Family a 'mythical institution' of US life

CRISIS in community values is more central to the social problems of the US than any lack of "family values" according to a US…

CRISIS in community values is more central to the social problems of the US than any lack of "family values" according to a US history professor, Dr Elaine Tyler May.

Dr Tyler May, who is completing a book called Family Values. The New Political Battleground in America, said the family was one of the most mythical institutions of American life".

She said politicians used the phrase "family values" in a way that implied that Americans have lost sight of them. "Political rhetoric suggests that family values have collapsed and the family is bringing down society in its wake."

The stereotypical family of this rhetoric was a "white, middle-class family residing in peace and comfort in a family home". The second assumption was that this idea of family had just been invented.

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"There is a long tradition of assuming that the problems in American society are caused by problems in the family and that strong families will save the nation."

In the 1960s, there had been a "real sense of civic engagement", Dr Tyler May said. "It was one of those times when the nation was at its most democratic. Right now may not be one of those times."

There had been a "retreat into the privacy of our own personal lives" and there was a "deep belief that somehow families ought to be self- sufficient".

However, she said, the family had never been self-sufficient. "The United States invented its own traditions and placed the family in the centre of the pile as a place where future citizens are nurtured."

The family could be the source of social problems as well as the potential solution. She described a typical family model where most women got pregnant before they were married, children grew up quickly and the rate of second marriages was high.

Asking the audience if they thought this described the "family of today", she said it was actually a description of the 17th century Puritan family. Children were sent out to work and men and women remarried when their partners died younger.

She said that in Victorian society abortion was legal and widely used, along with contraception, the birth rate was declining and a high number of women were choosing to remain single and follow careers.

And in the 1950s, the "so-called traditional white picket fence family" was a society where women with children were working outside the home. "Most teenagers were engaging in sexual intercourse - most of these were married at the time because the marriage age had dropped." And there was widespread drug and alcohol addiction behind those white picket fences of middle-class suburban homes.

Had America given up on the family in the last 50 years? "No, Americans love marriage. They marry once, twice three times

What about children? "Most Americans have children. They don't necessarily have it in the order of growing up, getting married, having sex and having children."

And while the US had the highest divorce rate in the world, "it has had that dubious distinction for over a century".