen walked off with an Emmy.

This is not a Kodak Moment: photos of millions of innocent children growing up without father's hugs, prayers or guidance. Through divorce and the current fad of single-parent-by-choice lifestyle, cuddles--who did not ask to be babied--is HERE. But she/he is here at a cost--a heart-ripping cost that lasts a lifetime.

The majority of the children growing up in single-parent homes--most overseen by mothers--are dirt poor. Most of them are untended during working hours. Take stock: "Untended" translates into "ready to get into trouble."

To pick up the angst in all this, click on "Helping Your Kids Cope With Divorce" on MSNCB's home page. How far can you go on reading "Why did Daddy Go?" before you want to chuck The Present System?

"The sad news today and hereafter," writes researcher Kathleen Parker, "...is that nothing's likely to change. The New York Times has reported that unmarried pregnant teen-agers are 'beginning to be viewed by some of their peers as role models!'"

Today 70 percent of Americans between ages l8 and 34 report that there is no moral problem with having babies outside of marriage.

And with that, I do hope that secular feminists are happy--fulfilled. They have worked the machine to a desperate close.

Sad, isn't it?

J. Grant Swank, Jr.