Evolution of the Typical American Family Essay

According to the National Health Statistics Report, nearly half of all first marriages end in divorce (Casey et al. 2012). As this rate has drastically increased since the mid-20th century, divorce has begun to create many setbacks for society in terms of the economy, crimes rates, mental health capacity, and academic achievements. While initially divorce was seen as an issue for families individually, society as a whole is increasingly subject to facing the repercussions.

The eighties and nineties were a time when everyone was arguing over what a family really was. Erera states "Voices on the right blames changes in the family for a wide range of social problems, while voices on the left look to the family to provide the basis for a more communitarian society" (Erera 356). People were starting to blame the increase of family diversity to almost anything they could. From

The families in America are steadily changing. While they remain our most valued and consistent source of strength and comfort, some families are becoming increasingly unstructured. In the past, the typical family consists of a working father, a stay at home mother and, of course, well-rounded children. Today, less than 20 percent of American families fit nicely into this cookie cutter image. American households have never been more diverse. Natalie Angier takes stock of the changing definition of family in an article for the New York Times.

n the upcoming page’s I will answer the following questions. Why is family the most important agent of socialization? What caused the dramatic changes to the American family? What are the changes? I will discuss the differences in marriage and family, I will discuss how they are linked to class, race, gender, and personal choices. The purpose of this study is to explore the many different family functions and the paths that people are now choosing. I will give my opinion on whether these changes have had a positive or negative affect. I will finally discuss the trend of the modern family, back to pre-World War II family structure, how would that effect the strides that have been made in the progression of women rights.

In addition to, other scholars have elaborated on the higher rates of divorce in America than other countries. The high rate of marital instability has been increasing for decades. Marriage is being sought for personal stability and clarification as a substitution of marital values, there-fore, leading to short term marriages. In the scholarly article written by Frank Furstenberg Jr., Di-vorce and the American Family, the topic about divorce rates being higher due to changes of age composition is proposed. Furstenberg says that the many experts believe that the velocity of changes are due to voluntary dissolution. He also expands on how divorce alters the course of childhood.

In America the roles of the traditional American family have changed over the last couple of decades. Shifting from the more traditional roles of work and family, men being the breadwinners of the family, and the women being at home with the childrearing to more egalitarian values, where ideally both parents bring in money for the family and both parents do the caretaking (Gerson “Men’s Resistance to Equal Sharing”). According to Kathleen Gerson, we see that most Americans want an egalitarian breakdown of work and home, but unfortunately it’s not the reality. Today in America, we see more or a neotradional theme, were women are expected to work fulltime and also take on the full responsibility of caretaker at home (Gerson “Men’s Resistance to Equal Sharing”). I asked my mom, Susan, a 55 year old, white, married woman, who works full time as an IT project manager for CACI, how gender has affected her both, in the workplace, which is male dominated, and in her family life.

The effects of divorce on the American culture are immense. Social scientists have been studying these effects for many years now. The studies are continuing to confirm that the climbing rate of divorce in the American culture is hurting the society and also frequently devastating the lives of many American children. More often than not people decide to get a divorce before they really think about the effects of divorce. People usually decide to get a divorce based on emotion rather than logic which can hinder their long term happiness. There are many areas in which divorce has a negative effect in the life of a child or an adult. Many of these effects also directly correlate to the effect on a society. However, there is hope. Although

As with most life transitions, divorce can be liberating, depressing, frustrating, or traumatic to any person who experiences it. Perhaps the most painful part on the process of divorce is when the children get involved and when they all get trapped in the situation. These children may suffer significant losses in their lives and unless the situation can be handled in a civil manner, they will become prone to the psychological torment that could affect them for the rest of their lives. The issue of divorce however is becoming more and more intense since for the past ten years the divorce rate in the United States has skyrocketed to a record high of almost fifty- percent. It is also believed

Family life is ever evolving, especially in the U.S. where divorce, money, and diversity are huge parts of everyday life. Divorce was originally frowned upon, prohibiting couples from completing the split; however, to hear of marriages breaking up is no longer surprising and doesn’t provoke a horrified reaction. While divorce is still sad and damages many families, it allows for a way out of an unhappy relationship or worse an abusive one. It will remain to be highly received U.S trend, as long as marriages are around. Secondly, money is a tremendous necessity for families and causes stress and strife at home. The strain of not having enough money for food, clothes, and bills plus overworking one’s-self to earn what

There is always two sides to every story and this is still very much the case in the debate on spanking children. Spanking is one of the most controversial and most debated topics of this century. Moreover, there seems to never be a middle road and debaters always feel very strongly one way or another. This topic in general quite often falls prey to the excluded extreme fallacy that one is either fully for spanking or fully against it; either way to the fullest extent. Some believe spanking is a necessary tool in instilling respect and appropriate behavior, while others argue that is does more damage to a child than it does reparation.

The Structure of the American family has changed drastically. There actually isn’t much of a “structure” anymore to families. The social norm of what used to be in the 50’s where the man was the only person to work and the women stood home and kept up the home and children. Couples got married young and didn’t have children out of wedlock. It was almost like most family followed the same structure. The 50’s doesn’t seem like it was chaotic as it is today with couples working multiple jobs at different times and families never being together with each other at the same time and so many hobbies, sports, and extracurricular things going on with each family. The biggest thing that comes to my mind that has changed completely is that even growing

Divorce has become such an increasingly prevalent part of American Society. According to the National Vital Statistics System, there is one divorce approximately every 36 seconds. It can be said that “problems that lead to divorce could be apparent from the beginning of the relationship, or they could arise and then worsen over the course of the relationship” (Williamson 1121). A lack of communication, financial difficulties, and infidelity are all underlying factors that are contributors to divorce.

As a conclusion, the main change that happened to American family , Cherline 2013, "divorce became very high from 1980-2000''. The reason for marriage became love instead of having the society decide who you will marry. Even though, cohobitation could lead to unwanted prgnancy, our awarness about pregnancy pill can help us plan our life, and have a baby when we are ready to be a parent. I believe when we are ready for a family we can be able to have a real family. Creating a family means, being ready to care for some one else, taking the responsibility of being a parent, and to be there for one

In this prospectus, I research the idea of the inclining divorce rate in America throughout decades and if it is due to gender roles in marriage and relationships and how they have changed through generations or if other factors influence the increase in divorce. This topic is unique due to older generations having a different approach to gender roles involving relationships and marriage compared to younger generations. As generations get older, society changed especially because of the expectations of genders as well as other factors in relationships. Throughout this research I will take a deeper look into the ideas of how relationships are different from one decade to another including gender standards, why relationships do not succeed as much as they used too as shown by the inclining divorce rate, and what else could be a cause

The notion of divorce in the United States evolved in a unique way, as divorce was analogy for breaking away from Britain. Because of the idea of breaking away from unjust control, divorce was “generally accepted in most states after the American Revolution, and the prevalence of divorce told a particular story about the shape of social order in the United States,” (Coltrane and Adams p. 205). However, it was still built on the traditional patriarchal system, involving a man being financially responsible to his wife, and woman being in domestic service to her husband (Coltrane and Adams p. 205)