Here is a new car, a new iPhone. We buy. We discard. We buy again. In recent years, we've been doing it faster.

Each marriage bears the footprints of economic and cultural trends which originate far outside marriage.

Children born of married parents in America face a higher risk of seeing them break up than children born of unmarried parents in Sweden.

The "female culture" has shifted more rapidly than the "male culture"; the image of the go-get 'em woman has yet to be fully matched by the image of the let's take-care-of-the-kids- together man. More important, over the last thirty years, men's underlying feelings about taking responsibility at home have changed much less than women's feelings have changed about forging some kind of identity at work.

The surface of American life looks smooth, prosperous, peaceful. But underneath, fault-line shifts in family and work life have led us into what some have called 'advanced insecurity.

To televisionize any serious problem, the program directors face the task of making the message 'go down smooth' until the audience is delivered to the commercial.

Most women work one shift at the office or factory and a 'second shift' at home.