
The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake - gscott
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-nuclear-family-was-a-mistake/605536/
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yamrzou
_Extended families have more people to share the unexpected burdens—when a kid
gets sick in the middle of the day or when an adult unexpectedly loses a job._

Very true. Nowadays society/state is supposed to replace what extended
families provide, but they can not replace the warmth of the family.

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smileysteve
This assumes extended families exist.

Unfortunately, incarceration, low life expectancy, poor fitness, alternative
lifestyles, minorities, poverty (and criminalization of poverty), and
immigration have _strong correlations_ to not having as much family available
and not being accepted by the church.

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SpicyLemonZest
All the data and anecdotes I’ve seen suggest the correlation is in the
opposite direction. Especially when it comes to race; in many minority groups
grandma is very much part of the stereotypical family home.

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smileysteve
To your anecdotes and the article's credit, yes, many minority groups (or
approaching majority) do often use larger extended family units.

This is not to say that the the people who need help (from government or
church) always have the option -- or that it doesn't have additional costs.
(Though to several of the cases mentioned above, extended families are
replacing a missing nuclear family member.)

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seemslegit
What most people can no longer afford - i.e. an entire house for one nuclear
family must therefor be recast as undesirable

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rhythnic
IMO, this type of communal living strategy is the best remedy to a lot of the
problems faced in America and in western cultural in general. Many of the
problems were already stated in the article, so I'll just add suburban sprawl,
the high cost of individual ownership of everything, including the house, and
the increased workload that results from not sharing the labor of common tasks
like cooking, cleaning, and caring for children. BF Skinner's Walden Two is a
good read that goes more into detail on the advantages of communal living. As
a non religious person weary of politics, neither the state nor church are
good options.

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onetimemanytime
Yeah but you always get one person, be a wife or brother that starts
"problems..." How do you keep peace?

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acephal
I mean, most of human life has taken place in the context of extended familial
and community support. I don't think we'd be facing new problems.

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jameslk
I felt like I just read the same points being repeated over and over. Pretty
rambly to essentially claim "extended families > nuclear families." Yes,
perhaps, if you don't mind giving up some of your individuality and liberty
for family collectivism and control. There's cultures outside the US that
uphold this to the extreme (Asian cultures come to mind). It's not a mistake
in either case. You give up one thing for another.

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mercutio2
Brooks’s point, it seemed to me, was to make an erudite case for why the
nuclear family is, even in the US, a historical oddity. This is not a point
that’s routinely made in US cultural discussions, so it needed a fair amount
of background.

His next point was that what comes next is path dependent, and may not look
like what’s come before.

So it seems overly dismissive to say that Asian cultures offer an alternative
trade-off, end of story.

There are other possibilities besides tight genetically related extended
families and nuclear families.

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brianTheDog
It seems like the author had an idea, then looked for anything that could help
support the idea. The problem is the person only looks at the facts through
their original idea.

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ramblerman
This is a generic comment you could put under any opinion piece as a quick and
cheap slur.

More valuable would be an actual critique of one or more of the points the
author made as it might stimulate discussion.

