U.S. families are undergoing disconcerting changes. This book offers an explanation of the causes and consequences of today's family trends. The book demonstrates why a historically informed perspective on changing family roles and arrangements can be helpful in sorting through many family dilemmas and the conflicting messages given by political…

The pessimists' view is that the U.S. family is collapsing; on the other hand, optimists view it is as merely diversifying. Too often, both camps begin with an ahistorical, static notion of what the family was like before the contemporary period. Noting that the actual complexity of our history gets buried under the weight of an idealized image,…