“The way we never were,” tells the story of the “decline of the traditional family” as it has evolved from the 1950’s. The story deals with the many political disbeliefs that happen in our generation such as traditional family values and gender relations; and tells how the 1950s was a time of US global political and economic dominance, independence in the commercialization and industrialization, and how it relates to how the US works today. Coontz shows that the ideals of the common family have been changing due to many factors like demographics, political changes, and the economy. Coontz analyzed that the 1950s as a time of social and economic upswing as "The apparently stable families of the 1950s were the result of an economic boom--the gross national product grew by nearly 250% and…
Popenoe, David, (1993). American Family Decline, 1960-1990: A review and Appraisal, Journal of marriage and family 379-392.…
A conventional nuclear family consists of a traditional setting. A husband, wife and one or more children living together under the same roof. As such, the customary breadwinner would be the husband, while the wife is responsible for the housework and the emotional welfare of the children. But in today’s society, a nuclear family is seen as one of many family types in modern day society. There are some sociologists that say the nuclear family is and should remain the norm, while others argue that society these days is simply too diverse to have only one type of family.…
Stephanie Coontz is a professor of Family History at the Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington. She is a nationally recognized expert on the family and an award winning writer. In her 1997 book “The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with America’s Changing Families”, Stephanie Coontz wrote an essay entitled “What We Really Miss about the 1950s”. In Stephanie Coontz’s “What We Really Miss about the 1950s”, she argues that we as a country collectively remember the 1950s with a nostalgic tone, but we are not remembering this era in its entirety, nor are we completely accurate. She explains that the family and economic life that we remember and long for does not represent the whole truth of that era by any means.…
Families Comparison EssayA family is a most precious identity a person can have. An individual from a noble, average or poor family can be distinguished by the character, acts, behavior, and living style. A person spends most of his time in life with the family and thus the family contributes the most in an individuals growth, thinking and behavior. When we think of a western family, the standard nuclear family comes to mind, working father, stay-at-home mom and a flock of children. This is no longer the case, in the past 50 years the family has changed significantly and continues to change. These changes are greatly due to the equalization of women's rights and the massive expansion of available communications technology. In many families nowadays both parents work and when the children are young are put into daycare services that just were not around in the past. It is now worthwhile for both parents to work since many companies provide the aforementioned daycare for free. Women also have greatly increased earning potential since they are just as educated and will now make the same amount of money as men for doing the same job. Women are hired these days to do other jobs than to be secretaries and nurses. The families of 1950s are considered as ideal and are also known as nuclear families. It consists of a working husband, a housewife and their children mostly two in which the elder one is boy and the younger one is girl. The families of 1950s and mine have a lot of differences because of the change of culture in the society. They include the structure, role, values of education and outlook on future.…
This essay, The Myth of the Model American Family, is a discussion of the concept of an ideal family in the different perspective specifically social, cultural and economic. This is also an attempt to identify the structural changes in relation to the global development and the international economic crisis that immensely created impact on their lives. However, the discussion will limit itself on the different identifiable and observable transformations as manifested in the lifestyles, interrelationships and views of family members and will not seek to provide an assessment of their psycho-social and individual perceptions.…
The essay "The American Family", written by Stephanie Coontz, takes a historical perspective to examine the contrast between common beliefs about the past and the reality of that time. Furthermore, Coontz analyzes and challenges the conventional view that families today face worse problems than in the past.…
Over the years, the definition of “family” has gone through many changes. In the early1960’s, women were treated unequally within the society, which led to a need for fairness and the Women’s Lib. In addition, the Civil rights bill of 1964 was amended to include gender, and the birth control pill became available. Furthermore, even though the 60’s were the times of social change, and abortion became legalized. The era still left an indelible impression, of what American life represents. In essence, the 60’s left a legacy of how the society and family structure should be in America. (Carter, 2010) Lastly, the various movements led to many social changes within the society, including the definition of family.…
The American family, which has undergone a major transformation in the past generation, is poised to change even more in the coming century.…
For a country that supposedly places such a high premium on individualism, America possesses an unusual infatuation with the family, one that stretches all the way back to the 1950s. Experiencing a blindness typically found only in teenagers, the America of that time perceived a flawless family unit and fell instantly in love. Like all besotted creatures, it quickly began to weave fancies about itself and the object of its attraction, stories about how everything was and always had been perfect between them, and how the peak of human progress had finally been achieved. Soon enough, those fancies took on the veil of reality for America, and when the family unit’s face started to change over the next few decades, it became understandably distraught.…
In the last ten years of American history, there have been many milestones, events, and trends that have shaped American history. Not only did it shape history, but it changed how the American family lived. Examples such as the 9/11 attacks and new technological advancements have prompted serious and emotional conversations among family members and is considered important to cultural historians on how to understand the current mythologies of family. Aside from the ideal decade of the 1950s, the idea of family has changed in the twenty-first century because of new trends and recent events that set to define what family is really about.…
Today in America, many damaging challenges have surfaced, bringing upon more issues that must be faced. Many factors in today's society have begun to break down the structure of the family. The foundation of all great civilizations is the family, and in America due to divorce, domestic abuse, and issues within the foster care system, the structure of the American culture is crumbling.…
In the 1950s, with a male-breadwinner and a female housemaker, parents were to be “friends and lovers”. This idea was about creating family togetherness as the primary source of emotional satisfaction and personal happiness. And for the first time in 100 years the divorce rates plateaued (Mintz,…
As an institution, the family has constantly evolved, shaped and adapted to social changes, and although families have much in common, there is no longer such a thing as a typical family in the 21st Century. When people talk about the family, undoubtedly many think of the “conventional” nuclear family. However, stereotypical images of mother, father and children rarely holds true to modern families. The family, which has undergone a major transformation from the past generation, is poised to continue to change even more as time progresses. Family and household structures are becoming more diverse with co-habitation, common-law arrangements, single parents and gay adoption all becoming increasingly common types of family units in the world today.…
Sadly, a lot of evidence and literary works indicated that typical or traditional American family, which is the center of social structure consisting of father, mother, children and family life has been vanished and withering away. In this vision, the social ties of kinship, family and marriage are weakened .But how it happens? And what does it means that twentieth century American family is vanished? What are the symptoms of vanishing and withering inside American family in American society in general?…