Sample Essay On Status Of The American Family

In the 21st century the family life is exposed to specific challenges and difficulties, such as the increased availability of drugs, high criminality rates among teenagers, with boys becoming gang members at 11 years and many girls turning to prostitution by the time they are 12 (Coontz 79). Moreover, the divorce rate is higher than ever, and modern societies experience new familial trends such as the single parent family, gay or lesbian families or the extended family (Coontz 80). With the feminist movement, women have gained increased rights, being equal with men in terms of voting, working and even in incomes, while fathers turn more and more to spending time with their children, enjoying the gifts of the family life. Many aspects have changed since 1950, but societies are recognizing an evolution. Compared with the past, women are now independent and happier, erasing the image of the depressed housewife of the 1950s, while children are not involved in lucrative activities, as they were in the past (Coontz 79 - 80). Moreover, the life expectancy has increased for both children and adults, due to the improved quality of life and although divorce represents a normality of the 21st century, children from broken families grow harmoniously, benefiting of all the comfort. Therefore, in the current reality families are better off than they were 100 years ago, according to Coontz’ text.
Some institutions in the nowadays’ existence, such as school or church, have remained entrenched in the 1950s society. People still do things as they did 100 years ago, such as mothers carrying for children, although working, or children having free time to dedicate to lucrative activities, although they do not. From this perspective, Coontz implies that our society longs for a return in the 1950s.
However, although institutionally our society might be capable of returning to the 1950s life, culturally such an envisioning would be unlikely to occur. Nowadays women are emancipated, valuing their rights, greatly disputed. Going back to being devoted housewives, satisfied with the income gained by husbands and happy that they are not brutalized is not something that any modern woman would accept. Moreover, with the evolution of Human Rights, working children would be a perceived as an act of maltreatment and exploitation against children (Helfer, Kempe & Krugman 393). The child protection authorities would not allow the child labor to be re-instituted as normality in the family’s daily existence. Likewise, nowadays parents have in general, a five days working schedule, with around eight working hours per day, as compared with the 10 hours per day within a 6 working days per week of the 1950s families. Therefore, culturally and from a quality of life perspective, our society could not return to the families of the 1950s.
The perspective of our nation to return to the families of the 1950s would be not only less attractive but also unsustainable from a productive point of view. Back in the fifties the household benefitted of only one income, whereas now it enjoys the advantage of two competitive salaries, of both the husband and the wife, which allows increased economic opportunities. Higher expenses mean increased productivity, hence the nations’ economic performances are better now than they used to be 100 years ago. Nowadays, working mothers are happier than the housewives of the fifties and families are more harmonized, with father spending more time with their children than ever before. For these reasons and many others, our nation would not be better of it we would return to the families of the 1950s.

Works Cited

Coontz, Stephanie. “The American Family”. Life Magazine. Vol. 22, pp. 79-82. 1999. Print.
Helfer, Mary, Edna, Kempe, Ruth, S. and Krugman, Richard, D. The Battered Child. London: The University of Chicago Press. 1997. Print.