I was driving through the town of Alameda the other day and passed a giant advertisement for “single-family homes.” I contemplated how the ad so clearly tied together the dream of homeownership with the American ideal of family. And then I thought about all the beautiful families I know who do not fit that ideal. Like my friend who, with his wife, just bought a home where they are raising their child and where his elderly father will spend the end of his life. And my daughter’s friend and her little brother who live with their parents during the school week but with their two great aunts and cousin on weekends and summers. And two single mothers I know who moved in together to raise their kids and share expenses. These families and so many others would not fit in a “single-family home.”
Home design is among the many subtle and not so subtle indicators of cultural norms that tell us what the ideal family should look like. But more families — through choice and circumstance — are creating families in ways that don’t match up with the nuclear family ideal. In post-World War II America, marriage rates have decreased and more children are born to unmarried parents. Today there is no one family form in which the majority of kids grow up.
[For more of this story, written by Mia Birdsong, go to https://psmag.com/single-famil...af01c90af#.b3d33umx8]
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