If one is to judge whether families are in trouble by the criteria of traditional values and standards, which shaped the definition of “family” prior to the second half of the 20th century, one might well agree with the relatives at the family reunion shaking their heads and muttering that the family was in trouble these days. However, as the notion of “family” has altered since mid-20th century and what is viewed as a norm of family life today is different from the norms of the early 1900s, it is safe to say that a new definition of family must be constructed before beginning to assess whether the family is in trouble. Still, just because norms change does not mean that the concept of “family” really ever alters—so it is important to keep in mind the meaning of family over the centuries as well and how that meaning still plays a part in the meaning that is embued in the word today. This paper will discuss this question and show that to the extent that families are destabilized, shrinking rather than growing, and not maintaining any sense of cohesion or moral quality (a concept traditionally tied to “family life” and to being a “family man” as far as men are concerned) there is disintegration in the family, which should be of concern to those studying the Sociology of Families.
According to Zinn, Eitzen and Wells (2016), “family in U.S. society is a symbol” that was for most of America’s history celebrated in common (3). However, as American culture fragmented in the 20th century and tribalism took hold in the latter half of the century, the symbol of family suddenly began to shift and shape and mean different things to different groups and populations. Single-parent families became the norm as half of all marriages ended in divorce by the end of the 20th century. Smaller families became the norm as parents routinely used contraception in an attempt to limit their burden. Society has aged, as Coles (2019) points out, because fewer children are being born. The economics of family life have never been easy—but the means to prevent life from becoming had never been so easy either—and by having the means to control reproduction without having to pay a social penalty for practicing those means, many families took to engaging in domestic forms of population control. The family size shrank over the course of the 20th century, divorce rates rose, and the number of broken families increased.

These families may be called “broken” because as Zinn et al. (2016) point out, “the cultural ideal of family remains unaltered by dramatic family transformations of the past few decades” (3). The ideal of family is an environment in which children are reared by a mother and father, both of whom love them and each other. The home is a place of shelter and love, stability and teaching. This ideal still persists and though families have changed, the concept of family—or rather the ideal family—remains a relatively popular one, even if most people in the U.S. do not actively pursue it or attain it. In this sense, it has taken place alongside the American Dream as something that few actually manage to obtain in their own lives but that many often find themselves longing for.

For those who do not obtain it there is a different story to be told: it is not always a dismal story, but it is potentially one that has enough problems that an onlooker might call it a plight. For instance, as Wrigley and Dreby (2005) note, there are now more than 8 million children placed in child care services during the day while their mothers and fathers work. Prior to the time when women began working alongside men outside the home, millions of children being watched by daycare services was unheard of. The woman’s sphere was the domestic sphere—her traditional duties were to raise the children while the man’s duties were to work outside the home to support the home that he and his wife fostered. Though feminist readings of this tradition have viewed it as an unequal pairing with the wife’s domestic duties deemed of less import or more constricting than the man’s (notably thanks to Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique published in 1963 and Gloria Steinem’s Ms. Magazine), the reality is that family life in a two-parent household naturally divides itself into spheres of responsibility, especially when child rearing is viewed as an ongoing process and not as something that stops after the first, second or third child. Large families were the norm among ethnic families...…times has become as tenuous as a blade of grass—easily broken. Here is a concept that should be restored and socially embraced: vows that are made in public before the public should be enforced and not allowed to be broken. Marriage vows are important because they foster that natural union between a man and woman, mother and father, and this leads the consistent and coherent provision of family life for children. Nature, if embraced fully, will typically give a mother and father many children to call their own—and those children will require a great deal of care and attention, time and money. Yet if parents who vow to commit to one another are willing to sacrifice their time and self-interest on the behalf of their families so that their families can live and have love and shelter, their parents are doing a great and meaningful and significant work that should be respected, valued and honored by society. Why is it not? Answer that question and it is likely that one will be able to answer the question to why families are in trouble today.

In conclusion, the family is a concept that has a wide range of meaning today, and that meaning can come from a number of different cultural inputs. However, there are many problems that exist in the world today because there is no consistent or coherent meaning attached to the idea of family. Families are destabilized, broken, shrinking, and failing to come together at all. There is a cultural problem at the heart of the dissolution of the family. The values associated with family life, with child rearing and child begetting have been disavowed by popular culture, which promotes independence over commitment and self-sacrifice, fun and lust-filled fantasies over monogamy and matrimony. Families are in trouble because the culture that needs to exist to give families any sense of stability has been eroded in the latter half of the 20th century, as political correctness and moral ambiguity has taken precedence in modern American and Western culture. However, in order for a culture of caring to exist, that culture has to be defined according to universal values that align with the lessons of the traditions of the past—for the present is not working—and family life shows as much.