Analysis of The Way We Never Were

¶ … American Families and the Nostalgia Trap

Stephanie Coontz

It was in 1989, when historian Stephanie Coontz published an intellectual and scholarly book on the American family, the Social Origins of Private Life: A History of American Families, 1660-1900. Now, recently she has redrafted and expanded her previous study to make a valuable book that will be liked by both experts and general readers. The book is the Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap (Sheri & Bob Stritof).

The author in her book the Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap answered the fundamental & intellectual question about the family values and its myths of the past, which she continued from this simple idea that recent discussions of family policy are useless until we identify and get rid of the myths that have grown up around the subject of families in previous time (Sheri & Bob Stritof).

The Way We Never Were is as comprehensible as it is intellectual. She very creatively addressed the basic issue of how one should tackle family problems through a summarization of a huge number of studies in anthropology, gender studies, psychology, sociology, and political science (Sheri & Bob Stritof). Thus, it's a resource book for both professionals and un-professionals alike, benefiting to all those who are interested in American families' past functioning as well as how one should tackle family problems in the current scenario (Sheri & Bob Stritof).

The reason behind its success is that it has been written with conviction. The author is a historian who has placed his firm feet in the present-day. Her book is a loud, transparent voice in the modern discussion about the "crisis of the American family."

The objective of the author in the Way We Never Were is to organize all the 10 chapters topic wise, concentrating on what he recognize as a major "myth" about the American family (Sheri & Bob Stritof). These myths for example include the "traditional family" of the 1950s; the concept and notion of family privacy; the growth of gender roles; the theoretical sexual revolution; the dysfunctional black family, and the recent calamity of the family.

The topics include: the underclass, feminism, daycare, television and the family, teen pregnancy, and much more in which Coontz attempts to first review the "state of the debate" and later show an original perception.

As Coontz has structured this book around myths and half-truths, she through various arguments and debates tried to shed new light on gender roles, love, parenting, feminism, sexuality, privacy etc., giving a critical glance at how Americans long for a time that never was.

In addition, she gave many fascinating facts about marriage like (Sheri & Bob Stritof):

In the 19th century, the age of sexual permit in some states was nine or ten. While alcoholism and drug abuse were more unchecked and uncontrolled than today.

Teenage pregnancy or Teenage childbearing peaked in the often favored 1950s where families of that year were more different and less tranquil than many believed.

Marriages in pioneer times were not as successful as present day marriages nor did they lasted for longer period as compared to today.

Over the past fifty years relationship between grandparents and grandchildren have become much stronger

The Way We Never Were, through placing present family problems in the situation of important economic, political, and demographic changes explained that people did not enigmatically and all of a sudden "gone bad" (Sheri & Bob Stritof). He pointed out the ways that could help families do better. And its been in history that families have always been in changing process while being in regular crisis, and in that those families turn out to be most successful who built meaningful system outside their own limits and boundaries.

Thus, the book is an exposure of everything a reader might believe they know about families, children, parental gender roles, and socioeconomic patterns all relating to the family

Summary & Review of the book

The book is a fresh insight on nearly every page. For instance, the author skillfully summarizes dichotomous gender roles developed in the early nineteenth century so that male egoism was balanced by female self-sacrifice (Sheri & Bob Stritof). Here Coontz pointed out that since:

The sexual division of labor in the nineteenth-century middle-class family...depended on the existence of African-American, immigrant, and working-class families with very different age and gender roles" (pg 65),

He also tried to explain that without the Irish maid and the black Mammy, both working women -the Victorian family would not have been able to sustain its own inflexible divisions of gender roles. At the same time in a chapter entitled sarcastically (Sheri & Bob Stritof), "We Always Stood on Our Own Feet," Coontz explains that "the myth of self-reliance" has covered the extent to which families have been depended on government. Thus, very successfully, Coontz disproves the myth of family independence by offering several ways in which:

Americans have been dependent on collective institutions beyond the family, including government, from the very beginning"(Pg 70).

And according to her such dependency" has never been restricted to the poor, as pointed out in the book:

Middle-class and affluent Americans have been every bit as dependent on public support...and have received considerably more public subsidy than those in modest circumstances"(Pg 72).

Furthermore, the author in another chapter, "The Myth of Black Family Collapse," argued that both black families and the white, middle-class ideals are much different from each other mainly because of their different state of affairs (Sheri & Bob Stritof). However, when adaptation from the white norm took place the blacks were automatically adaptive too. Thus, this one chapter by itself represents a remarkable achievement with hundreds of endnote references to historical, statistical, and qualitative research. She concluded by stating (Sheri & Bob Stritof):

Blacks have borne the brunt of the postindustrial restructuring of the American economy"(Pg 253).

Besides, she has been analytical & critical of those who claimed that the American family is in crisis. However, she doesn't mark down the serious problems that inundated today's families (Kim, 2000). On the other hand, the others put forward moral solutions to the melancholy, while Coontz blamed the great socioeconomic reformation of current decades, like the disappearance of long-established employment centers and the demolition of previously high-paid union jobs. She argued:

Family values, forms and strategies that once coordinated personal life with older relations of production and distribution are now out of sync with economic and political trends." (Pg 257)

Observation & Studies:

The author in "In the Way We Never Were" has very critically examined the myth and the truth of the American family in times past. She gave observation that the 1930s was not like the Waltons, the 1950s was unlike the Cleavers, Nelsons, or Andersons. While, Victorian and colonial times, antebellum and post bellum America, were also not the times most of us would like to live in (Kim, 2000).

She gave a description of the diversity and challenges of family life. According to her studies, if the 50s were a good time for families, than this was in larger part because the actual salary increased by more than they had in the earlier half century (Kim, 2000). Additionally, from the period 1945 to 1960 the gross national product also increased by 250%. In spite of that most women of that era felt trapped in a life of "booze, bowling, bridge, and boredom"; while open racial discrimination was uncontrollable; gays were trapped in the closet; and physical & sexual abuse and alcoholism were regular features of every home but secretly carried out (Kim, 2000).

In the section on teenage pregnancy, the unwedded mothers confirmed that the higher rates of pregnancy arise before the legalization of birth control and the re-legalization of abortion. However, the only difference is that girls who wanted their babies were not shipped off to maternity homes or obligated to leave school.

Additionally, she points out the young girls who engage in sexual activity are not feminists because they are more likely than non-sexually active peers to have very strong dependence needs and desires as well as traditional gender roles (Kim, 2000).

Statistics:

Families in the 1930s were like the Waltons, surrounded by many generations amicably, scrimping and tried to get through the Depression in the most loving and giving manner.

Teen pregnancy was out of control and abortion was all-time high (teen pregnancy reached its peak in 1957, while abortion in the mid of 19th century) (Kim, 2000).

Black along with other minority families had some particular problems that ended up with limited members.

Families in the 1950s were happy, stable and supportive for every one.

Furthermore, the Victorian families had stringent sexual society, but at the same time manage to pay for their parents with greater equality, and grow up with dignity and well-prepared for the real world (Kim, 2000).

Many issues of the post-1960s period were due to the changes in family structure, particularly women working outside the home. Families these days are "in crisis" because all of us have lost a lot of values that used to keep a family together (Kim, 2000).

In addition, Coontz very analytically eliminated all the myths about what families used to be, how & what they are in the current time, and what they should be (Kim, 2000). However, as a reader one might notice just little discrepancy in her dispute and statistics, which may remind that all of these socio-cultural examinations have been basically constructions that tell the story in a better way or worse than each other, but not flawless (Kim, 2000).

Thus, this is just too big an issue to get the whole thing completely balanced and organized. However, her logic has been well-developed and with given facts and statistics, it derived some very outstanding conclusions. For example, in the last two chapters, she tied up the analysis and pointed it toward the future, which as a reader seemed to be with reasons and somewhat inspiring (Kim, 2000). As she stated:

For, despite all the difficulty of making generalizations about past families, the historical evidence does suggest that families have been most successful wherever they have built meaningful, solid networks and communities beyond their own boundaries. We may discover that the best thing we will ever do for our own families, however we define them, is to get involved in community or political action to help others." (p. 287-288)

However, there were times when Coontz revealed her age by supporting greater "activism," but her adaptable definition of what constitutes action makes this phrase less annoying to others in authority (Kim, 2000). She also has a good grasp on the changing times, where all families continue to get used to the shifting gender and social roles. According to her (Kim, 2000):

argued in the last chapter that the so-called "crisis of the family" is a subset of a much larger crisis of social obligation that requires us to look beyond private family relations and rebuild larger social ties" (Pg. 283).

It is not wise to think that all problems today are due to the "people's rotten values," nor it can be considered historically correct. Families have always been challenged by the times, and so the book offers an interesting and wide-ranging viewpoint of our past.

Thus, Stephanie Coontz very carefully examined myths and misinformation about marriage and family in America with a winning argument that looking behind at marriage in a regretful way can worry today's married couples and families (Kim, 2000). Though none will question her stance as liberal and feminist in general, yet she didn't leave the Democrats and the Women's Movement for their own discrepancy and shameless propagation of myths (Kim, 2000).

She made efforts not to exaggerate any of the problems in order to expose the fundamental complexity of family issues in modern America. According to her, families cannot be comprehended without careful examination of both the smaller units of the men and women who make up families along with the broader units of the economy, the societal environment, and the existing laws of the times (Kim, 2000). She opined that:

The family arrangements we sometimes mistakenly think of as traditional that became standard for a majority of Americans and a realistic goal for others, only in the postwar era" (Pg. 262).

She further argued that:

The bold truth of history after all is that "there is no one family form that has ever protected people from poverty or social disruption, and no traditional arrangement that provides a workable model for how we might organize family relations in the modern world."

Prescriptions:

Coontz's prescriptions for transforming "larger social ties" and "solid networks and communities" remind you of Native American prescriptions for growing more virtuous tribalism.

The book in other words is myth-shattering assessment of two centuries of American family life that remove the fallacy about the past that blur today's dispute about "family values" (Kim, 2000). As she pointed out "Leave it to Beaver" was not a documentary, neither the 1950s nor any other instant from past offer workable models of how to manage one's personal lives as in today.

In addition, the author without reducing the current & existing crucial problems in American families, warned that what a society & its people need is an encouraging and comforting reminiscence for basically mythical past of "traditional values" that is acting as a trap only and crushing our ability to resolve today's problems (Kim, 2000).

Coontz writes;

Seeing our own family pains as part of a larger social predicament means that we can stop the cycle of guilt or blame and face the real issues constructively."