Articles

America still hasn't adjusted to family realities in the 21st century. Here's what needs to be done and why we need to do it. 

For all the hand-wringing about how we've never seen a presidential primary season like this before, in fact, it bears a remarkable resemblance to that of 1992.

WHEN IT COMES to social thinking about families, there is such a thing as "American exceptionalism." Other Western countries tend to view people's life trajectories in light of their place in the class structure. But ever since the late-nineteenth century, Americans have typically attributed people's successes or failures to their family structures and values. This is, of course, a convenient way to reconcile our faith in individual achievement with the reality of racial and economic inequality.

During the culture wars of the 1970s and 1980s, conservative crusaders worried about threats to "traditional" families stemming from both the top and the bottom of the social ladder. In the name of "family values," they denounced educated elites for denigrating marriage, endorsing premarital sex and cohabitation, and refusing to get judgmental about divorce and unwed motherhood. The "do-your-own-thing" individualism of such people, they claimed, was bad enough for spoiled middle-class children…

The public outrage over the "religious freedom" bills recently passed in Arkansas and Indiana caught the governors of those states completely off-guard, judging by their confused and contradictory responses.

Next week a new parental leave policy goes into effect in the UK, extending the length of leave for up to 50 weeks after the birth or adoption of a baby, with 39 of the 50 weeks subsidised. After the first two weeks, a mother in a two-earner family can transfer all or some of the remaining weeks to the father, allowing her to go back to work earlier and him to stay home longer than in the past.