Is the Family in Trouble

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 in early America, in both Catholic and Protestant families. When the eugenics movement became popularized and birth control was placed into the public, the option of limiting the family size coincided with the desire of feminists to work outside the home and abandon the domestic sphere. Economic deprivations acerbated the issue and by the 20th century, those 8 million orphaned-during-the-day children were essentially without mother or father while both went into the workplace.
That is but one example of how the family dynamic has changed since the move away from traditional norms. Another is the increase in domestic violence, which may be situated in the move away from acceptable or traditional family values. As Johnson (2006) shows, domestic violence is more of a norm today than in the past, and yet it is still not understood very well, as it is “not a unitary phenomenon,” and some acts of domestic violence are glossed over; moreover, American society is “close to a tipping point at which we will see a dramatic decline in the number of published studies that simply compare violent with nonviolent relationships without making distinctions among types of violence” (1015). Domestic violence between partners is not the only form of violence, however: there is also the problem of child abuse, which for some includes spanking a toddler as a form of discipline. The norms of child discipline that were accepted practices in the early half of the 20th century are now viewed by some as aggressive and hostile tactics that should be counted as abusive: indeed, “the European Union has called on member nations to prohibit CP. Starting with Sweden in 1979, there are now 23 nations that have ended the right of parents to hit children” (1318). This new conception of what constitutes a parent’s right and duty when it comes to disciplining a child and what constitutes an egregious display of abuse by an adult towards a child is reflective of the fragmentation of cultural norms and values in the West: some view a parent striking a child as hateful and hurtful; others view it as a necessary part of teaching the child. Context of course plays a part for the latter group and is no excuse for the former—a point which further goes to show that the two camps are irreconcilable and fostered on completely different principles. This separation has stemmed from the rift caused by revolutionary social doctrines that emerge in the 20th century to change the way people think of parenthood, family, and responsibility.
For the simple fact that there is no cultural agreement about how families should be, how parenting should be, and which spheres should be occupied by which partners (or whether partnership in family life is even required), it may be said that the family is indeed in trouble. When there is no consensus agreement about how to proceed, one must admit that there is a problem. Were one to undergo a major operation and all the doctors were fighting with one another over what was the most important thing in the operation and how it should be done, the patient might think it better to get up and leave than leave himself under their knife. Yet this is exactly the case today among families and those interested in starting families: there are so many different factions and sides constantly screaming and fighting about what is right and what is wrong that many would prefer to be left alone and figure things out on their own. But without direction from older generations, who have been there and done that, it is not always as easy as a walk in the park. Relearning old lessons that have not been passed down from one generation to another because of disruptions in the social fabric is a process and the rifts caused by revolution can be deep and divisive.
For that reason, people attempt to fix problems within the family on their own terms or to the best of their ability. This is what occurs with the remarriage, as Cherlin (1978) shows: as divorce rates have risen, so too have remarriage rates for divorcees—yet these remarriages often end in divorce as well, signifying that something is wrong that a remarriage cannot fix. Cherlin (1978) argues that the problem is that remarriage is an incomplete institution—that there are habits that persist in the family from the first marriage that cannot be reconciled with the habits of the new family. In other words, there is no consistency in terms of norms from one family to the next, which makes it doubly hard for people to find stability of any kind in any sort of family concept that is divorced from the traditional standards and norms. Though those traditional standards and norms may have had their problems and troubles, and though they were eventually despised by the feminists who emerged in the latter half to lead the way of change in the family dynamic for better or worse, those standards existed to provide consistency and their acceptance as social standards provided a norm that was consistent and coherent, supported by cultural wholeness throughout the West. The 20th century, with its two World Wars, thoroughly destroyed this consistency and coherence and helped to leave large gaps in between the “way things were” and the “way they now are.” Consistency is needed in any situation in which care is expected and required. When consistency of care is lacking in the nursing field, patient satisfaction plummets and quality of life deteriorates. This is no less true in the world of families. One should be able to move from family to family in a coherent and unified society and find that the same values and consistency of care is applicable. The fact that this consistency is gone signifies a cultural problem underneath the “family trouble” problem. It is the culture that has to be addressed fundamentally and first before the “family trouble” problem can be addressed in any meaningful way.
To address the culture problem, “a society that values caring and caring relationships” has to be defined (Glenn 2019:605). The criteria that should be used to define what it means to care must be situated in the norms that work and make sense for families today. This is difficult to achieve because of fragmentation of culture, fragmentation of families, and fragmentation of ideals. However, there is surely some common, universal meaning that applies to care that people the world over would recognize as good and helpful in this situation—and nature could provide the guidance that is needed.
So much of modern life is manufactured and fabricated that people tend to forget that there is a natural process involved in family making and that families are ultimately social—just as marriage is. The reason people wed in front of witnesses is because they are making a social commitment that used to be indissoluble but that in modern 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.

References
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