3 to 25.0 years for women (www.census bureau.com .
pg.1) this is due to increased education and work experience among women, which in .
turn is associated with delayed and lower fertility. .
These changes have produced a great deal of alarm and apprehension. They have .
inspired family values crusaders to condemn careerist mothers, absent fathers, single .
parents, same sex marriages and unwed parents as the root cause of many of societies .
ills: drug abuse, poverty, juvenile crime, failure in school, out of control children.
Diversity and change have been the only constants in the history of the American .
family. Far from signaling the family's impending demise or an corrosion of dedication to .
children, recent changes in family life are only the latest in a series of disjunctive .
shifts in family roles and growth that have occurred over the past three centuries.
What do we know about the history of the family from the past? .
It was in the 1920s that, for the first time, a majority of American families consisted of .
a breadwinner-husband, a homemaker wife, and children attending school. .
The most rapid growth in unwed pregnancies took place between 1940 and 1958, not .
in the sixties and seventies like we were assured. The characteristics of the 1950s family.
a emerging birth rate, a stable divorce rate, and declining age of marriage--were historical .
distortions out of line with long-term historical trends. (www.familyhistory.edu).
Throughout American history, most families have needed more than one.
income to support themselves whether it was washing clothes and selling eggs for others .
in the late 1800's, babysitting in the 50's or female scientists in the 80's. Women today .
comprise half the world's population, do two thirds of the world's work, earn one tenth .
of the worlds income and own one hundredth of the world's property.
In recent years, families have gone through many unsettling and disruptive changes.