Sunday, July 1, 2001
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Sunday, July 1, 2001 |
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Let's hear it for the family By MARY JANE HOLT Several members of my family and a number of friends gathered on our porch and in the back yard for a singing and ice cream making recently. Probably not a good combo. The singing went downhill after all the ice cream consumption! I had served fried chicken and a variety of salads earlier in the evening and the musicians had faired well after eating, but the ice cream was another story. Oh well, we all enjoyed ourselves tremendously anyway! Daniel had a brother and sister in attendance and I had a brother and sister there as well. During the evening we all discussed having a family gathering every fall at our place beginning this October. Since the death of Daniel's mom April 30, all our parents are gone. It's up to the kids now that would be 13 brothers and sisters altogether to keep the family connected. One by one, as friends departed through the evening and on into the Sunday noon hour, these friends said to me, "Now we're family, too, right?" Their point being they wanted to come back in October. What a compliment. I felt really good about the event and about my friends and family. Then I recalled a bit of data that had recently caught my attention. According to 2000 Census figures released at the end of May, the American family is changing in dramatic ways. Some things to consider: The number of families headed by single mothers has increased 25 percent since 1990, to more than 7.5 million households. For most of the past decade, about a third of all babies were born to unmarried women, compared with 3.8 percent in 1940. The number of single fathers has also increased; single fathers now head more than two million families. Louisiana State University researchers can offer insights about what's in store for the family as the 21st century presses onward. Note: These are not my personal insights but they caught my attention and I'm thinking about them. Thought you might want to consider them too. LSU sociologist Michael Grimes researches how the family intersects other institutions of society such as the economy and educational and political systems. He seeks to understand how social inequalities based on class, race/ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation affect the structure and activities of the family. He is researching working-class families to examine the roles that men and women play in families and how the roles are affected by each gender's participation in the larger society. He is also studying family violence, including child abuse and neglect. According to Grimes, "The family must always be viewed as interdependent with the larger society. Because of this interdependence, the structure of the family and its activities at a given point in time cannot be understood in isolation from the events that are occurring in the larger society at that point in time. For example, one only has to look at the tremendous impact that women's return to work, which began during the late 1960s and early 1970s, had on the structure and activities of the American family to realize the interdependence between the family and the remainder of society." Interesting, huh? Now consider this. According to LSU political scientist James Garand, there has been a debate among scholars about the degree to which rising divorce rates during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s were attributable to an increased permissiveness in state divorce laws. Garand and his wife, LSU human ecology professor Pam Monroe, have used data on divorce rates in every state and every year from 1990 to 1995 to determine whether state adoption of no-fault divorce laws increased state divorce rates. Garand and Monroe have determined that an increase in divorce rates can be directly attributed to adoption of no-fault divorce laws. "In particular, we find that when states adopt no-fault divorce laws there is typically a sharp immediate increase in divorce rates, followed by a tapering off of the upward trend. Eventually divorce rates return to what they would have been had the no-fault laws not been adopted, but it does appear that pent-up demand for divorce is released when states adopt no-fault laws," said Garand. What do you think about that? I'm thinking that I'm thankful my parents never got a divorce. I'm elated that Daniel and I have stuck it out for 30-plus years now. But you know what? My brother, who was present at the singing, is in his fourth marriage (I think he finally got it right this time!). The bottom line? Family is family and the institution (with all its imperfections) should be celebrated every chance we get. And if a few friends get included in the circle, so much the better!
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