{"id":722,"date":"2016-04-26T08:26:02","date_gmt":"2016-04-26T13:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/?p=722"},"modified":"2016-06-06T10:07:13","modified_gmt":"2016-06-06T15:07:13","slug":"optimism-about-families-beyond-the-way-we-never-were","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/2016\/04\/26\/optimism-about-families-beyond-the-way-we-never-were\/","title":{"rendered":"Optimism about families beyond the way we never were"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_723\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-723\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-723\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/files\/2016\/04\/america-1312790_960_720-300x150.png\" alt=\"photo via pixabay.com\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/files\/2016\/04\/america-1312790_960_720-300x150.png 300w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/files\/2016\/04\/america-1312790_960_720-768x384.png 768w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/files\/2016\/04\/america-1312790_960_720-600x300.png 600w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/files\/2016\/04\/america-1312790_960_720.png 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-723\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">photo via pixabay.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Last month, the <a href=\"https:\/\/contemporaryfamilies.org\/\">Council on Contemporary Families (CCF)<\/a> released a brief report, <a href=\"https:\/\/contemporaryfamilies.org\/the-way-we-still-never-were-brief-report\/\">\u201cThe way we <em>still <\/em>never were,\u201d<\/a> to coincide with the new, revised, and updated 2016 version of Stephanie Coontz\u2019s classic book, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Way-We-Never-Were-Nostalgia\/dp\/0465098835\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1461358214&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=the+way+we+never+were\"><em>The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap<\/em><\/a>. As a result, journalists identified many trends they saw as positive:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>All mothers\u2014single, married, and working\u2014are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.deseretnews.com\/article\/865652449\/QA-Marriage-expert-says-home-roles-for-men-and-women-have-changed-over-time.html\">spending more time with their kids<\/a> than stay-at-home mothers did in 1965. Even fathers are doing three times the amount of childcare that they used to.<\/li>\n<li>Since the 1990s, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.startribune.com\/rosenblum-the-good-news-about-the-way-we-really-are\/375565131\/\">juvenile crime, sexual assaults, and intimate partner violence have declined<\/a> by over 60 percent. And in the 1990s, <a href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/article\/132001\/way-never\">domestic violence and child abuse rates<\/a> were still lower than in the 1950s.<\/li>\n<li>Americans are becoming <a href=\"http:\/\/national.deseretnews.com\/article\/19070\/although-few-americans-approve-of-divorce-their-beliefs-on-cohabitation-are-softening.html\">more accepting of cohabitation.<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.startribune.com\/rosenblum-the-good-news-about-the-way-we-really-are\/375565131\/\">Teenage pregnancy rates are lower<\/a> than they have ever been.<\/li>\n<li>Close to 60 percent of Americans <a href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/article\/132001\/way-never\">support same-sex marriage.<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/ijpr.org\/post\/good-old-days-eyes-wide-open#stream\/0\">Divorce rates are decreasing<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Couples who have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/2016\/03\/30\/the_family_values_sham_research_shows_that_most_of_these_90s_fears_were_nonsense\/\">egalitarian relationships have better sex<\/a> and happier marriages than those who have a more \u201ctraditionally\u201d gendered division of labor, which was not the case in the past.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Along with these good-news stories, media covered some persistent problems, including the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/posteverything\/wp\/2016\/04\/04\/american-policy-fails-at-reducing-child-poverty-because-it-aims-to-fix-the-poor\/\">17 percent child poverty rate and increasing economic inequality<\/a> facing American families. Even that narrative has a curious positive spin: We\u2019re so late to the game that other <a href=\"https:\/\/contemporaryfamilies.org\/the-way-we-still-never-were-brief-report\/\">countries have provided a blueprint<\/a> for how to fix these age-old problems. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alternet.org\/books\/americans-are-nostalgic-family-life-never-existed\">They have done so, according to Coontz<\/a>, because \u201cpolitical leaders in those countries try to deal with present-day realities instead of blaming their citizens for abandoning a largely mythical Gold Age of family life.\u201d Several Scandinavian countries, for instance, have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alternet.org\/books\/americans-are-nostalgic-family-life-never-existed\">child poverty rates at one third<\/a> of America\u2019s at the same time that they have more diverse families than in America.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kansascity.com\/opinion\/opn-columns-blogs\/mary-sanchez\/article70800002.html\">Mary Sanchez of the Kansas City Star<\/a> considered this good news about diverse American families in the context of the upcoming election:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can\u2019t make America great \u2018again,\u2019 a la Donald Trump, if you are clueless to what work life really looked like for most of the 20th century\u2026 You can\u2019t restore traditional family values, a la Ted Cruz, if you start with an interpretation of family that never existed in America\u2026 And you certainly won\u2019t resonate as a ceiling crasher for women, a la Hillary Clinton, if you continue to encourage policies and business structures that promote inequality between men and women and high- and low-wage workers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>America\u2019s increasingly diverse families have been incredibly resilient even though family policies still cater to the <a href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/article\/132001\/way-never\">mythical \u201ctraditional\u201d family<\/a>. So instead of being blind to the progress that families have made in the past few decades, why not recognize the benefits of America\u2019s diversifying families and support policies that build on the trajectory illustrated in Coontz\u2019s brief report and her new, revised book? The coverage of Coontz\u2019s new work points in that direction, and her brief report and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-Way-Never-Were-Nostalgia\/dp\/0465098835\/?tag=alternorg08-20\">book<\/a> provide even more material to stoke imaginations and policy.<\/p>\n<div class='author-bios author-bios-bottom'>\n<p><em>Braxton Jones is a graduate student in sociology at the University of New Hampshire, and serves as a CCF Graduate Research and Public Affairs Scholar.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last month, the Council on Contemporary Families (CCF) released a brief report, \u201cThe way we still never were,\u201d to coincide with the new, revised, and updated 2016 version of Stephanie Coontz\u2019s classic book, The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap. As a result, journalists identified many trends they saw as positive: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1903,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38846],"tags":[13248,70,29822,320,19890,3432],"class_list":["post-722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-heard-around-ccf","tag-cohabitation","tag-family","tag-family-policy","tag-marriage","tag-marriage-equality","tag-same-sex-marriage"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=722"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":765,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions\/765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}