"Scrubbing behind their refrigerators, manicuring their lawns, reciting the pledge of allegiance in rainy parking lots, the people of Beltway mold their community with precision and grace. Firm in their convictions about what makes up a decent place to live, and fierce in their efforts to protect this place from the forces that threaten it, Beltway's residents have found in Kefalas a sharp-eyed yet sympathetic interpreter of their behavior, their homes, and their dreams. Ethnography rarely penetrates this deeply."--Wendy Griswold, author of "Bearing Witness

"The perspective of working or...

Millie Acevedo bore her first child before the age of 16 and dropped out of high school to care for her newborn. Now 27, she is the unmarried mother of three and is raising her kids in one of Philadelphia's poorest neighborhoods. Would she and her children be better off if she had waited to have them and had married their father first? Why do so many poor American youth like Millie continue to have children before they can afford to take care of them?

Over a span of five years, sociologists Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas talked in-depth with 162 low-income single moms like Millie to learn...