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Decline of the American Family

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Submitted By ashwin90
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Today, the definition of family is very complex and cannot be explained in just a few words or lines. It can be said that the word ‘family’ has more than one meaning and this makes it more complicated for one to understand the meaning of family. According to most people, a family can be one in the traditional sense with two heterosexual parents with children, one with two parents of the same sex with an adopted child, one with a single parent. But maybe a family could be made of multiple partners; as an example in Judith Stacey’s book with the three gay partners living together. Maybe it could even be a live-in relationship where the partners are not married, as opposed to popular belief. The word family is not restricted to only these instances and can be illustrated in various other ways without a set structure or definition.
In the article “American Family Decline”, Popenoe argues that the definition of family is changing and cannot be attributed to just one concept. He argues the state of the changing American family and states the causes for these changes. But due to the complexity of the word he desires to relate family to its traditional view with one father, one mother and the two children to whom they gave birth all living collectively in the same house.
According to Popenoe, since the 1960’s up to the 90’s there has been a rapid shift in the percentages of the changing family. He further states that there has been an increase in the divorce rates in the past couple of years, and also a decrease in fertility rates since the 1960’s. Popenoe believes that there has been a decline in the American family, as there was less of a worry about children.
Popenoe argues that the changing culture has shown that today the American family is not only thinking about having children. Due to this, the number of children in an American family has decreased since the

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