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Preface
The catch phrase "family
values" has been appropriated by American politicians and religious
organizations, as well as progressive groups and gay and lesbian rights
organizations. But what does the typical American family look like? A father
who earns a living by working in an office or factory, a mother who stays
home to raise the children, and kids who play with their friends in the
neighborhood until dinnertime? While 50 years ago the nuclear family—
mother, father, and 2.3 children—might have been held up as the norm, such
a model falls far short of describing the multitude of variations on the
family in the United States today. This book serves as a guide to the
richness of family life in the United States at the dawn of the 21st
century. As we shall see, today’s America encompasses homes led by
divorced and single parents, stepfamilies, interfaith and interracial
marriages, gay partnerships, childless couples, and the traditional nuclear
family, as well as many other domestic structures.
As demographics have shifted,
the circumstances of America’s families have also changed. With the
increased incidence of divorce, many children are being raised by only one
parent; the stigma against children born to unmarried couples is rapidly
disappearing; and some children know only one parent. Remarriage produces
stepfamilies, and it is no longer unusual for children to be raised by
grandparents or extended family members if a parent is unable to care for
them.
Since the 1970s, women have
had greater career opportunities, but today professional women are still
faced with tough choices, chief among them whether to continue working after
the arrival of children or to stay at home to raise them. A tiny percentage
of fathers stay at home to raise their children, but in most families the
burden of childrearing still falls disproportionately on women. Medical
science offers women more control over when and if they have children, so
many women delay childbearing to establish careers, while others advocate
having children early so as not to interrupt a career later.
The boom in reproductive
technology has also made it possible for previously infertile individuals
(both married and unmarried, both young and middle-aged) to have biological
children by a variety of methods, even those as controversial as human
cloning. Nevertheless, adoption (often from a foreign country) remains
popular. In addition, gay couples and individuals have gained the right to
raise children, becoming parents either through reproductive technology or
adoption, which would have been unthinkable a generation ago.
At the same time, couples
that are childless by choice are challenging the old assumption that every
married couple wants to raise a family. Some committed couples—whether or
not they have children—live together in stable, long-term relationships
without any plans of marriage, and interracial and interfaith unions are no
longer the taboos they once were. As the percentage of non-white racial
groups in the United States continues to grow, alternative family structures
have gained prominence as well. Americans continue to insist on the
importance of the family unit, even though the nation’s plurality has
ensured that there are as many definitions of "family" as there
are ethnic groups in the United States.
Even among nuclear families,
life is vastly different from what was portrayed on Leave It to Beaver or
The Donna Reed Show. Families today are busier than ever and pulled in all
directions. Rather than sitting down together for a family dinner, parents
may be working late and children may be playing on a Little League soccer
team, learning Spanish, or taking piano lessons. Parents who work often
struggle to balance spending time with their family and the demands of the
job, while low-income families may find it a challenge just to survive.
Violence against children, spouses, and domestic partners remains a critical
issue, along with the struggle to set boundaries for children and the
attempt to shield them from the rampant materialism of American society.
The first section of this
book, "The Changing Family," chronicles the ways in which families
in the United States have altered since the nuclear family was considered
the norm. Section II, "The Collective Majority," highlights those
groups considered "minorities" in the United States and explores
the meaning and structure of the family for them as compared with the white
"majority." "Marriage and Other Partnerships," the third
section, deals with the various forms adult romantic relationships take
today. The fourth section of the book, "Families in Crisis,"
addresses many of the chief concerns of today’s families, which often
reflect the greater problems of American society. "Planning
Parenthood," the fifth section, touches on the different methods of
having and raising children—as well as deciding whether to have them at
all. The final section, "Nontraditional Families," includes
articles about gay parents, single parents, interethnic marriage, and the
place of the nuclear family in America today.
I would like to thank the
periodicals that gave permission to reprint their articles in this book.
Special thanks as well to Lynn Messina, editor in General Reference, for her
friendship and invaluable assistance in preparing this volume. My gratitude
also goes to Cliff Thompson for allowing me to take time from my other
assignments to prepare this book. Finally, thank you to my co-workers in
Current Biography and General Reference who have made coming to work a
pleasant and intellectually stimulating experience.
Karen Duda
April 2003
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