Embattled Paradise: The American Family in an Age of Uncertainty

by Arlene S. Skolnick

Book Overview

Was there really a golden age of the family in the 1950s--or ever? This penetrating history of the American family mounts a withering criticism of the "culture of nostalgia" that clouds current debate and offers a plan for reconstituting the American family dream.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465019234
• ISBN13: 9780465019236
• Release Date: December 1991
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 304 Pages

Customer Reviews

Great information for understanding the culture wars

In "Embattled Paradise: The American Family in an Age of Uncertainty," author Skolnick offers solid numbers and research to counter the fear tactics that the right wing has used to scare people into lingering in horrible relationships. She makes a convincing case that the 1950s were an anomaly. Those referencing that decade as being the norm for human beings look like they're as mistaken as are creationists, or folks who think that the Old Testament of the King James Bible was the one that Jesus read.In fact, newer studies than Skolnick's have reinforced her message. A survey of young men in their 20s who grew up in single mother homes have done almost as well as a control group of young men who grew up in two-parent households. Ignoring evidence like this doesn't help anyone. The two-parent households that are dissolving aren't Ward and June Cleaver splitting up -- people generally have good reasons to divorce, and kids in angry households are certainly harmed.As for "promoting gay and lesbian marriages as exceptable," -- this is from a schoolteacher? Those damnable statistics actually show that kids with two lesbian parents do the best of all. Doggone! Education and information like that which Skolnick provides will probably win more people over to accepting gay and lesbian marriage. It's frustrating to know, however, how willfully ignorant some people choose to be. For them, it's exceptable.