Text 1. US Families

American culture changed radically in the 1960s. The Sixties glorified personal freedom and attacked authority and convention, including traditional family life. The new search for individual happiness set the stage for sweeping changes in US family life. The typical nuclear family of the 1950s, with its working father and stay-at-home mother, is no longer typical at all.

In the 1990s, the typical mother is more likely to be out in the work force. She is working for personal satisfaction or economic reason or, more probably, a combination of the two. With mother and father both working, children of the Nineties spend more time alone and unsupervised. Many come home from school to an empty house. Child experts worry about the disappearance of discipline in families where working parents have limited time for their children.

Another change is that the number of single-parent families, especially those with women at the head, has increased dramatically. This is because about 60% of all marriages in the US now end in divorce, and the majority of people who divorce have children under 18. Also, births for unmarried – mainly teenage – mothers have risen sharply. As a result, more and more American children are living in fatherless homes.

One positive change in the US is in the new roles for men in the family. Many fathers are present at the birth of their babies today. And they are more likely willing to change diapers and cook dinner. It is no long seen as unmasculine to care for children and do household chores.

American families are less stable and lasting than those of most cultures. The high rate of divorce in American families is, perhaps, the most important indicator of this instability.

The American attitude toward the family contains many contradictions. For example, Americans will tolerate a good deal of instability in their families, including divorce, in order to protect such falls as freedom and equality. On the other hand, they are strongly attached to the idea of the family as the best of all lifestyles. A recent survey showed that 78 percent of Americans felt that the family was the most meaningful part of life and 92 percent said it was a very important personal value to them. In fact, the great majority of persons who get divorced find a new partner and remarry.

Some social scientists have explained this apparent contradiction in an interesting way. Americans, they say, look upon the family as a necessary refuge from the competitive world outside. Competition and hard work are basic American values, but they also place a psychological strain on the individual. By contrast, the family is basically a non-competitive co-operative institution. Family members are not expected to compete against each other as they do against their peers in the outside worlds of business, politics, and education. Rather, the ideal of the American family is group co-operation to help achieve the fulfilment of each individual member, and shared affection to renew each member’s emotional strength.

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