(From Healthy Families:)

Fact: Fewer people than ever are getting married.  The 2006 census was the first in Canadian history to find more unmarried adults in this country than married couples.  Is this evidence of the disintegration of our social fabric, or is it a sign that increasingly people are able to find happiness outside of traditional family structures?

Fact: Children of divorced parents are at an increased risk of living in poverty, and of experiencing academic difficulties.  Does this mean that divorce causes poor child outcomes, or is it rather that the social conditions associated with divorce — parental conflict, reduced family income, fewer resources and supports for parents, increased parental stress — contribute to create increased risk for children?

It’s relatively easy to put together demographic studies that show us how family structures are changing.  It’s much harder to figure out what the meaning is behind the facts, particularly when our thinking about families is often coloured by the rosy glow of our idealized notion of the perfect 1950s nuclear family.

Let’s base social policy on social reality, not nostalgia.  That’s the argument made by Meg Luxton in her recent paper, Changing Families, New Understandings, written for Ottawa-based family thinktank the Vanier Institute of the Family.  “Social policies, ” Luxton writes, “do not always take account of the actual ways in which families live.”

And what are those ways? Luxton’s paper gives readers an overview of the many changes that have occurred in families over the past 50 years — including the widespread acceptance of common-law partnerships, same-sex marriages and parents, the rise in rates of separation and divorce, and women’s increased participation in the workforce. 

Families, she shows us, have changed dramatically since the 1950s, but the idealized picture of the normative nuclear family is still deeply entrenched:  “The success of families is too often measured by the extent to which they conform to the ideal, rather than by the effectiveness of families in providing emotional and material well-being to their members.” 

Changes to how families look and behave makes us anxious, Luxton points out, but as we cling to an idealized image of the family, our public policy will continue to fail to address real families’ needs.  Isn’t it time we woke up and realized that the 50s are over?  What do you think?