THE NUCLEAR FAMILY WAS A MISTAKE

[NWRatCon]

This is a topic I think liberals and conservatives can find common ground on.

THE NUCLEAR FAMILY WAS A MISTAKE (David Brooks, Atlantic, gifted)​

The premise: "The family structure we’ve held up as the cultural ideal for the past half century has been a catastrophe for many. It’s time to figure out better ways to live together."

"If you want to summarize the changes in family structure over the past century, the truest thing to say is this: We’ve made life freer for individuals and more unstable for families. We’ve made life better for adults but worse for children. We’ve moved from big, interconnected, and extended families, which helped protect the most vulnerable people in society from the shocks of life, to smaller, detached nuclear families (a married couple and their children), which give the most privileged people in society room to maximize their talents and expand their options. The shift from bigger and interconnected extended families to smaller and detached nuclear families ultimately led to a familial system that liberates the rich and ravages the working-class and the poor."

The social ills that many complain about aren't left-right, but up and down. To knit society back together, we need to start at home.

The floor is open.

 

[RIP U.S. Democracy]

This is a topic I think liberals and conservatives can find common ground on.

THE NUCLEAR FAMILY WAS A MISTAKE (David Brooks, Atlantic, gifted)​

The premise: "The family structure we’ve held up as the cultural ideal for the past half century has been a catastrophe for many. It’s time to figure out better ways to live together."

"If you want to summarize the changes in family structure over the past century, the truest thing to say is this: We’ve made life freer for individuals and more unstable for families. We’ve made life better for adults but worse for children. We’ve moved from big, interconnected, and extended families, which helped protect the most vulnerable people in society from the shocks of life, to smaller, detached nuclear families (a married couple and their children), which give the most privileged people in society room to maximize their talents and expand their options. The shift from bigger and interconnected extended families to smaller and detached nuclear families ultimately led to a familial system that liberates the rich and ravages the working-class and the poor."

The social ills that many complain about aren't left-right, but up and down. To knit society back together, we need to start at home.

The floor is open.

I definitely think there is some truth to a lot of this. There are way too many insular, dysfunctional families that need help....regardless of economic status. And the ones that suffer the most are the children.

The expression "It takes a village to raise a child" did not come out of nowhere.

 

[dockside]

This is a topic I think liberals and conservatives can find common ground on.

THE NUCLEAR FAMILY WAS A MISTAKE (David Brooks, Atlantic, gifted)​

The premise: "The family structure we’ve held up as the cultural ideal for the past half century has been a catastrophe for many. It’s time to figure out better ways to live together."

"If you want to summarize the changes in family structure over the past century, the truest thing to say is this: We’ve made life freer for individuals and more unstable for families. We’ve made life better for adults but worse for children. We’ve moved from big, interconnected, and extended families, which helped protect the most vulnerable people in society from the shocks of life, to smaller, detached nuclear families (a married couple and their children), which give the most privileged people in society room to maximize their talents and expand their options. The shift from bigger and interconnected extended families to smaller and detached nuclear families ultimately led to a familial system that liberates the rich and ravages the working-class and the poor."

The social ills that many complain about aren't left-right, but up and down. To knit society back together, we need to start at home.

The floor is open.

Unfortunately, or not, that won't happen. Industrialization and subsequent modalities for earning a living has made earning a living by farming for families almost obsolete and the nuclear family is necessary to enable people to go to where the jobs are, which is not in rural farming communities.

 

[Slavister]

Unfortunately, or not, that won't happen. Industrialization and subsequent modalities for earning a living has made earning a living by farming for families almost obsolete and the nuclear family is necessary to enable people to go to where the jobs are, which is not in rural farming communities.

This is unrelated to urban vs rural areas IMO. In a city you can find jobs of all kinds and concept of having extended families in cities exists just as well.

Culture of having smaller nuclear family is certainly a downside of our society. I agree with the OP.

 

[HIP56948]

In older days, marriage was a concrete thing. From what I've read, more divorces started an upswing toward the end of the 19th century. With the automobile and larger cities, a lot
of men and mostly women found what they wanted>> "I don't have to stay with that asshole..He was so nice when we got married"
"I need to move on with my life or years from now..I won't be able to.
And men. "I can move to New York and maybe become something better than a boring 9 to 5 shuckster!"
or should I say> "How you gonna' keep them down on the farm, after they've seen Paree".

 

[eman623]

I disagree with the premise that the nuclear family was a mistake. Even in the movie Avalon, all 5 families didn't live in a giant compound. They had separate households.

The problem is that people distanced themselves physically and emotionally from their relatives. Your parents could live across town but you maybe talk to them once or twice a year. Nursing homes are also a problem. If your parents are too old to live on their own, then you should bring them into your own home, or work something else out. My mom lived on her own in a senior apartment until she passed away last year at 91. Fortunately it was 5 minutes away by car and I visited her almost daily to help her manage her affairs and bring her anything she needed. And spend time with her.

We're not going to go back to having 5 kids. And seriously, who gives a crap if someone starts in on the turkey early. That's just trying way too hard.

I think technology can replace the physical distance. A century ago, if you immigrated to the US, the only way to talk with the folks in the home country was by slow mail. Now my wife who is 1st generation Chinese-American immigrant can facetime with friends in her small rice farming village. And since her brothers immigrated here too, we've actually grew closer.

But technology can't help with the emotional distance. That's up to each individual to stay connected with your family. And if you don't, well your loss.

 

[tshade]

This is a topic I think liberals and conservatives can find common ground on.

THE NUCLEAR FAMILY WAS A MISTAKE (David Brooks, Atlantic, gifted)​

The premise: "The family structure we’ve held up as the cultural ideal for the past half century has been a catastrophe for many. It’s time to figure out better ways to live together."

"If you want to summarize the changes in family structure over the past century, the truest thing to say is this: We’ve made life freer for individuals and more unstable for families. We’ve made life better for adults but worse for children. We’ve moved from big, interconnected, and extended families, which helped protect the most vulnerable people in society from the shocks of life, to smaller, detached nuclear families (a married couple and their children), which give the most privileged people in society room to maximize their talents and expand their options. The shift from bigger and interconnected extended families to smaller and detached nuclear families ultimately led to a familial system that liberates the rich and ravages the working-class and the poor."

The social ills that many complain about aren't left-right, but up and down. To knit society back together, we need to start at home.

The floor is open.

The traditional family always worked the best--------------case closed.

 

[Helix]

A lot of people wait to have kids in order to complete their educations and grow their careers. When there are long generation gaps and physical distances, it affects what the extended family can do to help. I don't see what can be done about it. It's just sort of how it goes when work is such a big part of the lives of both parents due to necessity.

 

[MamboDervish]

This is a topic I think liberals and conservatives can find common ground on.

THE NUCLEAR FAMILY WAS A MISTAKE (David Brooks, Atlantic,​

The social ills that many complain about aren't left-right, but up and down. To knit society back together, we need to start at home.

^^^ +1 ^^^

 

[MamboDervish]

The traditional family always worked the best--------------case closed.

Apparently not ------------------case reopened.

 

[tshade]

Apparently not ------------------case reopened.

?????? what example do you have that the Trad. fam. has not worked??????

 

[NWRatCon]

Unfortunately, or not, that won't happen. Industrialization and subsequent modalities for earning a living has made earning a living by farming for families almost obsolete and the nuclear family is necessary to enable people to go to where the jobs are, which is not in rural farming communities.

I grew up where holidays were gathering times. We maxed out at 4 generations. We gathered from all over the country from Washington State to Pittsburgh PA and many points in between. My siblings have maintained the tradition of family reunions.

But, for the majority of the year, we retreat to the nuclear existence, and as the generations contract, we lost so much - memories, family history, daily connections. All of our grandparents and parents are gone now, and along with them, much of the connective tissue.

Sadly, for me, I've no grandchildren to pass the traditions along to. Instead, my siblings and I are taking extended trips together; keeping up with zoom calls and frequent texts; and genealogy and DNA research to preserve the family history. Thankfully, two of my nieces have been bitten by the family history bug, so we have someone to pass that mass of information on to.

But, it's the daily support system that is most important. We've substituted Nana time with paid help and drop offs at day care (with attendant expense); unemployment insurance doesn't replace having a "your old room" to crash in during a crisis, or networks of "I know someone who's hiring"; or a sister to watch the kids while we get "date nights" with spouses.

 

[NWRatCon]

Migrant families tend to hold onto generational living longer than natives, often out of necessity. I think that is actually strengthening our society.

 

[MamboDervish]

?????? what example do you have that the Trad. fam. has not worked??????

?? You mean besides those enumerated in the OP ??
Or didn't you bother to read it?

 

[Felis Leo]

This is a topic I think liberals and conservatives can find common ground on.

THE NUCLEAR FAMILY WAS A MISTAKE (David Brooks, Atlantic, gifted)​

The premise: "The family structure we’ve held up as the cultural ideal for the past half century has been a catastrophe for many. It’s time to figure out better ways to live together."

"If you want to summarize the changes in family structure over the past century, the truest thing to say is this: We’ve made life freer for individuals and more unstable for families. We’ve made life better for adults but worse for children. We’ve moved from big, interconnected, and extended families, which helped protect the most vulnerable people in society from the shocks of life, to smaller, detached nuclear families (a married couple and their children), which give the most privileged people in society room to maximize their talents and expand their options. The shift from bigger and interconnected extended families to smaller and detached nuclear families ultimately led to a familial system that liberates the rich and ravages the working-class and the poor."

The social ills that many complain about aren't left-right, but up and down. To knit society back together, we need to start at home.

The floor is open.

There are problems with the disconnected nuclear family, I do agree, and the article touches upon them. The feelings of separation, loneliness, disconnectedness and the increased economic and emotional costs that fall on the shoulders of individuals and individual family units. The great thing about the corporate family model is that your extended family is always there for you. But there are still others with the "corporate" family. Namely, your family is always there. Up in your business, and you in theirs. There is often a total lack of privacy and autonomy and the elder parents of the family can (and often do) tend to rule and enforce their views upon their children and their children's spouses. There is a sense of obligation imposed upon the children as well, that it is their duty to engage in the family business and that their spouses are also expected to do so. Imagine the stereotypical in-laws from Hell. Now imagine they live in the same home, or next-door. At least with the nuclear family, after a miserable Thanksgiving Dinner, you can drive home while your spouse vents about how crazy Mom or Dad was behaving and why they had to chose that time to bring up their inane political opinions. But in the corporate model, you and your spouse are trained to silently suffer.

I cannot tell you of how many horror stories I hear (and my wife likes to tell me from her forays into Reddit) of families from China or India which employ a corporate model, and the terrible abuse that occurs within these family structures where your life is most certainly not your own.

I do not think people opted to go with the Nuclear Family when the Extended/Corporate family was the font of so much joy and happiness. I think there was a real trade-off with costs and benefits that many people consciously took.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I disagree with the premise that the nuclear family was a mistake. Even in the movie Avalon, all 5 families didn't live in a giant compound. They had separate households.

All in the same neighborhood.
I currently LIVE IN a neighborhood like that, Los Nietos, or "West Whittier", California.
One of my closest friends, a motorhead named Ralph, has lived in the same house for over fifty years, and he has brothers, uncles, cousins and sisters in the neighboring homes nearby, a couple of them are three blocks down, two families are across the street, and all the families all congregate together and when he welcomed us to the neighborhood he introduced us all around.

So no, all HIS families don't live in a giant compound technically speaking but Ralph is seconds away from being able to just walk into any of something like ten or twelve houses all in a few blocks of each other and it's like he's at home. Same with several other families here.

Ralph was the first neighbor to make us feel welcome when we bought our house here in 2014.
The saddest PART OF Avalon was when the family togetherness began to dissolve as all the relatives moved to different cities and states.


PS: Armin Mueller Stahl is almost a dead ringer for my father, not only in appearance but he SOUNDED like my father, too.
Same accent, same timbre in his voice.



And OUR family was the first to move AWAY from Long Island and New York City because Pops got a job
in The Pentagon, and so he had to settle in the DC suburbs of Maryland instead.
And every time we would head up to Long Island I could walk the streets of Atlantic Beach and know that
almost any of the homes either belonged to a relative or a close family friend, and they all knew who I was
even though I did not grow up there. They just knew that Jeffery was one of Peter and Alby's boys and they
knew where I was supposed to be.

Just like Avalon, only with a twist of "Flamingo Kid".

 

[tshade]

?? You mean besides those enumerated in the OP ??
Or didn't you bother to read it?

Read it all-----it says things are going to hell, etc............so, why not try the Trad. Fam. for a change and see if it works better????? It will. Most Trad. Families with two loving parents do great

 

[BirdinHand]

I’m from a very large family and spent my childhood surrounded by cousins, Aunts, Uncles, etc.

My immediate nuclear family was only the 4 of us - typical Mom/Dad and two kids - but over the years we had grandmother, several Uncles and even several cousins living with us.


While I would have loved that for my son - it wasn’t in the cards. To have the life I have, I needed to leave my town and go to college and land somewhere else with more economic opportunity.

So, as we were having family - we built/are building a “village” of other similar individuals.

People who don’t necessarily have extended family locally…but BECOME family to each other…who act as family for and to one another. Someone is sick? Drop off meals, etc. Sharing child care. Kids used to “family” meals and get togethers with other adults that are a support system for them.

No. We aren’t related by blood…but I don’t think it was ever the blood relationship that mattered. It was the community. It was the support. It was the having others around that you could count on.


It just happened to be blood relationships previously because not as many folks were able TO move. Many people were born and died living in the same towns.


Humans are social creatures. Raising family takes more than just a parent(s). They don’t need to be blood related, but going it alone as ONLY a nuclear family is hard and frankly, lonely I would imagine.

 

[Lursa]

I definitely think there is some truth to a lot of this. There are way too many insular, dysfunctional families that need help....regardless of economic status. And the ones that suffer the most are the children.

The expression "It takes a village to raise a child" did not come out of nowhere.

Definitely rewards the individual more. Things would be better:
--IF the people that dont really want kids dont feel obligated to have them (social pressure, family expectations, etc)
--have less accidental pregnancy/no denial of abortions
--if people recognized the actual $$ cost and personal sacrifice of having kids and didnt have them
--if people that are assholes and violent and neglectful somehow could be incentivized not to reproduce

The whole "it takes a village" thing is true IMO. It requires a strong community support system. It's harder to hide abuses and neglect in more intimate environments.

 

[Aurora]

This is a topic I think liberals and conservatives can find common ground on.

THE NUCLEAR FAMILY WAS A MISTAKE (David Brooks, Atlantic, gifted)​

The premise: "The family structure we’ve held up as the cultural ideal for the past half century has been a catastrophe for many. It’s time to figure out better ways to live together."

"If you want to summarize the changes in family structure over the past century, the truest thing to say is this: We’ve made life freer for individuals and more unstable for families. We’ve made life better for adults but worse for children. We’ve moved from big, interconnected, and extended families, which helped protect the most vulnerable people in society from the shocks of life, to smaller, detached nuclear families (a married couple and their children), which give the most privileged people in society room to maximize their talents and expand their options. The shift from bigger and interconnected extended families to smaller and detached nuclear families ultimately led to a familial system that liberates the rich and ravages the working-class and the poor."

The social ills that many complain about aren't left-right, but up and down. To knit society back together, we need to start at home.

The floor is open.

Since the "The Great Society" Uncle Sugar is the daddy.

 

[multivita-man]

I cannot tell you of how many horror stories I hear (and my wife likes to tell me from her forays into Reddit) of families from China or India which employ a corporate model, and the terrible abuse that occurs within these family structures where your life is most certainly not your own.

Very true.

 

[Aurora]

Very true.

Since the Great Society , single parent in the black family soared. The problems that followed are epic. A father can be your daddy or the gang can be your daddy.

 

[multivita-man]

Since the Great Society , single parent in the black family soared. The problems that followed are epic. A father can be your daddy or the gang can be your daddy.

Yet somehow over the same period of time, poverty in black households has declined.

Mind blown.

 

[Aurora]

Yet somehow over the same period of time, poverty in black households has declined.

Mind blown.

In many school systems the rate of people who are competent in the core subjects is appalling.

 

[BirdinHand]

Since the Great Society , single parent in the black family soared. The problems that followed are epic. A father can be your daddy or the gang can be your daddy.

No one has said that single parent households are ideal. Literally no one. I don’t even know a single parent that WANTED to be a single parent. That’s just how things wound up.

Because, unlike the lala land some individuals live in…in reality sometimes things do not work out and sometimes people made bad decisions in who they had children with.

And - FYI - that can and does happen regardless of race, socioeconomic status, religion, etc.

For some people, single parent households ARE better than the prior dynamics. No matter how much others want to disparage that choice and reality. Or think they know better about the lives of other people.