European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 03, 1978, Darmstadt, Hesse Wednesday May 3, 1978 modern living the stars and stripes Page 19 it did t die after All by Steven v. Roberts new York times and the breadwinner mom the Home maker. Two smiling children preferably with freckles. The Model american family right wrong. Recent studies show that this particular Model accounts for Only one out of every 16anwtean families. Suddenly it seems the family has become a focus for 5hy and political concern. Lake the War on poverty it w or Energy crisis a year or so ago themly has become an intellectual growth Industry. I result Many popular myths Are under Challenge. A pm the most important of these is the idea that then by is outmoded or even dead. Hike late 60s and the Early 70s, every Conselva me Ruve to the family was fashionable note jew Berger a professor of sociology at Rutgers. Of people Are having Csc Ond thoughts Tode inic discussions often Lead to questions of Public a. And Here too there is a pulling Back from the Radi a Ooms Deputy director of the family Impact a in Washington summed up the mood when she Zvy new government programs should meet family than take Ovae Over family that is fcftmuu9to help themselves. Iner Orts of family studies vary. For example Mary. An associate professor at the Harvard school of became interested when her studies showed had More Impact on a child s developments pol local events also sparked concern Par president Nixon s 1971 decision to veto a child and president Carter s Campaign support for the Tae deepest reason for recent attention is that americans live in families and Are thus going Jap the drastic changes now buffeting this inst Al recently the whole Issue of families was not dirt T?1 people had to make hard choices said or. In Tel. Bosun to directed a study on the family for National Academy of sciences. Now people have More options to get married or not to have children or not to stay married or not to work or not. These options Are really at the heart of everybody s there is some disagreement Over the status of the family today. The family is falling apart insists prof. Uric Bronfenbrener of Cornell. Since world War ii the extended family of several generations with All its rela Tives has practically disappeared in this country. Even the Small nuclear family of father Mother and the kids is in Bane takes a More positive View As indicated by the title of her Book about families. Here to stay. While divorce rates Are higher today she says death rates Are lower and fewer children experience the death of a Parent during childhood. Moreover since single parents particularly women have a better Chance to support themselves economically fewer children Are sent to orphanages or other institutions. Scholars agree that the family has been trans formed from a unit of economic production to one stressing consumption. Kenneth Keniston principal author of a study sponsored by the Carnegie Council on children says it is hard to image a More revolutionary change. It Means among other things that the years of childbearing have become the period of greatest financial hardship for fam Ilies with the result that women must go out into paid the most pressing question is what happens to children while Mother works. Increasing numbers of children Are coming Home to empty houses Bronfenbrener says. If there s any reliable predictor of trouble it prob ably begins with children coming Home to an empty through the Early and mid ads the Standard feminist solution was federally funded Day care. But the influence of child experts who worried about possible psycho logical damage to children helped kill two pieces of Day care legislation in 1971 and 1975, and since then opposition to formal Day care programs seems to have grown psychoanalyst Selma Fraiberg argues in her new Book every child s Birthright in do feral of Mother ing that most alternatives to Mother Are either unsatisfactory or impractical. Nathan Glazer writes that the new consensus seems to hold that if Money is to be Given away for the care of children it should be Given not to agencies but to mothers to enable them to take better care of their own children within the family efforts Are under Way to make it easier for parents to share child care responsibilities. The family Impact seminar in new York is studying flexible work hours and other experiments within the Federal government. In an interview with psychology today. Bronfenbrener said women Are going to work and they deserve to do so. Yet we keep the old male work rules 9 to 5,40 hours a week and if there s overtime you do it or Don t keep your Job. Neither men nor women can Combine working and parenting under these rules. Wended new ways of another area of inquiry is the Way Federal poli cies affect family life. Bane is studying How the tax code penalizes some Cou Ples for getting married and Marion Wright Edelman. Director of the children s defense fund a research and lobby group criticizes the Foster care system for break ing up families. All the fiscal incentives go to keep kids out of their own she asserts. While Many researchers criticize the government for intruding into family life others conclude that the Only answer is More government Money. The Carnegie Council for example proposed a seven Point Agenda headed by More jobs and a Guaran teed income. More than almost any other subject the family Gener ates powerful emotions. As Robert Frost said it is the place where when you go there they have to take you in. It is also the place where rejection and conflict Hurt the most. But if scholars agree one thing it is that the family is necessary. It seems to me said professor Bane that the kinds of ties that Are expressed in family life Between parents and children Between two adults making along term commitment to each other Are really important to our lives. Then can t be any substitute for that
