by Missy Dickerson

Created on: June 21, 2009   Last Updated: June 23, 2009

In the past, our society viewed the family unit quite differently than in today's society. Many researchers question whether or not the family unit is disintegrating. The family unit has and always will be the building blocks or bricks if you will that our society is built upon. It's not disintegrating; it's changing.

In the past, our gender roles were clearly defined; the men worked and the women stayed home and took care of the family. These gender roles worked very well for many years because of the economical and the ecological environment of the time, but things are changing in our world and they are changing fast and therefore, our family structure must change also to adapt to our evolving society.

The advancements in technology and the increase in the industrial needs of our society since 1890 has been outstanding and useful, but those advancements have put stronger demands on the family structure forcing it to change. The women's movement and the increase of divorce in the 1970's also changed the foundation and the gender roles of the American family. According to Mary Ann Lamanna and Agnes Riedmann, "...by 1970, half of wives with children between ages six and seventeen earned wages, and that figure increased to 75 percent in 2005" (Marriages and Families). Moreover, "24 % of working wives make more than their husbands, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics". It's easy to see after these statistics that with the decrease of women in the home, and the husbands making increasingly less, the demand for the husband to change roles as the caregiver are essential for the survival of the family unit in today's society.

The demands of men have increase; not decreased. Men have to reinvent themselves. No longer can a man go to work, tend to the yard, play with kids for a few hours, eat dinner, snort at the wife and call it day. Now the men are expected to communicate with their wives and be emotionally conscious of their children. We're asking men to step outside of what society has ingrained in them since America was first formed. Men are now expected to take an active care giving part in their children's life when the mother is absent due to work demands, tend to the inside and outside of the home, and be an emotional support for their working wives. There are no excuses for men anymore, now the excuse of being tired is a distant memory replaced with the new found responsibility of the functional change within side the family unit.

Men are more than capable of handing these added responsibilities, but let there be no mistake, society has placed enormous amount of stress and responsibility on the family unit as a whole. The women are expected to work, and maintain the home, but reality (outside of societal expectations) clearly shows a thriving new functionality of the typical modern family. The new structure fosters communication, collaboration, and general respect for the wife and husband.

Women need to stop blaming the men for what society has created and maintained for many years and work with their husbands to create a better family life.

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