American Family Essay

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The traditional, American family, made up of a “bread-winner” father, a “housewife” mother, and their children, can be traced back to the 1950s as being the most prevalent type of family. This type of family is what many people would think of when they thought of the typical family. Nowadays, fewer people think of the nuclear family unit as the typical American family. The American family in the 21st century is declining due to factors, such as increasing divorce rates, division of labor, and cohabitation. The nuclear American was so successful because the parents enjoyed the manner in which the family functioned. They enjoyed each of their responsibilities that came with being a mother or a father living together and raising children (Cherlin The nuclear American family consists of a father working a job and putting a roof over his family’s head, while the wife takes care of the children and completes chores around the house. Now, the rate of mothers working jobs is rapidly increasing, but fathers do not want to reciprocate by pitching in on the house chores. Men are used to working jobs, rather than working around the house. The increase of women in the work force is creating arguments over sharing chores around the house and is causing tension between married couples. Working around the house and at a job are pushing women to work much more than men who are working a job, but not around the house (Tichenor 2010:668). As a result, “women’s new economic independence has combined with other social and cultural trends to produce unprecedented numbers of divorced and unwed parents, and cohabitating couples…” (Coontz 2010:55). Women entering the work force and demanding division of labor from their husbands is disrupting the idea of the bread-winning father and the stay-at-home mother and causing families to split apart, which is increasing the decline of the American nuclear As David Popenoe, the author of “American Family Decline, 1960-1990: A Review and Appraisal” states, “…the term decline is important because it provides a ‘best fit’ for many of the changes that have taken place. These changes…clearly indicate that the family as an institution has weakened” (Popenoe 1993:536). Popenoe is arguing that changes in society are leading to the decline of the once dominant family type. The definition of the American nuclear family will not change because it has been a set term for many years. But, the prevalence of the American nuclear family can absolutely decline and is rapidly doing so. It is clear that divorce, division of labor, and cohabitation are very beneficial and improve the quality of life for many people, so it is not being argued that those are negative concepts. The point is that those types of alternate lifestyles are leading to the decline of the traditional American family because they are becoming more and more

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