Chapter 1. It’s A Different World Now

You are probably familiar with the popular family sitcom Modern Family. This critically acclaimed series follows three interrelated families living in Los Angeles. Patriarch Jay Pritchett is on his second marriage to Gloria, a much younger Colombian with a son from a previous relationship. Jay’s son, Mitchell, an attorney, and his husband, Cameron, have an adopted daughter. Jay’s daughter, Claire, is a homemaker-turned-businesswoman. Claire and her husband, Phil, have three children. This hit show marks a sharp shift from the traditional family dynamic memorialized by the Cleavers of the 1950s and the Cunninghams of the 1950s (and 1970s) or even, to a certain extent, the Cosbys of the 1980s and Barones of the 1990s–2000s. Reflecting both complicated and nontraditional family dynamics in a fast-paced world, Modern Family reflects family life in the second decade of the twenty-first century, typified for many of us by financial and career pressures, too few minutes in the day, and conflicting expectations about what it really means to be a husband, wife, father, or mother. Adding to the chaos is the information overload from skyrocketing social media use, with more than 71% of Internet users maintaining social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and other platforms. One illustrative Modern Family episode, “Connection Lost,” presents the entire narrative through Claire’s laptop as she communicates with her family through FaceTime, iMessage, and other networking platforms.

There are many positive aspects to the way American society has evolved in the past 50 years. Modern women, like Claire, have more choices to make about the course of their lives, and they have gained many kinds of freedom. Perhaps the most important is economic: now earning their own paychecks and making their own decisions about how they want to live their lives, women no longer must depend on a man—be it father or husband—for food, clothing, and shelter. Women also have reproductive freedom; they are in full control of the decision when or whether to have children. Men have been challenged as well as a result of these changes: they are learning to express their feelings openly, share childrearing responsibilities, and accept women as their equals. It’s no coincidence that the divorce rate, relatively low in the 1950s, soared in the 1960s and 1970s. In the evolving, freer climate, and with the emphasis on the happiness of the individual as opposed to the good of society, both men and women have felt more open to questioning social and religious strictures about the permanence of marriage and what it means to be a family. Along with this has come acceptance of no-fault divorce and the notion that a marriage can be ended because the parties have stopped getting along or loving each other. No longer is it necessary to prove mental cruelty or conduct a smear campaign against a spouse to have a marriage legally dissolved.

Although most of these changes are for the better—in fact, as women practicing in traditionally male-dominated fields, we have benefited from many of them—Americans have not yet taken the appropriate steps to reshape society in such a way that most of these changes work more successfully. For example, although about 40% of the mothers in this country are now in the labor force—and 18% of these women have children younger than age 6—the government has taken little action to make day care more available, affordable, and safe. Even mothers and fathers in higher income brackets often cannot find acceptable or reliable care. And although no-fault divorce has certainly made it easier to escape a failed relationship, many custodial mothers and fathers are having a difficult time collecting adequate child support. Our family law system, too, has had difficulty keeping up with the rapid changes in family dynamics that include same-sex parents, stay-at-home dads, and blended families. The time has come to address these and related problems that undermine the future of children in this country. Although the family law courts in America are slowly becoming educated regarding custody and parenting time laws that fit the modern family, they, too, have been slow to change. The time has come to address these and related problems that undermine the future of children in this country.