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EXPLODING THE NUCLEAR MYTH THE HITE REPORT Byline: SHERE HITE The changing structure of the family has put more and more women at the helm. Men can learn from the way they operate, writes SHERE HITE in this final extract from her book, The Hite Report on the Family. The percentage of those in the United Kingdom still in the "traditional family" (father at work, mother at home with the 2.2 children) is, according to Social Trends, only 7 per cent. In Germany today, half of the population is unmarried, according to a 1993 Stern magazine survey. This trend will continue despite fundamentalist preaching to the contrary, because people are tired of trying to match the "holy family" model. Must we feel guilty about revolutionising our lives? This profound social transformation is taking place furtively, defensively, even guiltily, as the mythology persists that one is not quite "normal", has not quite "made it", if one doesn't achieve nuclear family status. Western publics are made to feel that it is important for a political candidate or a head of government to be married and have children, that is, to be "normal". The subtext seems to be that people should respect, worship and elect the candidate with the family most resembling the "holy family" - the Jesus, Mary and Joseph model. Why do we feel guilty about the creative ways we have begun to live our lives? Those who would have us conform to just one sort of family are the same people who see nothing wrong with authoritarian forms of government, those who do not believe people are entitled to govern themselves and make choices. Every family is a "normal" family - no matter whether it has one parent, two children or none at all. A family can be made up of any combination of people, heterosexual or homosexual, who share their lives in an intimate (not necessarily sexual) way. And children can live as happily in an adopted family as with biological parents. A family doesn't have to have children in it. Women are under a great deal of social pressure to have children, but a woman is in no way diminished if she chooses not to have children. Wherever there is lasting love, there is a family. People make institutions, not vice versa. The fact that individuals are changing the family is a sign of a healthy society. Democracy in politics and education have given society increased vigour, as more and more individuals feel that they have the right to think for themselves. In the United Kingdom there are 1.3 million single-parent families, over 90 per cent of which are headed by women. There is an unruly debate going on today in most Western countries about women's right to change the family. It is claimed that by doing this women are ruining children and society - never mind that men have opted out even more completely by leaving women and children, whereas women are "only" leaving men. Women are taking up the combined work of earning a living and looking after children, and making a valuable contribution to society. To put the controversy over single parents into some historical perspective: in the United Kingdom, for example, marriage was a private matter until legislation in 1753. Rates of cohabitation and "illegitimacy" rose until 1900, when motherhood as synonymous with marriage was firmly established. The turn of the century saw a revival of legal marriage, peaking in the 1950s. Dr Susan McRae states: "It may be the single-earner, high-fertility family of the 1950s (against which lone parents and the cohabiting couple are often measured and found wanting) which is at odds with history." There are very few statistics about the effects of these kinds of households on children, although during World War Il, for example, a large number of families were without fathers for several years without this being frowned upon. Today, the assumption of much popular journalism is that the two-parent family is better for children, but there is no real foundation to this belief. The data here shows that there are beneficial effects for the majority of children living in single-parent families. It is more positive for children not to grow up in an atmosphere poisoned by gender inequality. This conclusion was foreshadowed in The Hite Report on Men and Male Sexuality. In that work I was surprised to find that boys who grew up with their mother alone were much more likely to have good relationships with women in their adult lives. Eighty per cent of men from such families had formed strong, lasting ties with women (in marriage or long-term relationships) as opposed to only 40 per cent from two-parent families. This does not mean that the two-parent family cannot be reformed so that it provides a peaceful environment for children - indeed this is part of the ongoing revolution in the family in which so many people today are engaged. The great majority of single mothers, whom fundamentalist groups try to put on the defensive, can indeed be proud of the excellent job they are doing in bringing up their children, often despite financial hardship. As we have seen, the one-mother family enjoys a long and great tradition in the early mother-child icons of pre-history; and as one mother has astutely pointed out, since most fathers leave child care to the mother, all mothers are single mothers | SINGLE-PARENT families are mostly single- mother families, yet there is an increasing number of single-father families too. Is it true that most single fathers don't take much part in child care, but instead hire female nannies, or ask their own mothers or sisters, or girlfriends, to take care of the children? Do girls who grow up with "only" their mother have a better relationship with her? According to this study, 49 per cent of such girls felt that it was a positive experience; 20 per cent did not like it; and the rest had mixed feelings. Mothers in one-parent families are more likely to feel freer to confide in daughters because no "disloyalty" is implied to the spouse. Daughters in such families are less likely to see the mother as a "wimp", she is an independent person. Boys who grow up with "only" their mother, as seen in Part III, experience less pressure to demonstrate contempt for things feminine and for non-aggressive parts of themselves. We should give up on the outdated notion that the only acceptable families are nuclear families. A more profound historical view of what is happening is needed. We should see the new society that has evolved over the past 40 years for what it is, for itself, not as a disaster because it is not like the past The new diversity of families is part of a positive pluralism, part of a fundamental transition in the organisation of society, which calls for open-minded brainstorming by us all: what do we believe "love" and "family" are? Can we accept that the many people fleeing the nuclear family are doing so for valid reasons? If reproduction is no longer the urgent priority that it was when societies were smaller, before industrialisation took hold, then the revolt against the family is not surprising. Perhaps it was even historically inevitable. It is not that people don't want to build loving, family-style relationships; it is that they do not want to be forced to build them within one rigid, hierarchical, heterosexist, reproductive framework. Diversity in family forms can bring joy and enrichment to a society: new kinds of families can be the basis for a renaissance of spiritual dignity and creativity in political life as well. Private life is in the midst of a welcome process of democratisation which will in turn enrich, advance, and transform democracy in the political arena. Continuing this process of bringing private life into an ethical and egalitarian frame of reference will give us the energy and moral will to maintain democracy in the larger political sphere. We can create a society with a new spirit and will, but politics will have to be transformed by the use of an interactive frame of reference most often found today in friendships between women. ------------------------------ Publication: Sydney Morning Herald - Publication date: 4-3-1994 - Edition: Late - Page no: 11 - Section: News and Features - Sub section: Agenda |
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