The Changing American Family

The Changing American Family

No one denies that the American family has changed and will continue to evolve. The research and writing team of Alvin and Heidi Toffler have concluded that not all of these changes are necessarily negative. As they share the results of their research, the Tofflers not only provide a broad historical review of some of the most striking changes the family has undergone but also classify families according to different types.

1         The American family is not dying.     It is                 diversifying.           This is the “secret” to understanding what is happening to ourselves, our children, and our society. Mil­lions of people today are frightened about the future of the family. Dire° predic­tions pour from the pulpit, the press, even from the White House. Emotional oratory about the need to “restore” the family is echoing through the nation.

2         Unfortunately, our attempts to strengthen family life are doomed unless we first understand what is happening.. And all the evidence suggests we don’t.

3         Despite misconceptions, the American family syssem is not falling apart be­cause of immoral television programs or permissive child-rearing or because of some sinister conspiracy. If that were the problem, the solutions would be simpler.

4         To begin with, it is worth noticing that whatever is happening to family life is not just happening in the United States. Many of todays trends in divorce, re­marriage, new family styles, and attitudes toward children are present in Britain, France, Sweden, Germany, Canada, even in the Soviet Union and Eastern Eu­rope. Something is happening to families in all these countries at once.

5         What is happening is that the existing family system is fracturing⁰—and tak­ing on a new, more diversified form—because of powerful pressures arising from revolutionary changes in energy, technology, work, economics, and communica­tions. If permissiveness and immorality play a role, they are far less important than these other, larger pressures.

6         The whole world is changing rapidly, and it seems reasonable that you can­not have a revolution in all these fields without expecting a revolution in family life as well.

7         Human history has gone through successive phases—each characterized by a certain kind of family. In greatly simplified terms we can sketch these:

8         The First Wave family: Ten thousand years ago, the invention off agriculture launched the First Wave of change in history. As people shifted from hunting, fishing, and foraging, the typical peasant-style family spread: a large household, with grandparents and children, uncles and aunts and sometimes nonblood rel­atives, as well as neighbors, boarders or others, all living together and—most im­portant—working together as a production team in the fields.

9         This kind of “extended” family was found all over the world, from Japan to Eastern Europe to France to the American colonies. It is still the dominant type of family in the nonindustrial, agricultural countries today.