Change in the Nuclear Family Essay

Everyone on the planet has a family, but not everyone sees eye to eye about what constitutes as a â€Å"real† family. Since WWII, the structure of the American family has been constantly changing. The â€Å"normal† American family is known as the nuclear family, with a mother, father, son, daughter, and occasionally, a pet. But as time has progressed, the nuclear family has had to make room for larger families, single parent families, biracial families, and families with step and half relatives in them. After WWII, the American family’s structure changed drastically, with many types of families appearing, aside from the nuclear family structure. The baby boom led to larger families and an increase of child births and the women’s right movement and counterculture played part in the rise of single parent households. With minorities gaining more rights, more biracial households started to appear, while couples’ decisions to get divorces led to step families and half siblings in families. The definition of a â€Å"normal† American family has been continuously changing since the 50s, but no matter what anyone says, it is still a family. During World War II, American families were disarrayed. With approximately 16 million soldiers leaving their families and going to war, households in America were left in distress (nationalww2museum). Many men had to abandon their work positions to go to war, which left many jobs vacant. The women of America had to step up and fill the missing men’s positions in the work force, meaning many children were left parentless during the day, â€Å"In 1940 only 8. 6% of mothers with children younger than 18 were in the work force† (Boschee). Though 8. 6% does not seem high, it is higher than the percent of women employed ever before at that time. Employed women with children under the age of 18 were leaving many â€Å"latchkey children† unsupervised during working hours, causing the rate of juvenile delinquency to rise (Todd). Other children were left under the watchful eye of close friends or relatives while their mother was working. Older sons and daughters in the family also had to assume new and unfamiliar roles to help support their family while the money maker in the family was away at war. Once the war ended, and the surviving soldiers returned to their home soil in the U. S. , he familial structure in America started to change with a massive increase of births. After World War II finally came to an end, a new era started; which raised the number of children born into American families. This period of time in America’s history is known as the Baby Boom and it is when the number of births increased dramatically. During the first year of the Baby Boom, the birth rate was incredible, â€Å"In 1946, the first year of the Baby Boom, new births in the U. S. skyrocketed to 3. 47 million births. New births continued to grow throughout the 1940s and 1950s, leading to a peak in the late 1950s with 4. million births in 1957 and 1961† (Todd). The increase of births meant that more households that previously didn’t have children now housed kids and houses that already had children contained even more. The air smelled of enthusiasm and confidence during the years immediately following WWII, â€Å"Exhilaration and optimism after the war seemed to combine with a general feeling of affluence in a booming postwar economy, and generous provisions for returning GIs, to make young couples feel able and willing to support children† (Macunovich). The Baby Boom era paved a path for the nuclear family to be created, with the mother, father, son, and daughter living in a quiet little suburb with a picket white fence and a golden retriever playfully chasing the kids. But to many closed-minded American’s horror, the nuclear family succumbed to â€Å"out of the norm† family structures, with more and more single parents appearing. The rise of single-parenthood was partly on account of the counterculture, which was created because of the social and political events that happened in the 1950s. The counterculture movement â€Å"prompted many people to question traditional boundaries† (Roberts). This meant that many people had freer attitudes towards cultural norms like hairstyles, types of music, and drug use. Also, a teeming amount of people under the age of 30 had freer attitudes towards sexual relationships, with one poll showing that almost two thirds of Americans over the age of 30 were against sex before marriage, while a majority of Americans under the age of 29 were not (Roberts). Because so many Americans were having premarital sex, single parent households started to show up more often. With the two who took part in the once sacred act usually going separate ways after they had sex, the female was always left alone with a baby to bear, if she was to become pregnant. The counterculture also led to an increase of out-of-wedlock births (Himmelfarb). Both things being something most Americans living in that time period were not used to seeing. Although the counterculture movement played a big role in introducing more single-parent households into American society, it is not the only event that catalyzed more changes in the structure of American families. By the end of the 1960s, a new movement called the Women’s Rights Movement, also contributed to the rise of single-parent homes in the nation. During this second wave of feminism, women were more determined to gain equal rights. In 1963, the Equal Pay Act was passed, which ended gender discrimination in the work force, including wage (Women Deserve Equal). Because the women felt like they could depend more on themselves, they did not have to marry a man to support her family. Many militant feminists referred to marriage as â€Å"slavery† and â€Å"legalized rape† (Mintz). Some of the women that felt that way still wanted children though; just not a man to bind her to the house. Thus, creating another reason that single-parenthood started to make more appearances in American households. The counterculture and the second women’s rights movement changed the structure of American family structure in a way that made single parents more abundant throughout the nation; the civil rights movement changed the familial structure by mixing races. When African Americans gained more rights, it caused consternation to bubble up in racist Americans, while the accepting American community rejoiced and felt a better sense of security if they were to form a biracial family. The Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964 were two major acts passed by the U. S. government that gave minorities more rights and protection against racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan (Lapsansky-Werner). Biracial families were once illegal in some states, â€Å"Forty years ago, the U. S.  Supreme Court overturned a state law in Virginia that prohibited whites from marrying non-whites. The ruling in Loving v. Virginia invalidated similar bans in 15 other states† (Powell). After biracial couples could get married legally, mixed race households became more apparent. The ruling in Loving v. Virginia made a big impact on the familial structures in America. The statistics of biracial marriages has definitely rose, as seen in these statistics, â€Å"†¦black-white marriages increased from 65,000 in 1970 to 422,000 in 2005, according to Census Bureau figures† (After 40 Years). More black-white marriages have led to more children with both black and white genes. In addition to more biracial families being introduced into American society, more families with more complex structures started to appear, as well. When married couples get divorced they usually get remarried, which can lead to step and half relatives. During the 60s, fifty-two percent of women who got married were pregnant and they got married to avoid having a child out of wedlock (Shiono). This being said, it is safe to say that over half of married couples had at least one child during their marriage. Forty-five to fifty percent of first marriages end in divorce (Baker). Many people get remarried after divorcing their first spouse, with seventy five percent of people who have gone through a divorce becoming remarried (Stewart). When the father or mother gets remarried, there is always a chance his or her new spouse has children of their own already, creating step-siblings for the child they had during their first failed marriage. If the two new spouses decide to have another child, half-siblings are born. With more and more divorces and remarriages, families with half and step siblings are more likely to be found throughout the nation’s homes. Many people call homes that suffer from a divorce a â€Å"broken home,† but in reality, it is just another chance for a family to have one more shot at finding its â€Å"Happily Ever After. † Change is something that comes with life and it is something that the American family structure is no stranger to, going through constant changes throughout the years. Going from the nuclear family structure to families with more than two kids, families being raised by one parent, and families with step and half siblings, are all changes that the familial structure in America has encountered. Change in the nation’s family structure is inevitable, whether it is being brought on by an increased number of births, movements that challenge everyday thinking or ones that demand more rights. Even something like a failed marriage’s result have brought about changes in family structure in the U. S. Every family is built from different bricks but they all have the same mortar- love.