Family Structure
- The nuclear family: father, mother, 2.3 children is the ideal social unit
- Husband is breadwinner and head of household
- Wife is homemaker and subordinate to the husband
- Children should have own rooms, be independent
Okay, so the person who created this flyer is apparently a rich white person speaking to us from the 1950's -- who, by the way, has no familiarity with any cultures beyond US borders.
The bullets above are nonsense for the following reasons:
1.) All people - including white people - lived close to their extended families/clans up until industrialization and technological advancement kick-started widespread population mobility. (At least, that's what I learned in college.) To take one typical example with which I'm intimately familiar: President John Adams (a white man, mind you) housed a number of his children and grandchildren at Peacefield all throughout his long retirement and adored the emotional connection such a busy home brought in his extreme old age. Note: Adams was one of the most respected and powerful gentlemen of his generation -- but because 19th century America was still poor by modern standards, it was not always feasible for the Adams progeny to start independent households. The upshot? The nuclear family is not a consequence of "whiteness"; it's a consequence of wealth -- wealth that is definitely not shared across the board. Consequently, no one actually looks down on those who continue to live with extended family to this day. As a matter of fact, I know plenty of white people whose households remain multi-generational due to financial constraints and/or moral convictions that preclude putting elderly relatives in care facilities and/or separate living situations.
2.) It is true that traditionalists put a premium on the married mother and father, but that's because the children of married couples tend to do better, in the aggregate, than peers who are raised in non-traditional families. Leftist radicals will say, of course, that this is because our society discriminates against the latter -- but given that single mothers have been lionized in our popular culture since at least Murphy Brown, that explanation seems quite unlikely. What seems more probable, to me, is that having two committed parents around helps to lighten the load for both mother and father. With two parents in the house, no single adult needs to take on every responsibility -- and that results in parents who are less stressed and children who benefit from some extra attention.
3.) I grew up in the 1980's in a nuclear family that superficially followed the mold described above. My father was a nuke and the sole breadwinner, my mother was a homemaker, and I had one sibling. But even back then, Mom was not "subservient" to my dad! They were equal partners in a loving marriage who discussed major decisions together. This idea that a white mom must suck it up and do whatever the dad says was wildly out of date as of 40 years ago -- let alone today. And now? Only the most extreme fundamentalist Christian families expect submission from the wife. Have these people ever observed real modern white families?
4.) Moreover, have these people ever traveled outside of the US? Because in quite a few present-day nonwhite societies, women have far less liberty with respect to their husbands than they do in the West. At least white Western women are allowed to drive cars, work, and talk to other men without inviting the wrath of their spouses. Subservient women is a "white" thing? Give me a break! It was an incredibly common thing across races historically -- and today, white-dominated societies are probably the least oppressive for the distaff sex. Try again.
5.) Finally, children having their own rooms is also a rich thing, not a white thing. Just as many white people live with extended family members, many white kids did - and do - bunk up with their brothers and sisters. Please, for the love of God, stop assuming that all white families are affluent enough to live in palatial suburban McMansions. And 2.3 kids? Better run that by the Mormons, the traditional Catholics, the Quiverfull fundamentalists, and the ultra-Orthodox Jews!
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