You choose you relatives. .
Barbara Whitehead critiques the Love Family ideology and how it is affecting our homes. "In a society of post-nuclear families and a regime governed by Love Family ideology, patterns of child-rearing have steadily moved from "high investment, warm affect" to "diminished investment, distorted affect" (Whitehead, 154). In the seventh chapter of Divorce Culture, Whitehead discusses the impact Love Family ideology and divorce has on children. The disengagement of fathers from their children is so widespread it is beginning to be a common experience in American childhood. After divorce, mothers are physically and emotionally less available to their children. Lastly, the court's decision of arranged parenthood affects many aspects of a children's life. .
The shift from the "nuclear" to the "post-nuclear family" has caused several negative impacts on children of divorced families. One of the problems would be the broken bonds between children and their fathers. The book Divorce Culture describes what is going on as an "exodus of fathers" and a "widespread disengagement of fathers from their biological children". The common father-child bond has eroded with the increase in divorces over the last thirty-five years. As many fathers have learned the hard way, divorce means seeing less of your children. Necessary things like going over homework, driving kids to school, or throwing the ball around, become scarce for a father who has divorced. With less time to see his children, a father may become less ambitious to pay his monthly alimony to his children. In 1990, 76 percent of fathers who hadn't paid any alimony hadn't seen their children in over a year. The reason why father-child bonds have been lost isn't difficult to understand. Being married means having a strong parental obligation for his children. Divorce can cause a father to feel less obligation for his children.