A Look at the Different Types of Families in America

Mom stays at home to cook, clean, and care for the children. Dad goes off to work every morning as the sole bread-winner of the household. Their children, Bobby and Jane, are well-behaved kids who always do their schoolwork on time. This is a picturesque 1950's scenario of the perfect American household- a white, heterosexual married couple with two children. After fifty years, this perfect family seems to have vanished. Today, families that come in all shapes and sizes are much more accepted in our culture than in the past. America's definition of a family has changed to include different situations like grandparents raising kids, single-parent families, homosexual parent families, interracial families, adoptive families, and more. This has come to be the norm because less than one-fourth of households in the United States conform to the typical model of a married couple with at least one child under 18 (Frey 17). So which is a better environment for bringing up children - a traditional two parent family or a non-traditional mix we often see today? Although nothing can replace the importance of a traditional two-parent household, a non-conventional family has its advantages too. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn't always take a traditional mother and father to make a happy and healthy environment. The accurate measure of a true family is how much love a child is given by his/her caretakers (family related or not) and the love that he/she gives in return.