The New Ideal American Family

I think one of John D’Emillios’ best suggestions for how the capitalist economy is changing what is considered the ideal American family is the idea that with the capitalist economy people are getting more opportunities without having worry about who they are. With more opportunities for homosexuals there will be more reason for them to be who they really are and be together with whomever they want to be with. How this would goes against the ideal American family, besides the fact that both would be of the same sex, is they would most likely not have any kids. This isn’t impossible and the ones that do have kids whether it’s through adoption,  a previous relationship or some other way, this would go even further from the ideal American family as instead of growing with a mom and dad a child grows up with either two moms or two dads.

Also the ideal American family was seen as close together and had good relationships. What I think this is supposed to mean is the husband works and the wife stays home and takes care of the house and kids. With the capitalist economy, there is more opportunity for everyone specifically the women who once stayed at home.  With more and more women working and less staying home, the tight nit family starts to dissolve.  With a family starting to not have as strong of ties as they once did things such as divorces come up. With divorce being rare just a few decades ago and now a rate of about 50% of marriages ending divorce, divorce isn’t so shocking of a thing because of the capitalist economy. With the old ideal American family the man seemed to always appear as the big strong independent person and the wife was lost without him. Now women are seen as just as much independent as men and it has been proven they are perfectly capable of raising a family. They have been able to prove this more often now because of things such as divorce that force them to take care of the children by themselves, or another way which is something that is becoming more common and that is illegitimate children.

All together this is widely accepted, people are getting more and more use to the idea of same sex couples. Of course there are a good few who refuse to acknowledge relationships between people of the same sex. It seems as of now there is no ideal American family, because of the difference in wants and of course the new opportunities that the capitalist government offers. Especially the new opportunities for women and homosexuals. In the end John D’Emilio makes a good assumption in thinking that there is a connection between the capitalist economy and its helping shape things such as what people think of homosexuals.