Relation To Marriage and The Nuclear Family
Modern family structures in the past and present vary from what was typical of the 1950s nuclear family. The families of the second half of the 19th century and early 20th century in the United States were characterized by the death of one or both parents for many American children. In 1985, the United States is estimated to have been home to approximately 2.5 million post-divorce, stepfamily households containing children. During the late 80s, almost 20% of families with children headed by a married couple were stepfamilies.
Over the past three decades rates of divorce, single parenting, and cohabitation have risen precipitously. Nontraditional families (which diverge from "a middle-class family with a bread-winning father and a stay-at-home mother, married to each other and raising their biological children") constitute the majority of families in the United States today. Shared Earning/Shared Parenting Marriage (also known as Peer Marriage) where two heterosexual parents are both providers of resources and nurturers to children has become popular. Modern families may also have single-parent headed families caused by divorce or separation, families who have two parents who are not married but have children, or families with same-sex parents. With artificial insemination, surrogate mothers, and adoption, families do not have to be formed by the heteronormative biological union of a male and a female. Heteronormative culture "privileges heterosexuality as normal and natural" and fosters a climate where LGBTQ are discriminated against in marriage, tax codes, and employment.
The consequences of these changes for the adults and children involved are heavily debated. In a 2009 Massachusetts spousal benefits case, developmental psychologist Michael Lamb testified that parental sexual orientation does not negatively affect childhood development. "Since the end of the 1980s... it has been well established that children and adolescents can adjust just as well in nontraditional settings as in traditional settings," he argued. However, conservative columnist Maggie Gallagher argues that heteronormative social structures are beneficial to society because they are optimal for the raising of children. Australian-Canadian ethicist Margaret Somerville argues that "giving same-sex couples the right to found a family unlinks parenthood from biology".
Read more about this topic: Heteronormativity
Famous quotes containing the words relation to, relation, marriage, nuclear and/or family:
“Whoever has a keen eye for profits, is blind in relation to his craft.”
—Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)
“Parents ought, through their own behavior and the values by which they live, to provide direction for their children. But they need to rid themselves of the idea that there are surefire methods which, when well applied, will produce certain predictable results. Whatever we do with and for our children ought to flow from our understanding of and our feelings for the particular situation and the relation we wish to exist between us and our child.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)
“But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse”
—William Blake (1757–1827)
“The problems of the world, AIDS, cancer, nuclear war, pollution, are, finally, no more solvable than the problem of a tree which has borne fruit: the apples are overripe and they are falling—what can be done?... Nothing can be done, and nothing needs to be done. Something is being done—the organism is preparing to rest.”
—David Mamet (b. 1947)
“If family violence teaches children that might makes right at home, how will we hope to cure the futile impulse to solve worldly conflicts with force?”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)