Families have always been in flux and often in crisis; they have never lived up to nostalgic notions … - Stephanie Coontz

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Black Power is giving power to people who have not had power to determine their destiny.

Stephanie Coontz

Families have always been in flux and often in crisis; they have never lived up to nostalgic notions about "the way things used tobe. " But that doesn't mean the malaise and anxiety people feel about modern families are delusions, that everything would be fine if we would only realize that the past was not all it's cracked up to be. . . . Even if things were not always right in families of the past, it seems clear that some things have newly gone wrong.

Mean, Past, People, Realize, Wrong

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The historical weight of gender inequality has tended to concentrate women in lower-paid jobs with fewer benefits and at the same time made them primarily responsible for care giving.

Fewer, Giving, Historical, Inequality, Jobs

A two-parent family based on love and commitment can be a wonderful thing, but historically speaking the "two-parent paradigm" has left an extraordinary amount of room for economic inequality, violence and male dominance.

Commitment, Economic Inequality, Family, Historically, Two, Wonderful

Singlehood is not longer a state to be overcome as soon as possible. It has its own rewards. Marriage is not the gateway to adulthood anymore. For most people it's the dessert - desirable, but no longer the main course.

Anymore, Course, Overcome, Overcoming, People, Single

Extended families have never been the norm in America; the highest figure for extended-family households ever recorded in Americanhistory is 20 percent. Contrary to the popular myth that industrialization destroyed "traditional" extended families, this high point occurred between 1850 and 1885, during the most intensive period of early industrialization. Many of these extended families, and most "producing" families of the time, depended on the labor of children; they were held together by dire necessity and sometimes by brute force.

America, Brute, Children, Dire, Myth, Together

When parents are educated about how not to involve children in their conflicts and co-parent amicably, a lot of the ill effects of divorce can be alleviated. Divorce is always painful. But kids in a high-conflict marriage or low-conflict but contemptuous ones are often better off in the long run when the parent can disengage.

Children, Involve, Kids, Marriage, Painful, Running