David Diaz, 27, and Nancy Marengo, 22, an unmarried couple, recently discovered that they were expecting a child.

David and Nancy are homeowners and are in a stable position financially to raise a child even though their pregnancy was completely unexpected. After the initial shock of the pregnancy the young couple had very different reactions. “I was scared” Marengo said. David Diaz gave a typical strong man answer by saying, “Me, I was never scared.” Back in the “Leave it to Beaver” days, the standard family portrait consisted of a married mother and father along with two well behaved children with a beautiful dog playing in the background along a white picket fence.

Now, 40 percent of all children are born to unwed mothers according to the most recent Census Bureau report.

It seems the new portrait of the modern family requires a lot less paint.

According to a recent USA Today poll, 49 percent of Americans believe that the best age to get married is between 26 and 30.

“Kids cost a lot of money.” Rachel Torres, a 26-year-old mother of two, said. “Our grocery bill each month is crazy high, plus it seems like they grow out of their clothes every 3 months. I have to buy them both a summer wardrobe and we cannot afford it right now. We shop with coupons, do freebies, goodwill, thrift shops… We can’t afford brand new items all the time. I also had to buy a second car so I could fit my groceries in the SUV and be able to take the kids out while Dan (Rachel’s husband) is working.”

Daniel Rodriguez, a 29-year-old single parent of four, said that young parents have this kind of trouble because they themselves are trying to get their life together.

“At that age you’re not stable for yourself, and to be rushed to have stability because a child is coming is tough. In my case, I feel I missed out on having secondary education because it was

important to make the child stable.”

Not only is the financial side an issue for people in their mid-20’s age group, mental maturity is an issue as well.

Rodriguez says “trying to raise your kids how you were raised was difficult… There’s a lot of parent involvement that’s in it so it makes it hard at that young age to actually be a parent and not feel that you’re just being a child yourself.”

And it’s not just the face of parenting changing, the idea of marriage is altering as well.

Most believe that a person’s 20’s is the time when the dating pool is at its largest. Your mid 20’s are looked at as a time for couples to grow up together. Nearly everyone agrees that getting married as a teenager is not a good idea. “It’s better not to get married as a teenager,” says sociologist Andrew Cherlin of Johns Hopkins University. “Beyond that, I don’t think there’s an ideal age.”

Sociologist Paul Amato of Pennsylvania State University co-wrote the book “Alone Together: How Marriage in America Is Changing.” The data that he gathered suggested that getting married later in life was the best option.

“We found that the delay in marriage was actually a good thing and it actually improved the average marital quality by a fair amount,” he says.

“Older marriages (30s vs. 20s) were more cohesive in the sense they did things more often together as a couple. And couples who married at older ages were less likely to report thinking about divorce or that their marriage was in trouble.”

“People are postponing marriage until everything in their lives is working in order. The order means after you’ve finished your education, perhaps after beginning your career, and increasingly after you’ve lived with your partner. They’re postponing marriage until they think they’re ready for it.”

The idea of their being a perfect age to get married seems to be a thing of the past. As of the most recent statistics given in 2012, the average age for women to get married is at 26.5 while the average age for a man to get married is at 28.7. These are both increases from 2007 when the average age for a woman to get married was 25.6 and 27.5 for men.

Erin Krantz, a marketer out of Reading, would certainly be a proponent for getting married a bit later into one’s 20’s. “The older you are the more life experience you have…you’re not as stupid or think life’s a fairy tale anymore. Two financially stable adults with good credit should have lived together before getting married. You wouldn’t buy a car without test driving it and looking under the hood, if you can’t live with them, don’t marry them and have kids whenever you’re ready or they come if you want kids, I recommend pets instead.”

But even though families are changing, it doesn’t mean there aren’t happy outlooks on them.

Stephanie Houk, a 22 year old single mother of two, has a much more optimistic take on family;” A family is all about love and support. It’s not a mom and a dad and kids. It’s people who love unconditionally, support each other and stick together through thick and thin.”