According To Pauline Irit Erera's What Is A Family

Register to read the introduction… Ideal families in the fifties consisted of a working father, a mother who was a housewife, and a few children. Many men joined unions to take care of their families, where they were able to receive pensions and health benefits. The government also supported most families with their financial situation after the war had ended. Although the "ideal" family life was pleasing, it did not last very long. According to Pauline Irit Erera in What Is A Family, "The main reason for family change was the breakdown of the postwar social compact between government, corporations, and workers" (Erera 353).
As the sixties came along, the …show more content…
Erera states "Voices on the right blames changes in the family for a wide range of social problems, while voices on the left look to the family to provide the basis for a more communitarian society" (Erera 356). People were starting to blame the increase of family diversity to almost anything they could. From child poverty and declining educational standards to substance abuse and homicide rates were just a few issues that were the "result of the new diversity in families. Single mothers were struggling to raise their children on their own with high poverty rates. According to Rethinking Family in the Postmodern Age by Stacey, "Welfare benefits to impoverished single mothers and their children in the United States declined markedly from the 1970s to the 1990s, and in 1996, the federal welfare entitlement was abolished in favor of a drastically limited employment-based program (Stacey, 1996). Father's of the children who were raised by a single mother were often viewed as "victims" out of the marriage. Even though the children's father would pay their ex-wives child support to help raise their children, it usually was not enough money for the expense of raising a