Chapter 4            Family in the United States
A hundred years ago, one heard the same kinds of comments about the American family that one hears today – in short, that the American family is disintegrating. Proof of this disintegration at the end of the nineteenth century included three points: the declining birth rate, a rising divorce rate, and evidence that women were not completely content with their domestic role. It’s a little surprising to me that the same claim about the family is being made today – that it is disintegrating. And often the same points are mentioned as proof: declining birth rates, increasing divorce rates, and discontent of women with domestic roles. Now, in no way do I mean to imply that cultural, demographic, and economic conditions are the same now as they were 100 years ago. On the contrary, the very nature of the family has changed drastically in the last 50 years, not to mention the last 100 years. But I don’t think the average person’s concept of the family has changed very much over the years. A lot of people have one fixed idea of the family: a married couple where Mother stays home to care for the children and Father works. But this idea is challenged by what we see every day in the U.S. society. To be sure, the family is a very sensitive barometer for what is happ
ening in the society, the culture, and the economy of the United States. To make this point clearer, we’ll take a look at how the American family has changed in the last 50 years by looking at three different time periods: there are the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s; the mid-60 to the mid-80s; and finally the present. Sociologist Barbara Dafoe Whitehead labels theses three periods the period of traditional familism, the period of individualism, and the period of the new familism. I will try for each period to show how economic, demographic, and cultural elements interact and, in turn, affect the family.
一百年前，一听到关于美国家庭的意见相同种类的人听到今天–总之，美国家庭的解体。在第十九世纪末的这种分裂的证明包括三点：出生率下降，离婚率上升，并有证据表明，妇女没有完全满足其国内的作用。这一点令我惊讶，关于家庭相同的说法是，它是今天–崩解。同样的观点也被提及为：出生率下降，离婚率上升，女性对家庭角的不满。现在，我的意思是说，在100年前，文化、人口和经济条件是一样的。相反，在过去的50年里，家庭的性质发生了很大变化，而不是过去的100年。但我不认为普通人的家庭观念在过去几年里发生了很大变化。很多人都有一个固定的家庭观念：一对已婚夫妇，母亲留在家里照顾孩子和父亲的工作。但是这个想法在美国社会每天都在挑战着我们的社会。可以肯定的
是，家庭是一个非常敏感的晴雨表，在社会，文化和经济的美国发生了什么。为了使这一点更加清晰，我们将看看美国家庭已经从三个不同的时间段在过去的50年中发生了变化：有1940年代的mid-60；到80年代中期；最后的礼物。社会学家巴巴拉达福怀特海标签这三个时期的传统家族主义时期，个人主义的时期，和新家庭主义时期。我将尝试在每个时期，展示如何经济，人口和文化因素的互动，反过来，影响家庭。
idea是什么意思英语翻译Well, let’s proceed in chronological order and start with traditional familism. We’re talking here of the twenty years from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s. This was the period after World War II, a period characterized by a very strong economy. This gave the United States a rising standard of living and a growing middle class. Demographically, the predominant configuration of the family from these years was the traditional one: a married couple with children. Some women worked, but divorce rates were low, and birth rates were high. I guess you could say that the country idealized the family in these years, and what I mean is, there was a commitment to the family from its members and a reverence for it from society. TV programs of the era depicted the family in the classical configuration: working father, house-wife, and children. Culturally, three characteristics sta
nd out in this period: conformity to social norms, greater male domination of the family than in the later periods, and clear-cut gender roles, that is, clear and separate roles for men and women at home and at work. Well, things changed quite a bit after this period.
好吧，让我们按时间顺序，从传统的家族。我们在这里的二十年，从上世纪40年代中期到60年代中期。这是第二次世界大战后的时期，一个具有很强的经济周期。这给了美国一个日益增长的生活水平和不断增长的中产阶级。从人口统计学的角度看，从这些年来的家庭的主要结构是传统的：一对夫妇和孩子。有些妇女工作，但离婚率低，出生率高。我想你可能会说，这个国家在这几年里是理想化的，我的意思是，对家庭的承诺和对社会的崇敬。时代的电视节目描写了家庭中的古典形态：工作的父亲，妻子和孩子。文化上，这一时期的三个特点：符合社会规范，更大的男性统治的家庭比在以后的时期，明确的性别角，即，明确和独立的角，在家里和工作的男人和女人。嗯，在这段时间以后，事情发生了很大变化。
Let’s move on to the second period, the period of individualism. This period is from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. Now, because individualism is so often mentioned in our dis
cussion of U.S. culture and people, I should make a little detour here before we discuss it. Individualism beings to mind two other words: independence and self- reliance. Individualism conveys the idea that one should think and act for himself or herself, according to what one feels is right. Individualism is easily confused with egotism or selfishness, but in its best sense, it is much more. Individualism implies that one has the freedom to decide what is best rather than allowing the decision to be made by a group such as the community of society. Individualism does, of course, conflict with the concept of community, which implies that the group shares in making decisions. And this conflict between the individualism and the community is one that comes up again and again in our lecture series about the Untied States. All right, let’s get back to our discussion about the family.
让我们在第二个时期，个人主义时期。这一时期是从上世纪60年代中期到上世纪80年代中期。现在，因为个人主义是经常在我们的美国文化和人们讨论中提到的，我应该在这里做一个小小的迂回在我们讨论它。个人主义的精神，另一个词：独立和自我依赖。个人主义表达了一个人应该为自己或自己的想法和行为，根据一个人的感觉是正确的。个人主义与
利己主义或自私很容易混淆，但在最好的意义上说，它更是。个人主义意味着你有自由决定什么是最好的，而不是让一个体，如社会的社会。当然，个人主义与共同体的概念相冲突，这意味着在决策中的集团股份。个人与社会之间的这种冲突是在我们的演讲系列中一次又一次出现在美国的演讲中。好吧，让我们回到我们讨论的家庭。
The second period, the period of individualism, saw three important social and political movements. Do you have any idea which movements I might be talking about? Keep in mind that these decades were characterized by a lack of conformity to social norms. Well, the movements I have in mind are the sexual revolution, in which sex was clearly no longer reserved for marriage; the women’s liberation movement; and the movement against the war in Vietnam. All the three movements – the sexual revolution, women’s liberation, and the antiwar movement – were typical of the nonconforming nature of these decades. Now culturally, it is in this period where we see two important developments: one, the idealization of one’s career and work and, two, the drive for self-expression and self-fulfillment. In this period, the feminist movement challenged traditional gender roles and male domination of society. Women began to enter professions previously closed to t
hem like medicine, law, and management. Men, for their part, began at least to consider a more active role in raising their children.
其次，个人主义时期，看到了三个重要的社会和政治运动。你有什么想法，我可能会说什么？记住这几十年的特点是缺乏符合社会规范的。嗯，我的想法是性革命，在性生活中，性显然不再是为了婚姻而保留，妇女解放运动和反对越南战争的运动。所有的三个动作–性革命，妇女解放运动和反战运动–是典型的不合格性质的这些年。现在的文化，正是在这个时期中，我们看到两个重要的进展：一、理想化的人的职业和工作，二、自我表现和自我实现的驱动。在这一时期，女权运动挑战了传统的性别角和社会的男权统治。妇女开始进入职业以前关闭他们的药物，法律和管理。男人，因为他们的一部分，开始了至少在提高他们的孩子的积极作用。
These cultural changes occurred during a time of economic changes, too. This was a time of rapidly rising cost of living. Together, these forces changed the demographics of the family. The former picture of the family had only one configuration: a married couple with children where Mother stayed home. The new picture of the family had to include ne
w configurations, like families in which the husband and wife both worked, families of single parents with children, and families of cohabiting couples with or without children. With more women pursuing careers and making money, there was less economic pressure for them to stay in an unsuitable marriage. Therefore, divorce rates doubled in a decade. Rising divorce rates and more financial independence for women made marriage a less attractive arrangement for many women. Consequently, the number of single-parent households tripled. Less conformity to social norms paved the way for cohabitation. So the number of unmarried couples living together in this period quadrupled. Can you see how economic, cultural, and demographic aspects of the society interact with each other? I hope so. Well, let’s continue with our agenda.

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