Articles
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Since the last presidential election, "values" has been a buzzword for political pundits and talking heads. Politicians on both sides of the aisle
have rushed to affirm their commitment to strong family values and the
traditional value of marriage.
Los Angeles Times
For the last 30 years, rising rates of youth violence, substance abuse and suicide have been blamed on two social pathologies: divorce and unwed
motherhood. We have been told that unless we can reverse the tide of family
dysfunction, these trends will engulf us.
In 1998, a British economist claimed that the collapse of shotgun marriages
was leading inexorably to a modern social disaster on the same order as
the Irish potato famine of 1846-49.
Washington Post
Thirteen years ago, Vice President Dan Quayle attacked the producers of TV sitcom's Murphy Brown for letting her character bear a child out of wedlock, claiming that the show's failure to defend traditional family values was encouraging America's youth to abandon marriage.
Washington Post
Nearly every week, the U.S. Census Bureau releases a new set of figures on American families and the living arrangements they have been creating
in the past decade. And each time, as the media liaison for a national
association of family researchers, I'm bombarded with telephone calls from
radio and television producers seeking a talking head to confirm the wildly
differing -- and usually wrong -- conclusions they've jumped to about what
those figures say…
The Washington Post
At a recent talk in Chicago I gave about the dangers of romanticizing "traditional" families, a young man asked me if I didn't think the mass rallies of the men's group
Promise Keepers in football stadiums across the country represented "potential
fascism." I argued, to considerable skepticism from my audience, that
however disturbing the ideology of the leaders, the motivations that bring
thousands of men together for these events are not fascist, or even explicitly…
The Star Tribune
Stephanie Coontz, author of The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with American's Changing Families, offers her take on the following social
issues:
Wayward Teens
There's no evidence that most teens are any more irresponsible or destructive
than teens were in the past, but they lack something that many older men
grew up with: meaningful work with adult mentors.
Apprenticeships, summer jobs in their parents' workplace and community service
are possible remedies.