American Baby.com story WARNING: My pop-up blocker didn't manage to stop all of the ones on this site - please accept my apologies if they bother you as much as they did me.

Selected quotations from the article (emphasis is mine)


* If a third of babies are born outside marriage, and half of marriages end in divorce, it is a reasonably safe assumption that divorce is equally as much a driver of the rise in "non-standard" family units - a married mom & dad with children at home - as illegitimacy. It's not entirely safe on this evidence alone, since we aren't told what proportion of divorces come from couples with no kids, or where the kids have grown and left.

From this article, it is clear that the way society forms family units has changed quite dramatically since the laws on marriage, child custody, inheritance and divorce were written. In many cases, these laws have been handed down almost unchanged from pre-Revolutionary times, with roots in English Common Law and the English Reformation - specifically, Henry VIII's un-Catholic enthusiasm for divorce. (Though interestingly, in English Common Law, there is no such thing as a "Common Law Wife".)

I don't really want to get into another argument over what type of couple should or should not be allowed to get married. For one thing, one of the biggest changesx is a dramatic increase in the number of household made up of single people, living alone. So rather than talking about families, I would like to think in terms of households in the broadest possible sense, and include all the different types, with or without chirlden in them.

Instead:

How do you view this demographic shift away from the nuclear family as the most typical type of household?

Do you think this is something legislators, other civic leaders, or society as a whole should be attempting to reverse, or something they should be taking account of? Why?

What can be done to discourage, or reflect, these changes in household structure?

How do you view this demographic shift away from the nuclear family as the most typical type of household?

I view it as a shifting of western social patterns. This is not IMHO a failing of American morals. I do not think children are less loved today. I think such statistics fail to take into account the higher role played by step-parents and others today in child rearing.

Do you think this is something legislators, other civic leaders, or society as a whole should be attempting to reverse, or something they should be taking account of? Why?


I think this is something that legislators should be taking account of in order to better understand the needs of their constituents.

What can be done to discourage, or reflect, these changes in household structure?

Governments should take inventory of the ways in which their policies might contribute to the disintegration of families.

I think perhaps looking more at individuals instead of households might help things but I am not sure.

The only thing I have in the back of my mind on this is the effect of economic benefits allotted to single female headed households and the loss of those benefits if a male provider comes into the household.

1. I view this trend from a pretty neutral point of view. Society changes, particularly in the long run, and there is nothing than can be done about this very basic fact. If the nuclear family goes the way of the extended family, and is replaced by something like the blended or alternative family, that's just the way it will be. It's not totally good or totally bad, it's just different, with its own advantages and disadvantages.

2. Society should adjust itself as needed to deal with trends like this. Efforts to reverse it seemed doomed from the onset.

3. Legal recognition of "domestic partnerships" is one example. Any kind of family structure benefits from safe, effective, easy, and cheap birth control, and this should always be encouraged.

Ugh- I just got through doing a half hour research into divorce statistics- and it seems I can't get a straight, linkable answer that is not fundamentally flawed in some ways- like 39,000 hits!

Here is the best one I can find that deals with this issue:

http://missourifamilies.org/features/divor...cefeature17.htm

An excpert:

For every two marriages that occurred in the 1990s, there was one divorce. This does not mean that the divorce rate is 50%. Although, it is correct that in the United States during most of the 1990s, there were about two marriages for every divorce in a single year. But this does not mean that the divorce rate is 50% because the people getting married in a single year are not the same ones getting divorced. This is a very common error and it results from the fact that that Vital Statistics report the numbers of marriages and divorces for each year. It is easy to think that some type of divorce rate can be calculated from these numbers, but it can't.

How do you view this demographic shift away from the nuclear family as the most typical type of household?

I am not sure if there is this shift, or if it is a perception. Perception and reality are two different things, right? - My parent divorced when I was 7- in 1972. They were the only ones in my nieghborhood to get a divorce (Texas bible belt) and were so scanalized they had to move - but I am glad they divorced, I probably would have had an even worse childhood had they stayed together- I just wish I would have been given the option to stay with my dad instead of my mom- he was the clearly better parent, hands down. Now- poeple don't live in misery when they don't have to. I don't buy into this silly, asinine, stupid (more adjectives anyone? ) notion that divorce is somehow "too easy"- WHAT A CROCK- it is the most wrenching and hard thing you will ever do, bar none, with or without children. I went through one, no children, and it was god awful torture.

Do you think this is something legislators, other civic leaders, or society as a whole should be attempting to reverse, or something they should be taking account of? Why?

Not really- too much intereference by goverment in private individuals lives already- want to interfere in something important? Start with corporate america, when you fix that, come back and see me

What can be done to discourage, or reflect, these changes in household structure?

Economics and riegning in corporate power. What you say? - We are practically slaves in our society- slave to materialism, slaves to "getting ahead, keeping up with the Joneses"- we don't stop to take stock of what we already have. Most of this stems from the demads of corporate America. One area that Europe, and most of the world for that matter that has some worker protections- demands PATERNATY and MATERNATY leave- PAID- that is right, PAID- no 12 weeks off if you can afford it- the working poor need this even more than the upper middle class- America should have 12 weeks PAID maternity leave per child for everyone gainfully employed. I think it would save far far far more than it ever would cost. That early bonding is what makes families stick together so much better- ESPECIALLY for men. When a man gets that early bond going, and has time to really bond with that child, he slouphs off so many other issues that may harm his relationship.

I think that issue alone would alleviate some of the family problems we have. Men get a day or two off after the baby is born, then back to work- same thing, different day, except now, he has a whiny wife and baby at home, mucking up his life. No one comes right out and says that- but you can see the stress in thier faces. Of course they are second fiddle for a bit, as it should be, the baby is the center of the families universe for a while. But give him (and the mama of course, I am not excluding them here, but they usually get some time off at least, far more than the man, which is also appropriate) some time to bond as well- instead of just feeling like a walking wallet. It allows the man to understand his wife a bit more, why she is tired and cranky, even though she "stayed home and did nothing all day"- I hear it all the time. Oh yeah? Stay at home for a few days Dad, and it you will be clamoring for work again, with a new understanding of Mama LOL

Do that one small thing, mandatory paid maternity and paternity leave, and I bet we see improvements real quick.

How do you view this demographic shift away from the nuclear family as the most typical type of household?

I don't like it, but can't do anything about it outside of my own family. I was raised in a dysfunctional family, no love, and even after all these years I still wonder why my parents even had children. They never divorced, just suffered with each other their entire lives. (They both came from broken homes) I eventually gave up with them, when I was around 30, and just enjoyed my own family. We are a close family. As grandparents, we are very involved in our grandchildren's lives, without trying to subvert their parents authority, of course. Yes, that means we spoil them, and it also means we are planning for their future, including paying for a portion of their college education.
My wife's parents are an example of how it should be. They raised 4 children. All 4 are still married to original mates. All attended college, 2 graduated. Then somehow they managed to keep all their grandchildren close in spirit if not in location, all except one out of 20. 19 married, then started a family. 18 are college graduates, another one will return from Iraq and finish his degree soon, we hope.
We have one black sheep, he spent some time in prison before he decided to get off that path, still insists on learning so many things the hard way. He is a single father now, and trying to do his best by the kids, but the drugs and alcohol that he and his former wife abused have messed up their kids. One has to live in a group home as he needs a lot of supervision.

Do you think this is something legislators, other civic leaders, or society as a whole should be attempting to reverse, or something they should be taking account of? Why?

Roll with the punches, so to speak. Deal with it and try to counter the negative effects where we can. I think the old style family still exists in certain areas, especially the western states. I wonder how much Madison Avenue and Hollywood can be blamed for this change in society.

What can be done to discourage, or reflect, these changes in household structure?

Without restricting it for good reason, divorce should not be so easy for the parents. Courts should make sure that financial responsibilities for the children are paid by the parents, not society. I see no reason to "reflect" these changes, as I don't see them as good for us as a nation.

How do you view this demographic shift away from the nuclear family as the most typical type of household?

Do you think this is something legislators, other civic leaders, or society as a whole should be attempting to reverse, or something they should be taking account of? Why?

What can be done to discourage, or reflect, these changes in household structure?

I view this shift as a natural reaction of people to economic and social pressures. As more and more adults work, and have to work to make ends meet, the benefits of becoming or remaining a nuclear family diminish. Perhaps in earlier times, folks tended to stick together because the options were worse. Today, a woman can make as much as a man (well, almost), and can get money out of a the father, such that her lifestyle doesn't diminish by having a divorce. I'm not judging this as bad or good, but, again, in earlier times, a woman would generally be much worse off after a divorce, and would likely put up with quite a bit more problems before leaving.

An associated trend, I think, is that a larger proportion of people are waiting longer before marrying and having kids. I actually think this is a good thing, and we should encourage it throughout the world . . . mostly through free & fair trade with developing nations. But that's another story.

I think legislature should view this as a symptom, rather than a disease. My guess as to the primary root cause follows this chain:
Folks have to work very hard, generally both parents, to pay for what they view as an acceptible standard of living.
Folks have to work hard because 1) real estate is expensive and 2) jobs don't pay enough.
Jobs don't pay enough because there's too much unemployment.
There's too much unemployment because our tax laws favor income from capital over income from wages. Most egregious here is the 15.3% tax on jobs - the payroll tax (on top of personal income tax).

My recommended solution is to shift the government revenue from teh payroll tax to another, less harmful source, such that the cost of employment (for the vast majority of jobs) is reduced by 15.3%, employing many of the unemployed and raising the paycheck of everyone else. Then, with higher wages, families could work less and spend more time raising their kids and being a family.

I don't think divorce is too easy, though I do think it is too easy for women to get money out of men, and believe this exacerbates the problem of divorce, and it's downstream byproducts, which tend to cost society in one form or another. I think that child support should be limited to the cost of raising a child, rather than the potential income of the father - however, I think alimony should remain as a separate issue.