Kylie Jenner, Rihanna are having kids without marriage. It matters more than you think.

Kylie Jenner did it. So did Rihanna. Most recently, Grimes revealed she and Elon Musk welcomed another baby. From what we know, all these stars decided to have kids without marriage. 

Experts say this latest celebrity headline-making behavior has bigger implications than we may realize as it helps to normalize nontraditional family dynamics, which are slowly becoming more visible in the United States.

Sarah Wright, a licensed independent clinical social worker, says she's observed marriage and parenthood diverging more and more in the U.S., a trend that took hold decades earlier in some European countries thanks to the benefits offered to new parents abroad.

"Society has changed to where we can see role models, celebrities and other people who seem to be doing these two things (getting married and having kids) independent of each other," Wright says. "That tells us that parenthood and marriage are really two different things."

This comes at a time when other types of families are also becoming more visible. thanks in part to social media, which has helped showcase dynamics such as platonic life partnerships and throuples. 

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There's a whole list of different ways families can look, explains Melissa Dowd, a licensed marriage and family therapist with virtual mental health platform PlushCare. She points to polyamorous couples, same-sex couples and single people who adopt or conceive on their own or via surrogate – like Andy Cohen did in 2019 to welcome his baby boy.

"Seeing celebrities veer outside of the more traditional family structures has definitely brought visibility to, and normalized, family dynamics that were once seen as unconventional," Dowd says. "It has shed such a positive light on the true meaning of family and what it should be about: love, support and a community of people who show up for one another, no matter how they came together in the first place."

Interest in marriage has indeed declined

Even before the pandemic disrupted timelines and wedding plans, marriage rates were down on a national scale, a result of economic challenges as well as a cultural shift in how we view marriage, explains Brad Wilcox, sociologist and director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia.

For people who grew up witnessing a difficult or dysfunctional marriage, Wilcox explains this can "color how they think about marriage as adults when starting their own families."

From the 1960s to about 2009, there's also been an increase in nonmarital childbearing, Wilcox explains, with a leveling off since 2009 at around 40%. Of course, this includes unplanned or unexpected pregnancies as well.

At the same time, people have become more hesitant about having kids in general, with reasons ranging from climate change to economic impact.

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But it's still hard to know how the pandemic could influence future numbers.

"COVID has certainly thrown our lives into a certain kind of confusion," Wilcox says. "So I think we're not going to know what the next pattern is in American family life for a couple of years as we try to make sense of how COVID has re-oriented the ways in which people are thinking about things like marriage and childbirth."

Is having kids without getting married the path for everyone? No.

Dowd assures there isn’t "one right way" to become a parent, and these celebrities are proving that parenthood comes in all different forms, ages and stages of life.

Still, we can't ignore the privileges that set celebrity situations apart: money. Whatever someone's reason for foregoing marriage before kids, it could result in challenges.

"The unfortunate truth here is it leaves both adults and kids – working class and poor communities  – doubly disadvantaged," Wilcox says.

As Wright explains, "When you are getting married, you are effectively starting a small business (with) you, your spouse (and) the state."

Without marriage, there are rights and benefits that may not be afforded to those who are unmarried.

"For example, insurance and social security. In case you're raising a child with a spouse and the working spouse dies – the survivor, the widower has claims on that and those resources to continue raising the kids that they had together. But an unmarried couple does not have that," she explains.

For wealthy demographics, this isn't a major concern.

"Rich people do not have to marry," she says. "No one has to marry, but financially, they're independent of whoever the co-parent is or the other members of the family that they're going to raise kids with,"

No matter the route taken to have children, experts agree stability is key.

But Wright notes marriage isn't the only way to have stability in a household.

"There's this huge presumption that the best thing for kids is the nuclear family – two heterosexual parents who are married to each other," she says. "The social science research still shows pretty clearly that family stability is more important than the family structure."

While some may choose to start a family without marriage, others have no choice – same-sex couples wanting to start a family weren't allowed to marry in all 50 states until 2015. 

And still today, Wright says people who go beyond the traditional nuclear family are often left out.

"Not every adult can marry the people who they love," she says. "Polyamorous people with (throuples) and other configurations larger than that... those households do also raise children."

There are also people who solo parent and do "a bang up job of it too," she adds.

All parents deserve acceptance, support

Moving forward, experts says it's important to normalize different types of families.

"Normalizing nontraditional family structures helps to create more acceptance," Dowd says. "And when we feel accepted, we feel supported. All parents deserve that, no matter what path they took to have a child. Seeing celebrities choose these non-traditional paths to parenthood... really helps to bring positive representation for others."

As equal opportunities under the law and social welfare benefits lag behind, Wright hopes things continue to progress and evolve as contemporary families do.

"We're always redefining family. (It's) going through its own fluid period right now," she says, adding that while celebrities who push traditional boundaries may make it look easy and fashionable, the reality is "there are a million realties and it's always more complex than then just one case or particular people."