High levels of marital instability and soaring rates of out-of-wedlock childbearing among couples who live together temporarily, if at all, have dramatically revised the social organization of parenthood in the United States (Ahlburg & De Vita, 1992; Bumpass, 1990). Households containing children and their biological parents, once the dominant form of the family in this country, have steadily receded during the last third of the twentieth century (Furstenberg & Cherlin, 1991). The nuclear family form is still far from obsolete, especially among middle-class whites. But parenting apart has become standard practice for African Americans, some Hispanic subgroups (most notably Puerto Ricans), and, to a ...