Is the family in decline?

According to Popenoe, my life has been an example of family decline. My parent’s got divorced, and my mother was in the workforce. And I do not think that my mother was in the workforce because she was “turning instead to investments in (her)self.” I believe it was because she wanted to provide best for her family, ensuring her children had everything that we needed, not at all signaling the end of “the century of the child.” Reading Popenoe infuriated me. I don’t mind that he postulates that family is in decline, but writing a scholarly article that is filled with personal opinion and speculation makes his article offensive. A prime example of this speculation occurs when he discusses his feelings towards parenting; the number of those who viewed it as a role to fulfill major values reduced in the past, so obviously “it has probably dropped still lower today… these attitudinal changes are associated with a remarkable decrease in the stigma associated with childlessness.” The first of which is speculation, and the second of which is only a probable reason. Changes in family form, such as single-parents and, two earner households, according to Popenoe are display of family decline, rather than just a change in family structure.

The reading I identified the most with was that of Cowan’s, as he shares many of my views on Popenoe. He agrees that Popenoe speculates, that women joining the workforce is not the problem (rather this is blaming the victim), and that having a working mother can be more beneficial for the child than having a stay-at-home mother (“they are less depressed than stay at home mothers”).

According to the blog posted online, Canada differs quite vastly from the USA in relation to maternity leave. This leave eases the burden and conflict that Popenoe references by allowing the mother to still hold her job, yet be at home with the child for the first year of life. The unpaid year in Canada can be split between the mother and father, ridding of this conflict, whereas in the United States only 12 weeks is allowed, all unpaid, and can only be used by the mother.

It is undeniable that the family is changing. But as someone who has experienced this ‘change’ I would never say that the family is in a decline. I still had two loving parents, who both cared enough about me as a child to give me the best life possible.

1. Which article either of Popenoe, Stacey, Glenn or Cowan do you most identify with? Did any elicit an emotional response?

2. In light of the Canadian statistics, that of maternity leave, the legalization of gay marriage, as well as our universal healthcare, do you think that this would alter Popenoe views on non-nuclear family’s ability to raise children? Would this shift his view of decline?

3. Do you believe in Popenoe’s statement “family change as family decline”? Why or why not. (Think about Coontz’s piece on marriage, and how these seemingly new changes of the family existed in years past e.g two parent families or divorce being common in the past without women’s say)