Name ___________________________
Unlike in the 1950s,
there is no ‘typical’ U.S. family today
4 Sentence Summary:
3 Sentences of Personal Opinion:
2 Quotes and Why They Stand Out:
1 Question or Connection:
Directions:
4 sentences
of summary about the article(s). Include the most important points. Your
summary should show that you read carefully and have a good understanding of
the articles.
3 sentences
of your personal response/opinion. What do you think about these readings?
2 quotes that
stand out (quotes can be important sentences or phrases written by the author).
Include a couple sentences on the significance of each quoted sentence/phrase. Why
did you choose it/what does it mean for this article?
1 question or
connection—several sentences about something you still wonder or don't
understand about this article, OR about something in the text you can connect
to.
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10
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9-8
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7-6
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5
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4-1
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All items in the 4/3/2/1 are
thoroughly completed.
Answers are all in complete sentences.
Answers show complete understanding of
the 4/3/2/1.
Student went above and beyond what was
expected (analysis & thoroughness).
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One
part of the assignment may not be thorough enough.
Answers are mostly in complete
sentences.
Answers show substantial understanding
of the question(s), but more analysis could lead to greater understanding.
Student met expectations of activity.
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More than half the assignment is
completed, but not analyzed thoroughly enough.
Answers show understanding of the
question(s), but they could use more detail, analysis, examples, and/or
connections.
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More than half the assignment is
incomplete.
Answers shows limited understanding of
the question(s), and needs a lot more detail and analysis.
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Assignment is either dreadfully
incomplete or needs significantly more detail and analysis.
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Unlike in the 1950s, there is no ‘typical’ U.S. family
today
The iconic 1950s
family of the breadwinner father going off to work and caregiving mother taking
care of the homefront, has been described by economists as the most efficient
family structure. Everyone has a distinct job to do in their “separate spheres”
of public and private life. And in the 1950s, the majority of children were
being raised in such “typical” families.
We all know that’s
not true anymore. But perhaps what we haven’t fully understood yet is that
today, there is no one “typical” family. The breadwinner-homemaker family, the
norm since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, is being replaced by a new norm of diversity.
“There hasn’t been
the collapse of one dominant family structure and the rise of another. It’s
really a fanning out into all kinds of family structures,” said Philip Cohen, a
sociologist at the University of Maryland. “Different is the new normal.”
In a report for
the Council on Contemporary Familiesbeing released today, Cohen
notes that in the 1950s, 65 percent of all children under 15 were being raised
in traditional breadwinner-homemaker families. Today, only 22 percent are.
Many people assume
dual-income families are now the predominant family structure, Cohen said. And
while the greatest percentage of young children do live in such families, they
make up just 34 percent of all young children, not even close to a majority.
And the rest of the
kids?
23 percent are being
raised by a single mother, only half of whom have ever been married.
7 percent live with
a parent who cohabits with an unmarried partner. A category so rare in the
1960s, Cohen notes, that the U.S. Census Bureau didn’t even consider counting
it.
3 percent live with
a single father.
3 percent live with
grandparents, but no parents.
Family Diversity is the New Normal for America’s Children / Philip Cohen
As children return
to school this month, Cohen said that they come from so many distinct family
arrangements that we can no longer assume they share the same experiences and
have the same needs.
How we got here is a
combination of a changing economy, rising education, job opportunities and
independence of women, a decline in gender discrimination and a rise since the
1960s of the welfare state, Cohen said, which made it possible for people to
have more choices in work and family life.
“The big story,
really, is the decline of marriage,” Cohen said. “That’s what’s really
changed.” From the 1950s to 2010, married couple families dropped from
two-thirds of all households to 45 percent, less than half.
Most troubling,
Cohen said, is the rapid rise in single parenthood, which is associated with higher levels of poverty.
A separate study of 11
wealthy countries found
that in other countries, poverty rates for unmarried mothers barely differ from
married couples. The gap was largest in the United States.
Family Diversity is the New Normal for America’s Children/ Philip Cohen
And yet, despite the
diversity now of U .S. families, most of the laws and policies that affect
families’ work and life have not changed. U.S. tax policy, the Social Security
system, laws governing work hours, all still favor married
breadwinner-homemaker families.
“People may be
disappointed that we don’t have more stable, long-term tradition marriages, but
people have to understand that, inside that model, was a lot of suffering,
heartache and exploitation,” Cohen said, referring to Betty Friedan’s
chronicling of the silent dissatisfaction of many 1950s housewives. “And
truthfully, we don’t know what the ‘right’ level of marriage is for people to
be happy. Likewise with divorce. Everyone acts like divorce is bad news. But if
there were no divorces, it would mean that no one took a risk. Or changed.
What’s the ‘right’ level of divorce? We don’t know.”
Just like today,
with so many family structures, he said, it’s impossible to say any longer,
which one is not only normal, but ‘right.’
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