
Was the Nuclear Family a Mistake? - pseudolus
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-nuclear-family-was-a-mistake/605536/
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mech1234
>In 1970, the family structures of the rich and poor did not differ that
greatly. Now there is a chasm between them. As of 2005, 85 percent of children
born to upper-middle-class families were living with both biological parents
when the mom was 40. Among working-class families, only 30 percent were.
According to a 2012 report from the National Center for Health Statistics,
college-educated women ages 22 to 44 have a 78 percent chance of having their
first marriage last at least 20 years. Women in the same age range with a
high-school degree or less have only about a 40 percent chance. Among
Americans ages 18 to 55, only 26 percent of the poor and 39 percent of the
working class are currently married. In her book Generation Unbound, Isabel
Sawhill, an economist at the Brookings Institution, cited research indicating
that differences in family structure have “increased income inequality by 25
percent.” If the U.S. returned to the marriage rates of 1970, child poverty
would be 20 percent lower. As Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins
University, once put it, “It is the privileged Americans who are marrying, and
marrying helps them stay privileged.”

I think this paragraph has a lot to say about how marital cooperation helps
wealth creation. I've seen statistics (a long time ago) that a married couple
only consumes 1.4 times the living expenses of a single person. The rest can
go in the bank or into a higher standard of living. This also has the economic
benefit of diversification, where the family can still make ends meet if one
income is lost.

"Marriage inequality" does not seem to be a category of inequality that can
ever be addressed through government led redistributive efforts.

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downerending
This title is pretty misleading. The article is actually recommending larger
extended families which include nuclear families, not recommending that
nuclear families be dissolved or otherwise done without.

As retro as that might sound, I agree with it. I wish I'd had access to
multiple adults other than my parents growing up, but I didn't. Still feeling
the lack of it.

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shrimpx
This article pits individual freedom/empowerment against the family unit and
argues the latter is vanishing and we need it back. A familiar topic lately.

I’m afraid this is a false dichotomy. If we’re actually trading the family
unit for free self-empowered individuals, there are positive effects like
decreased susceptibility to influence and belief in unlikely things.

But that’s not what’s actually happening. Signs point to social cohesion being
traded for an uprooted, uninformed individualism that is susceptible to
targeting and influence on mass scale.

I’d say what we want for social resilience is not the family unit back, but to
nurture individuals as highly informed skeptics.

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topkai22
I’ve seen a number of pieces like this that argue that the nuclear family is
an aberration in history compared to the extended family. They are of course
right, but almost inevitable fail to address the fact that the “nuclear”
family is/was generally a part of those extended family structures. The reason
it is called the “nuclear” family is the metaphor that the parents + child is
the smallest divideable unit of family. The idea that nuclear family should
exist in isolation is probably mistaken, but I arguments it shouldn’t exist at
all completely uncompelling.

The evidence I saw presented was more along the lines that the nuclear family
is “necessary but not generally sufficient” rather than something to be
completed supplanted by a new paradigm, at least in the case of those that
chose/are able to have children.

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vearwhershuh
The nuclear family wasn't a choice, it was pushed on us by the economic elites
who wanted to refine the old extended families (and, left unsaid, the old
ethnic neighborhoods and towns) down into a more homogeneous group of
consumers, with less overall political power. Catholic power, in particular,
was of deep concern[1].

This has been further refined down to hyper-individualism, ideally childless,
to maximize labor supply and flexibility.

The elites want relatively powerless, bickering identity groups composed of
random individuals, that will not demonstrate solidarity with one another, and
that will fall into line on elite issues (banking, war, etc.). One must say
that they are doing a very good job of getting it.

This article is typical, well done elite propaganda, as one would expect from
The Atlantic: it points out a real problem and then presents an even worse
solution that appeals to our modern sensibilities, but that in fact furthers
the elite goals.

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Freedom_and_Catholic_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Freedom_and_Catholic_Power)

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ourlordcaffeine
>You have less space to make your own way in life

I'd say that this has to be emphasized, especially if the extended family has
a lot of conservative people.

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armitron
I find these sort of articles incredibly short-sighted and little more than a
reminiscing of the "good old times". Those times are not coming back. The last
sentence is particularly comical in its detachment from reality.

In the age of the network, the notion of family to say nothing about our
notion of self, is a cultural relic fast on the road to extinction.
Decoherence and disintegration is all around us. We will adapt but we need to
look forward, towards a new kind of synthesis, not behind.

