The Changing American Family

14           Yet today, as society is struck by a new shock-wave of technological, eco­nomic, ecological, and energy changes, the family system is adapting once more, just as it did three hundred years ago.

15       Because the economic and other conditions that made the nuclear family popular are changing, the nuclear family itself is less and less popular. America is no longer a nation of poorly educated blue-collar workers. Most of us work in service occupations or spend our time processing information. And today only some 7 percent of Americans still live in classical nuclear families. The nuclear family is simply no longer the norm—and it is not likely to become the norm again, no matter how much pulpit-pounding or breast-beating we do about it. In its place, a new family system is emerging.