The Way We Wish We Were-Coontz

Throughout Stephanie Coontz's whole article, she brings up some very good points that make you step back and look at the traditional family in a different light. The traditional families that the students in her class thought up were exactly the family I would have thought up, but in my eyes this is very unlikely and I do not think the perfect traditional family was ever alive and going strong their whole lives. Also the whole women are stay at home moms who devote their time to the housework and children is a very hard thing to do these days now that things have become more expensive and jobs harder to find. There is technology now to help the mother with the housework and cooking now that she is working in more cases. "Within the home, prior to the diffusion of household technology at the end of the century, house cleaning and food preparation remained mammoth tasks."(679) Many say that industrialization was one reason the traditional family is hard to come by these days. "Contrary to the popular myth that industrialization destroyed "traditonal" extended families, this high point occurred between 1850 and 1855, during the most intensive period of early industrialization."(680) One thing that I personally do not believe just because the traditional family is non-existent anymore is that families are not as close. "A related myth is that modern Americans have lost touch with extended-kinship networks or have let parent-child bonds lapse."(683) Yes both parents work now and yes families do not spend as much time as a so called "traditional" family would, but that does not mean that the bonds between family members do not exist and they are just their to support eachother if needed. I am close with all of my close family members and although we do not eat at the dinner table every night like we used to and do not talk about our days, does not mean the bond isn't there between me and my family members. I know that my parents do not have the chance to spend as much time with us as they would like but our relationships are still the same. "The percentage of women who say they would prefer to stay home with their children if they could afford to do so rose from 33 percent in 1986 to 56 percent in 1990." This shows that for most it is not the parents fault that their children do not get their full attention all day, they are out there raising the money they need to survive and that is just they way it is. "parents today spend 40 percent less time with their children than did parents in 1965." I believe that the perfect traditoinal family would not function right in this day and age and I personally would not want to be part of a traditional family because to me they seem boring.