March 10, 2007

IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

REAGAN AND DECLINE OF FAMILY

Right-wingers like to attribute the "decline of the traditional family" to the 1960's, that supposedly decadent decade where permissiveness reigned. But studies show it was the during the time of Ronald Reagan and the "greed is good" eighties that the social structure of the family radically began to change. Traditional families and economic stability are much related, and the economic changes that began during the Reagan years have destroyed economic stability for working class people. This article by Harold Meyerson is at www.prospect.org:

As conservatives tell the tale, the decline of the American family, the rise in divorce rates, and the number of children born out of wedlock all can be traced to the pernicious influence of one decade in American history: the '60s.

The conservatives are right that one decade, at least in its metaphoric significance, can encapsulate the causes for the family's decline. But they've misidentified the decade. It's not the permissive '60s. It's the Reagan '80s.

In Saturday's Washington Post, reporter Blaine Harden took a hard look at the erosion of what we have long taken to be the model American family -- married couples with children -- and discovered that while this decline hasn't really afflicted college-educated professionals, it is the curse of the working class. The percentage of households that are married couples with children has hit an all-time low (at least, the lowest since the Census Bureau started measuring such things): 23.7 percent. That's about half the level that marrieds-with-children constituted at the end of the Ozzie-and-Harriet '50s.

Now, I'm not a scholar of the sitcom, but I did watch "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" as a child, marveling that anything labeled "Adventures" could be so dull. And I don't recall a single episode in which the family had to do without because Ozzie had lost his job or missed taking David or Ricky to the doctor for fear he couldn't pay for it.