Extended families have never been the norm in America; the highest figure for extended-family households ever recorded in Americanhistory is 20 percent. Contrary to the popular myth that industrialization destroyed "traditional" extended families, this high point occurred between 1850 and 1885, during the most intensive period of early industrialization. Many of these extended families, and most "producing" families of the time, depended on the labor of children; they were held together by dire necessity and sometimes by brute force.

Singlehood is not longer a state to be overcome as soon as possible. It has its own rewards. Marriage is not the gateway to adulthood anymore. For most people it's the dessert - desirable, but no longer the main course.

The benefits of feminism have been unequally distributed, because the move toward gender equality and gender neutrality has been countered to a large extent by the increase in economic inequality.

Contrary to popular opinion, 'Leave it to Beaver' was not a documentary.

The worst problems for children stem from parental conflict, before, during, and after divorce or within marriage.

Almost all scholarly research carries practical and political implications. Better that we should spell these out ourselves than leave that task to people with a vested interest in stressing only some of the implications and falsifying others. The idea that academics should remain "above the fray" only gives ideologues license to misuse our work.

... what's been building since the 1980's is a new kind of social Darwinism that blames poverty and crime and the crisis of our youth on a breakdown of the family. That's what will last after this flurry on family values.