The Changing American Family

12           Gradually, under these pressures, families became smaller, more stream­lined, with the husband going out to work in a factory or office, the wife staying home, and the kids marching off to school. Old folks were farmed out to their own apartments or nursing homes. Young people moved into their own apart­ments as soon as they could afford it. The family adapted to the new conditions and the so-called “nuclear" family became the most popular model.

13           This is the type of family that most of todays evangelists, politicians, and others have in mind when they say we must "protect" the family or "restore” it. They act as though the nuclear family were the only acceptable form of fam­ily life.