We Always Stood on Our Own Two Feet: Self-reliance and the American Family".
In the chapter entitled "We Always Stood on Our Own Two Feet: Self-reliance and the American Family", Stephanie Coontz is asserting that "depending on support beyond the family has been the rule rather than the exception in American history, despite recurring myths about individual achievement and family enterprise.(Coontz, 69)" In other words, Coontz is trying to open our eyes to the fact that all families need public support and as long as we pretend that only poor and underprivileged people need help and public assistance we will "shortchange poor families, overcompensate rich ones, and fail to come up with efficient policies for helping the working middle class".
Self-reliance is one of the basic principles of family values and the family unit. Even though many families believe that they are self reliant, they probably don't realize the help and support they receive from the government. However, the family unit as we know it is constantly changing and morphing, the concept that a family is self reliant is part of the value system of a family, the fact that they will be able to help each other in every situation and be able to depend on each other regardless of the outcome. Although many Americans say that they cherish their "good old family values", their actions sometimes contradict that. Most of this contradiction can be seen when election time comes around and there is a constant campaign for the preservation of the "family", "fight for the family", and yet the United States has the least number of policies and programs that support the family and our children.
As shown in Coontz's chapter, "many contemporary analysts explain almost every modern, social, political, and cultural ill by the fact that individuals have supposedly abandoned the family as the basic unit of commitment, welfare, and morality.