Embattled Paradise by Arlene Skolinck

Embattled Paradise by Arlene Skolnick

Embattled Paradise

Title, Author, Publication Date

Arlene S. Skolnick, Embattled Paradise: The American Family in an Age of Uncertainty, 1993

Book Summary

The conflation of the evolution of the family and revolutions in society are chronicled in Skolnick's book in an optimistic and realistic treatment. With deep longitudinal research of families extending from childhood years in the 1920s, the book is objective and informed. Skolnick's interpretation is both eloquent and enlightening. With a strong research base and a social scientist's eye, Skolnick reasons that the American family has not been devastated. Countering the political right, Skolnick asserts that the changes in American family life reflect and resonate with sea change in society. In her words, "Changes in our hearts and minds are responses to large-scale social change, rather than a fall from moral grace." Skolnick firmly grounds the changes she discusses in history, economics, politics, feminism, technology, divorce, and sexual mores, extending her timeline to the Victorian era -- when the family was seen as the very foundation of social structure and society -- to a phenomenon she coins "psychological gentrification." The deluge of self-help books that have flooded the literary market from the 1960s forward perhaps best illustrates psychological gentrification.

One contemporary attribute of family life in America, according to Skolnick, is the longevity revolution. She argues the longer life spans are a substantive variable in the re-contouring of the American family. What this looks like in reality, Skolnick insists, is that the pressing needs of elder care extends across several generation, such that, care of aged parents and even grandparents may displace the anticipated time and connection between grandparents and grandchildren.

Skolnick finds reductionist the hue and cry that every social problem of the 21st century -- abortion, poverty, single parenthood, lesbian and gay relationships, feminism -- is attributed to the decline of the American family. What is at play, Skolnick asserts, is an overarching desire to return to a nostalgic place that existed only on our television screens. Media has played a strong role in casting the American family within certain parameters and expectations -- it is a Hollywood creation, according to Skolnick, and those who have believed it to be real have set themselves up to be staggeringly disappointed. A very real difficulty is when these unrealistic, non-existent family is exalted as the aim star of American society. Families will and are reshaping themselves, Skolnick reports -- and the family forms that survive may be more humanistic and honorable than anything that Hollywood could have conjured.

Section 3: Commentary

Skolnick's work comprehensively addresses the complexities of social change. Her work is informed by the literature from not only sociology, but also economics, politics, psychology, theology, and history. The themes of the book are soundly grounded in the corpus of sociology literature, yet the book is written to appeal to the thoughtful general audience as well. From our sociological lens, we know that families do not exist outside of the context of culture and society. Skolnick does an excellent job of explaining how this is true, and further, in the manner of Stephanie Coontz, she gently but firmly busts the enduring myths surrounding the American family.

Explicitly, Skolnick explains that having women become major breadwinners for their families has been less disruptive than having to take down a false mantle about what the American family might look like -- if Hollywood were in charge. Women have fundamentally always been part of a breadwinner family -- perhaps except for the brief respite bought by the Victorian era, at least for women from well-to-do families. But in the late 1950s, there was a "democratization of personhood" in which people could make a serious effort to develop themselves. It is this change that people often mistake for narcissism, holding it up as the reason why American families are falling apart at the seams. The myth has certainly taken hold with the conservative Right, and Skolnick explains how this has become a dominant viewpoint. Her theories are strengthened by the academic research on families that we have reviewed.

Section 4: Impressions

I do agree with the author's main ideas about the changes in the family being a reflection of considered change in society. As I see society becoming more tolerant of diversity -- and as I observe the inevitable backsliding that occurs as conservatives lament the loss of something that is truly only imaginary -- I recognize how significant this forward progress is to the development of a healthy society that does not permit structural violence and does not condone cultural violence.

Doubtless, my gender tends to give me a different perspective when reading this book than I might have if I was male. Further, my political leaning is decidedly liberal. This combination creates in me an acceptance of social change -- which in the 21st century, has been largely beneficial to women -- and does not make me fearful of movement away from tradition or convention. Quite the contrary, it is reference to a nostalgic no-woman's land that causes me to be anxious and guarded.

I applaud Skolnick's argument that the field knows more about families and gender roles than it ever has -- ever! That is remarkable and laudable. And that I champion this position clearly exposes my elitism with regard to academic and scientific knowledge. I am less inclined to accept conventional wisdom than an evidence-based corpus of knowledge. Moreover, my understanding of research in the area of marriage and family generates a medley of emotions. I am proud of the progress that women have made in developed countries. I am sickened by the inequities that exist in less developed countries, and by the threat of erosion of the status and rights of women in my own society. Further, I am inordinately saddened by the knowledge that the children of single parents are more likely to live in poverty, and that the children of divorced parents do often report that their parents' divorce was inordinately hard on them.