Now, in my sixties, I reflect upon how most of the first three decades of my life were in a world which idealized the nuclear family. Divorce was the ultimate scandal and in the “proper” world, no one was gay. In my first year of teaching at age 23, the AIDS epidemic was the cover story of the New York Times Sunday magazine. As a “contemporary values” teacher at a performing arts school, we discussed AIDS for a week. It was considered risque. The head of department had been living with a woman for three decades from 1950-1982, but her partner was never to come to school.
The head of the school, while supportive, could not take the risk: parents might be upset. She did not want to be asked to fire the teacher. Consistently, choosing to look the other way, that society tended to shun any family forms which were not nuclear.
We are no longer in that world of one acceptable path: the nuclear family. Whether one is a strong advocate of traditional family values or of polyamorous relationships, the facts remain: the traditional nuclear family has been morphing for decades. This month’s column serves to neither advocate any one lifestyle nor promote a political agenda. Rather, it is presented as a thought piece to help consider the implications of changing norms and our acceptance, or lack thereof, of change.
The idea of a nuclear family as two heterogenous adults with children in a single house is a relatively new concept. Centuries ago, people often married to gain property rights or to move social class. Think: Pride and Prejudice or Bridgerton. Parents were in a twit about their daughters marrying into wealth or status.. However, by the 1850s, three quarters of Americans were living in extended nuclear families in which one building housed those 65 or older, adult children and grandchildren.
The nuclear family took a stronghold in post World War II with the upswing in economic prosperity and growth in manufacturing and consumer goods. In the 1950s, the June Cleavers of Leave it To Beaver, idealized the nuclear family: middle class, patriarchal and child centered. It was a time when a man, college educated or not, could bring in enough money to support a wife and two children and own a car and a house.The dad was the breadwinner and mom stayed home. I recall my mother, who finished high school in the early 1940s saying that her friends were not all that interested in getting an BA from college. Instead, the goal: an MRS. It was a time when families sat around the table each night, ate meatloaf dinners and went on family outings. The kids played in the neighborhoods after school.
Since the 1950s, 60s and 70s, roles have changed significantly. Women no longer stay home until marrying, women seek higher levels of education and no longer place top priority on forming a family. According to the census 2021,only 50 percent of adults live with a spouse and the number has been decreasing decade by decade while the percentage of adults living with an unmarried partner has increased. Less than one-quarter (24 percent) of children under age 15 live in a family with a married-couple families. Gay marriage is legal and more households are multi-generational and acknowledge LGBTQ members.
Clearly, the Leave it To Beaver idyllic family has undergone changes. We now have hit sitcoms such as the 13 season Modern Family with gay couples, an adopted Asian child and multi-generational homes. Today,e have adults relieved to come out gay after living in heterosexual marriages and have more people embracing alternatives to the nuclear family. At the same time, in many parts of the country, these changes are slow and unwelcome.
The one thing I know as a 64-year-old woman is that I really don’t know much. I do, however, recognize pain. I see the angst of strong supporters of family values who struggle upon discovering that a child is gay or that a child is living “in sin” before marriage. I have listened to sperm donors lament about being distanced from biological children. I have watched a coach lose his job of fifteen when he acknowledged his homosexuality and married his partner -of course, in theory, the firing had little to do with his choice to marry. Changes in the nuclear family have brought much pain, have led to job losses and medical discrimination but that is not to say the change is bad. It is however, hard.
I do not advocate one family form or to suggest what is morally right. I merely suggest that we might work toward a more cohesive society by looking at all the options and trying to embrace other lifestyles. Can we look forward to our future and consider being a more accommodating country? Can we recognize the pain and or relief in others when they open up their hearts and are vulnerable and make changes? Listening, learning and thinking might make us a tad kinder.
Robin Howe