I. Social Context: A changing and troubled world.

The 20th Century is characterized as a period with unprecedented progress and unprecedented problems. With all the progressive steps (i.e., achievements in medicine, space exploration, artificial intelligence, and computer science) comes severe problems (i.e., economic fluctuations, stagnant personal finance, population control, violence, massive ignorance) and changes in the way human beings relate to each other.

The standard linear conception (the traditional view) of child rearing suggests we need only do what our parents did and everything will be just fine - which is probably true enough if we could, in fact, do what our parents did. In order to rear children like they were reared in the past would require the religiosity of the past, the polity of the past, the educational system of the past, and most importantly, the economy of the past. In other words, the standard line is that women, if they are to be mothers, need to stay home and raise their children.

Empirically, depending on the preparation of the mother, this is good for children. However, it flies in the face of the economic reality of family life and other things we know about family life in the late 20th century.

A standard linear conception of social change belies the systemic reality of conditions under which families must survive. Often seemingly isolated social or technological changes can send reverberations throughout the social system and into the lives of generations of any given family.

Can you think of a time in U.S. history when family life was better on the whole than it is now?
A time when the divorce rate was low, children were much more likely to have two parents (one of which was always on call for them, and every father had a pretty good job?
If you can think of such a period of time, you aren't thinking with all the facts in mind.

According to structural-functional theorists, society is governed by five major, interrelated institutions:

• The Family provides individual care and life-long nurturance to family members by keeping the promise of the seven family functions (i.e., sexual regulation, companionship, protection, etc. See the discussion below).
• Polity, or Government provides for defense, safety, and socioeconomic stability of society in exchange for financial support through taxes and emotional support through loyalty of its members.
• The Economy provides financial reward (wages, benefits) in exchange for labor from its members.
• Education provides basic knowledge and skill instruction to enable participation in the economy in exchange for attendance and community support.
• Religion provides spiritual/communal/moral cohesiveness and a sense of community in exchange for faith in religious tenets and financial support.

• Members of society are more or less having their important needs met
• Society is getting what it needs from members of society

This is actually a description of the situation in the mid-1950s to 1960s and it worked well for many Americans. In fact, the traditional American family ideal comes straight out of this idyllic period of time. However, all Americans weren't included in the analysis.

The divorce rate was low because divorces were just harder to obtain. There weren't many contraception options that women had control over, other than abstaining from sex. Thus, continued fecundity further tied women to the tasks of child rearing, keeping their world view near home and hearth. The economy, based on self-serving rules of competition, thrived by keeping wages & benefits as low as possible. The poor were roughly as many as they are today, but had many fewer options for survival and relief. The darker side of functionalism is that only one gender was really in charge of decision making, and only a small group of them had any real control. In order to break out of poverty, minorities and the poor routinely sought out risky underground or criminal activities. Things seemed harmonious only because the disenfranchised were seldom heard from. When they attempted to be heard, they raised the ire of social control agents dedicated to maintaining the status quo.

Today, family life seems more distressed than every before, We are shown images of distress via the media which continually improving its ability to bring the news to us (Around the world in 30 minutes ... This is HEADLINE NEWS) dot - com.

The fundamental reasons family life seems more distressed today has to do with two major developments since 1955: Changing gender role expectations between men and women, including changes in expectations for marriage, and Changes in the functions of the family.

II. Changing Sex Roles - Early on in our evolution children were socialized into very strict gender roles: boys did socially defined masculine things, while girls were encouraged to do feminine things. See the chart below:

Traditional masculine behavior consisted of a constellation of Instrumental (goal oriented) characteristics (competition, aggression, self-reliance, assertiveness).

Traditional feminine behavior consisted of a collection of Expressive (relationship centered) characteristics (nurturance, compassion, affection, and sensitivity to the needs of others.

This was the case, but not so much so anymore.
Owing largely to the advances of the information age and an economy that reflects technological advances, societal reasons for maintaining such a rigid division of the genders have vanished - leaving only a sociocultural desire on the part of some men and women to behave traditionally (i.e., I like big families. I want lots and lots of children. - ask me more about this in class!).

As a result there is high potential for confusion over the way to go about initiating/maintaining relationships.

III. Changing Marital Expectations & Behavior Patterns

Why People Marry - The Social Functions of the Family Perspective
(these are the societal reasons mentioned above)

One by one, over the next 100 years, these functions have been more or less delegated to "official" agencies of society (Goode, cited in Hutter, J. (1982). THE CHANGING FAMILY. New York: Jon Wiley).

1. Sexual Regulation Function: Traditionally one of the mainstays for marriage - marrying meant a social license for sexual access to one other person. Sexual gratification had been traditionally sanctioned for married couples only. However, the expectation of staying in school coupled with the technological advances in birth control has rendered this function less salient to many young people.
2. Reproductive Function: Traditionally, having babies was one of the main reasons for marriage, especially for women. Today, however, high divorce rates coupled with the high number (about 1 million per year) of out-of-wedlock births renders this function less salient to many.
3. Economic Function: Family responsibilities necessitated high productivity early on in the century. Children often contributed to the family income, especially in rural America. As the population moved out of the country and into the cities, children became economic liabilities.

Today, fathers are having a much more difficult time adequately providing for their family's material needs.
4. Protective Function: The belief that the family provided a safe environment for its members has given way to the demonstrated fact that often family members must be protected from their families by social service agencies and the police.
5. Socializing/Humanizing Function: Children were socialized to be good citizens by the family itself. Parents stood as moral role models for children. This function has been delegated to religion and the schools.
6. Education Function: Children were schooled in the trades that would benefit them in the marketplace - by their parents. Boys learned their father's skills, girls learned from their mothers. This function has been delegated to schools and universities.
7. Social/Emotional (love and intimacy) Function: Family members were companions for each other . Father's were the first to partially abandon this value, leaving home in search of work. Once finding work, fathers would spend long hours on the job, returning home only to recuperate for the next day's travails. Still, of all the functions of the family, this is the only one that has survived to any great extent.

One school of thought suggests that as the family lost or delegated its functions away to other social institutions, the remaining functions became much more important. Because it is the main, and often the only, remaining function, Love increases in importance as the other functions are lost to official agencies and the like. GET THIS: Consequently, marriages can more easily fail when love wanes a little and there is nothing else to bind the family together.
This is known as Dependence on Romantic Love to the exclusion of other factors.

Dual-Career Marriages. The gender roles of the past were probably based on husband/father working outside the home and wife/mother working inside the home. Today many women have options for education and career that have never before been afforded them. On the other hand, many (most) mothers expect, are expected and do have to work to support their families (as do fathers). The result is a dominant family form where all the adults work at nonfamily endeavors, leaving little time to meet the constant needs of children, maintain a home, and maintain the near environment.

Increased Incidence of Divorce (Due primarily to the increased economic progress of women as a group). The law has changed making divorce more affordable in the short term.
Divorce, while not always devastating, is disruptive in almost every family where children are involved. The incidence is up, still, which means disturbances in the normal developmental process for over half the children in the country.

Speaking only about recent marriages (1980-1991)

• -about 96% of unmarried Americans will marry at some time
• -about 50% of new marriages will end in divorce.
• -about 84% of those divorcing will remarry within 2-5 years.
• -about 64% of those who remarry will divorce again.
• -about 56% of those who divorce twice will remarry
• -about 44% of those who remarry again will divorce for a 3rd time.

Family Planning:
Fewer children, if any.
Newly married couples plan on fewer children than their parents.
1.9 children is average for people 35-45 years of age, which is down from the 2.3 children average of about two decades ago. The average is even lower for younger groups.
People are having fewer kids and delaying the birth of their first child for much longer.
Not included here are the huge number of children born to only one parent in the first place.
About 50% of the children in the U.S. will live at least a portion of their childhood without
a father at home.

Reduced role of parents in child-rearing.
As more parents work outside the home, child rearing is increasingly performed by child care workers (day care, baby sitters, nannies) and by the children themselves.
Latchkey kids run the risk of developing in isolation and loneliness.
Today's parents are "prepared to make fewer sacrifices for their children than did parents in the past." (Lauer and Lauer, 1996).

This attitude is manifesting itself in many ways among the children of the coming generations:

• -increased drug use -increased sexual misconduct
• -rising crime rates in lower age groups
• -increased use of parenting surrogates
• -less time spent in actual instruction of children.
• -increased incidences of reported child abuse & neglect
• -fatherlessness is the most consistent identifier (associated variable) for boys & girls

officially labeled as "in trouble".

Geographic Family Mobility
-This generation will be the new nomads.
Already families move once every five years or so on the average.
The idea of growing up on the same street as all one's friends is a movie cliché today.

By moving so often, friendships are disconnected, isolation mounts, family members become rootless. This will only increase.

It is an established fact the one of the primary correlated factors of the teenage suicide rate is the "rootlessness factor".
In areas of the country where the "new arrival rate" is high, so is the suicide rate for teenagers.

IV. Myths about Family Life

1. We've lost the extended family. Never had it to begin with. History, rather than romantic ideals, shows us that the American family has always sought to move out on it's own. Quite often, this attempt to achieve autonomy is mediated by competing needs of older and younger generations. The loss of friendship and support networks is another matter.
2. People marry because they love each other. Love is the name we give for all the feelings and emotions surrounding early courtship and the biological, physiological and sociological needs we have to mate and have children. We marry for many different reasons.
3. Having children increases marital satisfaction. While children may enhance life satisfaction in general, and certainly places us in a new target population for media, Satisfaction with the marriage itself actually declines with the birth of the first child among most new parents. Studies show that marital satisfaction continues to decline until the last born child enters late adolescence.
4. A good sex life is the best predictor of marital satisfaction. Among most healthy Americans, a good sexual relationship in marriage is an indication of a good marital relationship - complete with intimacy and caring and nurturance. In other words, good sex is indicative of a good marriage. A poor sexual relationship indicates an ineffective communication pattern in the couple.
5. Half of all marriages end in divorce. Depends on how one counts - this is true of new marriages (for folks married from 1970 onward).

Changing Patterns of Intimate Relationships.

One of the most intimate experiences in life is the sharing of sexual intimacy with another person. Since 1970 and the beginning of the so-called Sexual Revolution there has been a dramatic change in the frequency and duration of sexually intimate relationships.
For one thing, they are more frequent and of shorter duration than ever before

1. Premarital Sex - according to public opinion polls, the vast majority of American women have had premarital sexual intercourse by the time they were 19 years of age (63% for white women, 81% for black women).
2. Out-of-Wedlock Births - unmarried teenagers account for 30% of all births out-of-wedlock. 60% of all black children are born to single mothers.
3. Living Alone - consequently, more people are living alone, because of hesitancy to commit to a relationship, lack of opportunity, or because of divorce. More different sexual partners, but much less sexual frequency.
4. Cohabitation - 4% of all couples living together are cohabiting - this figure includes homosexual and lesbian couples as well. A relatively small segment of the population, but constitutes a dramatic increase over the past. Astoundingly, a much larger proportion of the population, roughly 30% report having had a conjugal live-in arrangement at some time during their lives.
5. Delaying Marriage - Due to educational demands and an economy that is hostile to young people, many are "priced out" of the marriage market.
6. Birth Rates - the aggregate birth rate is down - but there are "pockets" of high fecundity.
7. Household Size - obviously this is down too. Record numbers of Americans live alone.
8. Employed mothers - less than 5% of married women with children stay home.
9. Divorce Rates - previously discussed.

Asked of 351 long term married couples (15 years or more):
15% said they were unhappy (one or both partners.) BUT STAYED TOGETHER OUT OF A SENSE OF DUTY (RELIGIOUS BELIEFS, OR FAMILY TRADITION).
The happy group reports these reasons for staying married.

1. Spouse is my best friend
2. Likes spouse as a person
3. Marriage is a long term commitment
4. Marriage is sacred
5. Agree on aims and goals
6. Spouse has grown more interesting
7. Wants relationship to succeed.
8. Enduring marriage is important to social stability.
9. "We laugh together"
10. Proud of spouse's achievements

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