“For every nineteenth-century middle-class family that protected its wife and child within the family circle, there was an Irish ora German girl scrubbing floors in that home, a Welsh boy mining coal to keep the home-baked goodies warm, a black girl doing the family laundry, a black mother and child picking cotton to be made into clothes for the family, and a Jewish or an Italian daughter in a sweatshop making "ladies" dresses or artificial flowers for the family to purchase.” ChildrenMadeHomeMotherGirlBlackClassBoysWifeMiddleCenturyFlowerClothesDaughterDressesWarmCirclesMiddle ClassItalianArtificialProtectedCoalNineteenth CenturyCottonLaundryMiningWelshMother And ChildBlack GirlMiddle Class FamilySweatshopsArtificial Flowers Author:Stephanie Coontz
“Extended families have never been the norm in America; the highest figure for extended-family households ever recorded in Americanhistory is 20 percent. Contrary to the popular myth that industrialization destroyed "traditional" extended families, this high point occurred between 1850 and 1885, during the most intensive period of early industrialization. Many of these extended families, and most "producing" families of the time, depended on the labor of children; they were held together by dire necessity and sometimes by brute force.” ChildrenSometimesTogetherAmericaForceFiguresPeriodsHighestPercentLaborMythContraryTraditionalDestroyedHouseholdNormBrutesBrute ForceIndustrializationExtended FamilyHigh Points Book:The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap Source: The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap
“The worst problems for children stem from parental conflict, before, during, and after divorce or within marriage.” ChildrenProblemWorstConflictDivorceStemParentalAfter Divorce Author:Stephanie Coontz
“Women are told that we can have the most exciting, glamorous, demanding, rewarding careers ever but we also have to be constantly sexy and sexually interested, and when we have children we have to spend more time with our kids. Of course you can't really do all three of those things at once, so we feel this tremendous stress.” FeelsChildrenKidsThreeCoursesCareersExcitingStressSexyMore TimeGlamorousSexually Author:Stephanie Coontz
“There is no going back to a time when most women will feel compelled to enter or stay in a bad marriage just for economic security or social respectability. So today, the best way to get women once more interested in getting married and having children is for men to accept women's new insistence on equality. This is, I think, why educated women in America, are now more pro - marriage and more disapproving of divorce than other groups of women who have less experience with egalitarian partners or less clout in getting their needs met in relationships.” ThinkingMenChildrenTodayAcceptingEconomicSecurityMarriedDivorceEducatedGetting MarriedHaving ChildrenInsistenceRespectabilityBad Marriage Author:Stephanie Coontz
“I think that divorce is a vital escape hatch for people stuck in marriage and it is not a sentence of doom either for adults or children. The community should develop better support systems for saving or restoring potentially healthy marriages.But we should also help people who decide to divorce have healthier partings.” PeopleThinkingChildrenHelpingCommunitySupportHealthyDivorceStuckDoomParting Author:Stephanie Coontz
“When parents are educated about how not to involve children in their conflicts and co-parent amicably, a lot of the ill effects of divorce can be alleviated. Divorce is always painful. But kids in a high-conflict marriage or low-conflict but contemptuous ones are often better off in the long run when the parent can disengage.” ChildrenLongRunningKidsParentConflictIllPainfulDivorceEducated Author:Stephanie Coontz
