Family How the Family Really Essay

Total Length: 581 words ( 2 double-spaced pages)

Total Sources: 1+

Page 1 of 2

Women had joined the workforce long before the 1950s, with dual incomes being as necessary for many families during the Depression and even through the 1940s as they are today (Coontz 2000). In fact, the emphasis that was brought to the cohesion and in many ways the isolation of the nuclear family during the first half of the twentieth century was detrimental to many aspects of the family, including its economic viability, according to Stephanie Coontz's The Way We Never Were (2000). This historian also argues that personal satisfaction and happiness suffered when they became wholly attached to the success of the family rather than being derived form individual pursuits, as was the case earlier in the nineteenth century and before (Coontz 2000).
The period since the 1950s has been one of increasing individualism and self-definition outside the context of the family, which has again made familial roles both more fluid and of diminished overall importance

The concept of the nuclear family and the importance of familial roles were not created in the 1950s, of course, nor have they been eradicated in the decades since. Both of these works of scholarship show that the family is a much more transitory unit than is implied in depictions of the fifties, however, and that the prevailing view of the static twentieth century American family is demonstrably false. Coming to a better understanding of the family's history can point more clearly to its potentials in the future......

Show More ⇣


     Open the full completed essay and source list


OR

     Order a one-of-a-kind custom essay on this topic


sample essay writing service

Cite This Resource:

Latest APA Format (6th edition)

Copy Reference
"Family How The Family Really" (2010, October 13) Retrieved May 11, 2025, from
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/family-family-really-7763

Latest MLA Format (8th edition)

Copy Reference
"Family How The Family Really" 13 October 2010. Web.11 May. 2025. <
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/family-family-really-7763>

Latest Chicago Format (16th edition)

Copy Reference
"Family How The Family Really", 13 October 2010, Accessed.11 May. 2025,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/family-family-really-7763