This is one of those books where I underlined something on nearly every page. Coontz believes in getting beyond rhetoric and into data to figure out what works and doesn't work for families. She doesn't try to live in some unrealistic fantasy that the traditional[1] nuclear family is going to come back or that solves all problems. Instead, she examines the strengths and weaknesses of the many different family types that exist in the US -- they all have both strengths and weaknesses relative to the others.

One of the strongest points Coontz makes is that, historically, strong families, whatever their form, have been associated with strong, stable economies. The 1950s was a time when people married young and women stayed home with children largely because a man with a high school education could earn a salary that could support a family. This has rarely been true in other times[2]. As wages have stagnated, families have been put under more pressure. Coontz argues that this is the cause of many of the social ills that plague the US[3] and the cause of many of the changes in family life, not that the changes in family life cause the ills.

She also observes that not all the change is bad. Many people -- especially women -- are happier now than in the past.

These book is a short and important read for anyone who cares about the culture wars that surround family life or just wants to be reassured that deviating from the increasingly-non-normative normal doesn't mean disaster.

[1] By which everyone really means 1950s / 1960s
[2] Before the 20th century, and to a large degree in the early 20th century, everyone in the family contributed to the family economy. This was easier when the family economy was not primarily a cash economy.
[3] Although she also points out that when the present is compared to data rather than rose tinted memory, the ills of the present aren't as bad as they seem. ( )

Initially, Ms. Coontz builds a pretty impressive case for her point of view, backing it up with studies and statistics. Alas, about two thirds of the way through she begins to fall down: there is much more opinion and much less evidence. In most controversies, there is a large middle-of-the-road (MTR)contingent that forms the "swing vote" and sympathizes to a certain degree with both the extremes. Coontz seems to lose any understanding that she may have had of these people and her arguments accordingly become less likely to sway them. At this point I felt that she wasted all the good that she might have done.

Most people that I know see a difference between, for example, a family needing help because they have lost a bread-winner and one created by parents who not in a position to support their children from the beginning. The first family is seen as having played by the rules and suffered a misfortune and worthy of assistance. The latter parents are sometimes seen as cheats who did not make a reasonable effort to be self-sufficient and suffer the consequences of their actions. The MTRs may accept that it is wiser in long run, particularly given that children are involved, to assist these latter families, but balk at being asked to conceal their disapproval. I think that Ms. Coontz, and many of her colleagues in the social sciences, need to read up on evolutionary psychology and game theory. Even if one doesn't accept that human psychology is largely genetically determined, it does help explain the social uses of a lot of behavior. I can recommend Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate : The Modern Denial of Human Nature,, which I happened to be reading when this thought hit me, especially "Part IV, Know Thyself", but there are plenty of other books. She doesn't seem to think that people respond to incentives and disincentives.

Certainly, we could decide, if we wanted to, that the government would give anyone who has a child an allowance sufficient to raise it, or, perhaps better, deliver services directly to the child, like public school. But is this to be offered only to certain families or to all families? It has been argued that, all things being equal, financial assistance to college punishes frugality and savings by giving assistance to people who have no money because they lived lavishly.

Coontz's logic seems to assume that the difference between Have and Have-Not is entirely a matter of luck whereas there are a lot of very unhappy wage-slaves, including me, who are working solely so that we can live a middle-class lifestyle. If that lifestyle is to be conferred gratis upon all comers, then why should we work? Then who will pay taxes to finance the programs Coontz wants? Further, I have read that the largest amount of welfare cheating is done by polygamists, i.e. men who have multiple wives and families that they cannot support. (See "The Secret Story of Polygamy" by Kathleen Tracy.) The wives make the fictitious claim that their children were fathered by someone who has deserted them and collect welfare. Does Coontz's respect for alternate family lifestyles include supporting polygamy?

The other major flaw, and I nearly threw the book across the room at this, is Coontz's argument that Social Security for childless people is a form of dole. (Let me say here that I don't pay Social Security, except for Medicare, and I'm not eligible to collect it.) She argues this because "the average person" get more out of Social Security than he/she puts into it. Well, I should hope so, considering that the government has everyone's money for decades! But even this "average" is questionable. I've seen this quoted several times, but not with any explanation of how it's calculated. I am told by someone who worked for the Social Security Administration, that the average is corrected to exclude benefits paid out to persons who may never pay in (such as the earliest beneficiaries and the disabled), but that it is not corrected for inflation, which can make an enormous difference over three or four decades. [added 2/20/11: Further, Coontz fails to consider the extent to which childless people, like me, subsidize other people's children. Approximately half my property taxes go to support the local schools. In addition, I am paying for many programs that benefit children such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (known as WIC), playgrounds for children, reading programs at the library, etc. I am not objecting to paying any of these per se, I am only objecting to Coontz's tacit claim that assistance is a one way street for the childless.] I finished feeling very disgusted with Coontz, because having read the better parts of her book, I find it difficult to believe that this was an "innocent mistake." ( )