People like to talk about the “good old days,” when convention ruled, mothers stayed home, and people rarely divorced, as if they are something we’ve collectively lost as a culture and should strive to return to. But in our research and discussion of this topic, we found that it’s actually a lot more, well, complicated than that. The structure of families has changed tremendously over the past century, and much of it has to do with women’s liberation. On this episode, we get into the how, why, and what’s next of the structure of the American Family.

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Links
Pew Research on Changing Families
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2015/12/17/1-the-american-family-today/#:~:text=Family%20life%20is%20changing.,and%20the%20drop%20in%20fertility

WaPo on Dominant Family Forms
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2014/09/04/for-the-first-time-since-the-1950s-there-is-no-typical-u-s-family/

The Changing American Family (NYtimes, 2013) https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/26/health/families.html

The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake (Atlantic, David Brooks, 2020) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-nuclear-family-was-a-mistake/605536/

Evolution of American Family Structure (online.csp.edu): https://online.csp.edu/resources/article/the-evolution-of-american-family-structure/

The Real Story of the American Family (Stephanie Coontz): https://www.stephaniecoontz.com/node/356