Speeches

Vulnerability in the Changing American Family

For Sale by Owner: Complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica - No longer needed. Got married and wife knows everything. 

And this one: "Wedding dress for sale, size 10; Worn once by mistake."

Our society openly pokes fun at marriage and life surrounding it, yet we expect a lot from the institution of marriage. In a recent survey, most Italians said the main purpose of marriage is to have children. Seventy percent of Americans think marriage should make them happy.

Today's talk is somewhat serendipitous because it was nearly 20 years ago in a similar presentation to NCFR members as the organization's outgoing president that I featured questions about how the family could survive amid myriad demographic, structural and functional vulnerabilities. In that talk, I delved into the question of how children from dysfunctional families who experience abuse, poverty, fear, inadequate housing, hunger, and other detrimental factors could possibly come away from those experiences with a view of a positive family life for themselves. I posed questions about how one migrates from the sometimes troubled family of our parents to a healthy family for our children.  And I questioned whether the American family, with its contemporary variations and character, could even persist given the demographic and social changes that continue to evolve. In other words, I pondered, how do we bequeath family continuity?

Yet here we are two decades later, facing continuing and even exacerbated challenges to family structure, a rising trend in unmarried adults, an increase in risky behavior, a decline in marriage rates, and still high infant mortality rates for some groups.

 But somehow, the family survives as a fundamental social institution. Just like journalists of the 1970s and 1980s, today's media also focus on the disintegration of the family. While I will touch on these issues today to provide context, I want to draw special attention to the persistence of families and our responsibility as researchers and practitioners to discover patterns of resiliency-- patterns that we must share with society so that they can be highlighted and exploited. 

Non-family households have always existed, but they were most often made up of elderly individuals.  Today, family households are on the decline and homes now consist of more singles and couples without children. As late as 1960, married families made up almost three-quarters of all households; but by the 2000 Census they accounted for just 53 percent of households--and that number has declined since then.

But families do persist. 

There is little question that the way Americans work and live has changed in recent years, and those changes have significantly impacted the family. In a recent national study of parents, 64 percent reported that time pressures on working families are getting worse, and nearly three-quarters said they don't have enough time with their children. 

Today, many families say that two paychecks are needed just to put food on the table. Dual-income couples are commonplace, and 72 percent of mothers are in the labor force. Three out of five children under age 6 (about 12 million) are cared for by someone other than their parents on a regular basis, while 47 percent of children in kindergarten through third grade and 53 percent in grades 4 through 8 received non-parental child care. That doesn't even take into account the 22 percent of children who care for themselves regularly either before or after school.

The other day I overheard my neighbor's 9-year-old son talking with a 10-year-old friend about a computer simulation game where you create a character, build a house, make friends, feed them, create a job, and so on.  The 10-year-old was apparently trying to learn the ins and outs of the game, and he received this advice from his friend: "Whatever you do, don't create kids. They don't bring in any money and all they do is eat."

           On a more serious note, there was a story in the news in August about a woman here in Pennsylvania who left her child in her car with the windows down during a storm while she went into the house. Her child was found by a neighbor, crying and covered with debris and leaves that had come in through the sunroof and windows. The woman said she was exhausted from the day and had accidentally fallen asleep after forgetting her child was in the car.

Earlier this year, a man drove his two school-age children to school, but forgot his toddler remained in the back, strapped in a car seat. He went in to work, and during the day heard his car alarm go off several times. He ignored it. When he went out at day's end, the child had succumbed to the heat. Have we, as a society become so busy and harried that we are forgetting our children? Parenting is in competition with other aspects of family life. 

Work, structural changes, and societal forces all result in changes to the family, and these factors must be analyzed for their interdependence because they all carry with them consequences for family life and for the children in those families.

            So what does the family look like today? 

As I said 20 years ago, and it is even more true today, there is no normative family structure in today's society.

When I visited the issue of families in the 1980s, the growth in cohabitation among couples, changes in childbearing, the rate of divorce, the rise in single-parent households, and issues related to two-income families were taking center stage.

Today, those same demographic forces are still in focus, as well as a rise in father-headed households, increases in non-family households, and a further delay in both marriage and childbearing. Less than half of all children live in a traditional nuclear family with both biological parents and no half- or step-siblings. For African-American children, only one-quarter live in what was once considered a "traditional nuclear family."

Even using words like "traditional" and "nuclear family" seem out of step.  I offer this story as an example: I was browsing in a local store when a young couple came in with a little boy in tow. I couldn't help but notice that the father was in full punk regalia: spiked hair, black leather gloves, snake tattoos, and nose and eyebrow piercings.  Later I saw him running through the store frantically calling for his son. Relieved when he found the boy he embraced him and admonished, "Don't go where mommy and daddy can't see you. A scary man might grab you."  To be fair, that was in New York, not Pittsburgh.

When you knock on the front door of a house or apartment today, what do you find? Well, first of all you would find a smaller average household than you would have found decades ago. There are more childless couple households and the women who are giving birth are now having fewer children, spaced further apart.

Many of today's married family couples are remarried, and many of the children within these homes are stepchildren. In fact, 50 percent of the 60 million children under the age of 13 in the United States are currently living in a stepfamily arrangement.

That same knock on a different door might show you a family that is not defined by marriage at all, but by cohabitation. Today, nearly 5 million opposite-sex couples live together, and 40 percent of those households include children.  As you know, there has been a rapid increase in cohabitation among adults over the past several decades.  As Americans substitute less binding unions for traditional marriage ties, how do the needs of children come into focus?

Couples today cite many reasons for living together, including financial considerations such as housing costs, as well as concern over the high rate of divorce, which incidentally has dropped since its peak in 1981. But dont break out the champagne just yet.

Most never-married cohabitating parents live together in response to a pregnancy, but don't necessarily believe they should stay in the relationship because of shared children. Instead, their living relationship may be viewed as a practical response to parenthood that allows them to share expenses and responsibilities.

As you know, a growing segment of cohabiting couples is same-sex couples, a phenomenon barely on the fringes of public discussion two decades ago. They now account for about 600,000 households in the U.S.--about 1 percent of all coupled households. No one knows exactly just how many American children are being raised by gay and lesbian couples, but one conservative estimate is at least 166,000.

It is unfortunate that the family has become so politicized and people have chosen sides on their definition of family. This politicization is an additional complication in family life today--one that we could do without. I am proud that this organization has been an advocate for families regardless of definitions of gender, sexual orientation, and varied structural arrangements. It is imperative that we stay focused on the state of the American family--regardless of how that is defined-- and in helping all families remain strong. 

Another demographic phenomenon is single-parent households.  In 1960 only nine percent of all children lived in single-parent families. By 2006 the percentage had jumped to 28 percent.  The majority of these households are headed by women, but we cannot ignore the growth in single father-headed households--there are about 2.5 million single fathers today. In total, about a quarter of all children in the U.S. live in single-parent families and half will do so at some time in their lives.

Although the social stigma surrounding single motherhood has faded somewhat, unwed motherhood and its effects have been well documented. There is evidence that suggests children raised by single moms are at an increased risk for virtually every social problem--poverty, crime, drug-use, school failure, and single parenthood themselves. While not all children from single-parent homes succumb to these dangers, these families, are often considered "fragile."

In decades past, much of the discussion about unwed mothers focused on teens.  In fact, when the issue began to gain major public attention decades earlier, it was because teenagers had the highest rates of births outside marriage. But today, older women are taking center stage with out-of-wedlock births, and the teen birth rate has hit a record low.      

The good news here is that fewer teens are having sex without contraceptive protection. This trend means lower risk of venereal diseases, lower risk of pregnancy, and thus lower risk of having a child with immediate and long-term difficulties. It also means more young people are completing high school--a critical factor for establishing economic stability.

As the stigma for out-of-wedlock births has weakened, 37 percent (or 1.5 million) of all births in the U.S. are to unwed mothers.  A disproportionate percentage of these women are black.  In addition, the out-of-wedlock birth rate for Hispanics is now nearly 50 percent. 

While there has been a rise in college-educated unwed mothers, the bulk of unwed births are to women in their twenties who are not college-educated and are not prospering. The delay in marriage has contributed to this increase in unmarried births. Both women and men are now waiting longer to marry, but they are not waiting longer to have sex, so we may continue to see a rise in unmarried parents and single-parent households.

And while it may seem that the growing importance of the careers of women may have played a large role in the marriage delay, the statistics say that in reality, it's less-educated women who are more frequently living on their own. In fact, for the college-educated segment of our population, David Popenoe comments that the institution of marriage appears to have gained strength in recent years. For everyone else, however, marriage continues to weaken. Thus there is a growing "marriage gap" in America, between those who are well-educated and those who are not.

Let's knock on two more doors in our search for family. Behind the first door, you may find a family of immigrants, since one out of every five U.S. children now live in an immigrant family. And while both parents may be present, these children often face poverty, linguistic isolation, inadequate education, and the overall risk of growing up without a full complement of opportunities. But some researchers are pondering if immigrants, who come with more traditional views of family, might positively influence changes in our culture and social experiences. Our Hispanic population is expected to reach 25 percent of the total population by 2050. 

And if we were to knock on one last door, we might find grandparents heading the family, because there are 5.7 million of them living with grandchildren, and more than half of these grandparents are responsible for the basic needs of the children in their house. These second-time around parents are a diverse group and range from their thirties to their seventies -- and let me tell you, they have interesting stories about their re-entry into the parenting realm. 

I know of one grandparent who is raising a second grader. The little girl came home from school and said, "Grandma, guess what? We learned how to make babies today." The grandmother, more than a little surprised, tried to keep her cool. "Really?" she said. "So, how do you make babies?" 

"It's simple," the little girl replied. "You just change the "Y" to "i" and add "e-s."

Although grandparent-headed households have a significantly higher poverty rate than other kinds of family units, grandparents can provide important stability to the lives of children.

Now that we've been around the block and I have borrowed the results of much of your collective research, we can clearly see that divorce is still common, even while rates have stabilized, but marriage rates are declining; fertility levels are at their lowest in history, but single women having children are increasing as is single-parenthood for both mothers and fathers. The majority of mothers are working, people are marrying later and bearing children later, cohabitation is becoming a normative experience, and blended and extended families, half-siblings, and stepsiblings are all part of the vocabulary of today's child. All of this information leaves no doubt that the American family experience is profoundly diverse. 

Throughout history, marriage has been portrayed in varying ways--but one mainstay has been its role in sponsoring procreation and raising children. Not so today. Our attitudes toward marriage have changed and we are experiencing what some of our colleagues have called "a loss of child centeredness" --meaning that children are no longer the reason for marriage and vice versa.

It's somewhat hard to imagine this loss of child centeredness, particularly when we are surrounded by parents who schedule their children's play dates, chauffeur them to every imaginable practice, video their every move from drooling to dance recitals (sometimes putting them on YouTube) and earning the title of "helicopter parent" as they closely watch every step of their young adult children's transition to college. You would be shocked at the number of parents who write directly to me as a university president to solve roommate problems, settle grade disputes, inquire about the 3 a.m. whereabouts of their daughters, or complain about their child's football tickets. And I am not kidding when I tell you that a few of them are the parents of GRADUATE STUDENTS!

But believe it or not--there is good news. Although some believe that the contemporary American family is undergoing a metamorphosis, we surely also can see there is basis for hope.  With these things in mind, let's shift our thoughts from the vulnerability of families to their resilience.

America is still the most marrying of Western nations, with about 85 percent of Americans expected to marry sometime in their lives. Some are happier than others, of course.  In fact, a friend of mine who is a registered dietitian was recently addressing a conference audience about the risks and consequences of eating some foods. She began by telling her audience that sugar, trans fat, and sodium were just a few of the culprits responsible for bad health.  

She then asked if anyone in the audience could  name the most dangerous food of all--a food that could cause grief for years after eating it. 

An elderly man in the front row stood up and without hesitation said, "wedding cake."

Despite that attitude, every day there are about 6,000 weddings across our country and, in an international survey, only 10 percent of Americans said that "marriage is an out-dated institution."

Obviously, marriage still matters, and tradition is hard to kill.

I offer an example from the area of Pennsylvania where I live. There is a longstanding tradition there known as the Grange Fair.  Some of you may have heard of it. It's the nation's oldest encampment fair where more than 900 families come to set up tents and camp for 10 days beginning the last week of August-- right on the fairgrounds. Many of these campers are descendents of the original Grangers and they maintain the exact tent site used by their ancestors. These tent sites are handed down through families and there is a waiting list of hundreds who want to break into the tradition but cannot. In fact, the sticking point in more than one divorce case in Centre County has revolved around who would get the Grange Fair campsite in the settlement.

So the longevity of an institution contributes to its staying power--and marriage certainly has staying power. In fact, for the next generation, marriage and family both remain important goals. According to the Monitoring the Future survey, conducted annually by the Institute for Social Research, teens expressed a great desire to marry and raise children. In fact, teens appear to be moving in a more conservative direction on some measures.

To return to the theme advanced at the outset, our challenge, then, is to consider how the family can evolve, in fact how the family can survive. Somehow, despite the weakened state of today's family, we are still bequeathing continuity. Somehow, we are still raising children to believe in the benefits and the positive outcomes brought by family life.

In 1988, I expressed cautious optimism about the survival of family, and I will again say that I am optimistic. Families are persisting, in different forms, but none-the-less they are persisting. We are able to bequeath continuity of family because there are so many advantages to being in a family. Families fill a void in our lives and fulfill our need for intimacy. As the world has become more impersonal, our need for human connections remains. People want to feel connected, and while intimacy today can be found outside of marriage and in friendships, human beings are still seeking more permanence from intimacy and from their relationships. 

Families provide stability, economic and emotional support, and a basis for nurturing the socialization process.  

Families protect us. I was watching a Little League baseball game recently and at one point during the game, the coach pulled aside one of his players and began explaining teamwork, cooperation, and good sportsmanship. 

"So, you understand that when a strike is called, or you're out at first base, you don't argue or curse or attack the umpire?" the coach said, and the little boy nodded that he understood.

"Good," said the coach. "Now go over there and explain it to your mother." 

It's difficult to be in a family today, but children are resilient. Much of our concern about the family's future is focused on children. What are their prospects based on all that we know to date? Clearly, there are some children suffering the consequences of a weakened family structure, but marshaling the forces of resiliency by building on individual and interpersonal strengths is key to the continuity of succeeding generations.

I spoke with a student recently who told me that her parents were divorced and she was raised mostly by her father. Her mother had remarried and she had step-siblings. Her father had remarried and she also had half-siblings. She was familiar with shuttling between two homes that were two states apart. Her description of her "family," as complex as it seemed, was offhand and matter-of-fact -- yet it had contributed to the person she had become. A successful student-athlete in a Division I sports program. A scholarship recipient.  A good student. And a young woman with drive and a plan to work in the film industry.  In her case, any negative impact of her parents' life situations on her upbringing had seemingly been overcome.

Children and young adults are capable of transcending the choices made by their parents. In fact, children can teach adults a lot. For example, the words "play dough" and "microwave" should never be used in the same sentence; pool filters do NOT like Jell-o; and a king size waterbed holds enough water to fill up a 2,000-square-foot house four inches deep.

But children also possess tremendous coping abilities and much of that resiliency is based on how connected they feel, how safe they feel, and what they believe about themselves.  Children's social and emotional problems have many causes, and while we know that dysfunction runs in families, that has more to do with the continuity of socio-economic status than anything else. As professionals in the field, we need to help families enhance the resilient traits.

Through our work, we must help the public see that the family is in jeopardy--but that policies that only focus on the promotion of marriage must be supplemented by policies that pursue educational and economic outcomes.  Policies that only see the family in the traditional mold of the past are ignoring the realities of society today.

It is our job to provide the data that will inform public policy and give us the credibility to enter into discussion about policy proposals that affect families. As practitioners and researchers, we must continue to translate our research findings so that the public becomes acutely aware of the condition of marriage and family life today.

It reminds me of a story you've probably heard about a radio conversation between a U.S. naval ship and Canadian authorities off the cost of Newfoundland.

    The Americans asked the Canadians to "please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision."

The Canadians responded: "We recommend YOU divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision." 

The Americans indignantly responded: This is the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln. I demand that YOU change your course 15 degrees North, or counter-measures will be taken to ensure the safety of our vessels.  

The Canadians answered: This is a lighthouse. It's your call.

 The trends we have been studying for decades are not likely to be reversed any time soon. We need to push for more support for research on fragile families. The issues faced by families require prevention strategies that build on personal and community strengths. 

As I said two decades ago, today's families need us. And through our work, we must create a vision of bequeathing family continuity if we are to achieve it.