FAMILIES OF THE FUTURE
Today we are told repeatedly that “the family” is falling iipart or that “the family” is our Number One Problem. I’resident Jimmy Carter declares, “It is clear that the national Kovernment should have a pro- family policy… There can in- no more urgent priority.” Substitutepreachers, prime min-isiers, or the press, and the pious rhetoric comes out very much the same. When they speak of “the family,” however, ilicy typically do not mean the family in all its luxuriant variety of possible forms, but one particular type of family: the Second Wave family.
What they usually have in mind is a husband-breadwinner, n wife- housekeeper, and a number of small children. While many other family types exist, it was this particular family form—the nuclear family—that Second Wave civilization idealized, made dominant, and spread around the world.
This type of family became the standard, socially approved model because its structure perfectly fitted the needs of a mass-production society with widely shared values and life-Niyles, hierarchical, bureaucratic power, and a clear separation of home life from work life hi the marketplace.
Today, when the authorities urge us to “restore” the family it is this Second Wave nuclear family they usually have hi mind. By thinking so narrowly they not only misdiagnose the entire problem, they reveal a childish naivete about what Nil ps would actually be required to restore the nuclear family to its former importance.
Thus the authorities frantically blame the family crisis on everything from “smut peddlers” to rock music. Some tell us dial opposing abortion or wiping out sex education or resist-mi’ feminism will glue the family back together again. Or 11 iey urge courses in “family education.” The chief United Males government statistician on family matters wants “more rllective training” to teach people how to marry more wisely, «>i else a “scientifically tested and appealing system for select-iiii- a marriage partner.” What we need, say others, are more marriage counselors or even more public relations to give the i innly a better image! Blind to the ways in which historical I wuvcs of change influence us, they come up with well-inten-i M ‘iied, often inane proposals that utterly miss the target.
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