The Great American Family - Why The Traditional US Perspective Is Wrong

American Families

I am so sick of hearing about the “decline of the traditional family”. People, let’s get something straight here. Politicians are so quick to talk about the “traditional family” but in truth, there is no such thing. That type of family - a father and a mother with children -  was created in the 1950’s as a means to uplift the country’s emotional well-being and as a means to increase commercialism. A quick look back in history shows that white families (European settlers) were focused on maintaining independent households. Women did little child-rearing – this was mostly left up to siblings or servants. Children were not seen as precious or important as they are today.

Not too much changed in regards to the roles of family members until the Great Depression hit. This “traditional family” phenomenon only caught on and spread like wildfire because the depression was so difficult on society that people were craving feelings of happiness. The government played their role in creating this phenomenon by making it economically easier to be married – most government programs were geared towards supporting the family, meaning a married couple with children. And advertisers began to realize the enormous power they had in influencing the American public to buy their brand! What better way to compel them to buy, buy, buy than to show pictures of a happy family using their products? Their trickery worked. Americans wanted that nuclear family they felt would get them out of their bad situations.

The government and commercialism created a false sense of nostalgia. Do you get what I’m saying? People longed to have something back that never even existed in the first place! There was no such thing as the “traditional family” when the forces-that-be began touting it. The mindset of what made a family was set. What’s most important to realize is that the status quo – meaning, those “in charge” – decided what does (and thereby what does not) define the American family.

What makes up the traditional family?

Alright, let’s talk about it. We have the breadwinner, the husband and father who goes out and works hard to bring home the bacon, the MAN. Then we have the caretaker, the wife and mother who cooks and cleans, the WOMAN who always looks pretty for the MAN when he gets home from a hard day’s work. They get married, buy a cute home and have the CHILDREN, a boy and a girl who are smart, polite and love each other. There’s usually a PET playing in the background, too.

If you look at the ads tailored to brand the American Family they are also white, blonde with blue eyes, successful, in their late 20’s or early 30’s and quite beautiful.

Where’s the rest of society? Where are the non-whites? The poor? The gay? The disabled? It was during this time period the United States experienced the height of forced institutionalization of people with disabilities. If anybody from an outside country were to make an assumption on us based on the “traditional family” they would have a very incomplete picture. We are not all white; we are not all well-off; we are not all healthy; we are not all heterosexual; we’re definitely not all beautiful. So why do legislators insist on trying to fit everybody into this tiny little box?

Why “tradition” sucks

Here’s why: because huge groups of people are left out, that’s why. Just because the government (or any other non-governmental group) labeled something as correct, does it actually mean that it is? Yes, pushing everything into that box makes for a neat appearance and easy marketing. It’s just one box; no need to worry about different styles or sizes. The problem is, the person in charge gets to decide what everything in that box gets to do and feel and anybody who tries to get out of that box is seen as an outside agitator and is met with severe resistance and oftentimes, violence. Eugenics was a practiced "science" in the United States with a goal of creating a master human race - one that the traditional American family would fit into perfectly. 

Let’s go over a few things we would still be doing if we relied on tradition and those neat little boxes:

THE TRADITION	THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE TRADITION
Slavery - yep, if we kept on doing what we’ve always done just because that’s what’s always been done, whites would own blacks.	Blacks are not smart enough or capable of standing on their own; they’re so dirty that whites need their own entrances, water fountains and seating areas.
Suffrage – women wouldn’t be able to vote	Those crazy women and their irrational moods! How could they possibly form a thoughtful position on things as complicated as politics or the household budget?
Exploitation – kids would still be in our mines and factories	Their little bodies can fit in smaller spaces; their higher level of energy can produce more output; their level of intelligence merits less pay.
Institutionalization – anybody who was even slightly different would be locked up	Anybody with a physical disability cannot be a productive member of society; ADD & promiscuity would be enough to institutionalize someone today if we held on to traditional thought. Yes, really!
Interracial marriage – blacks were prohibited to marry whites	It would be the downfall to society as we know it if this was legalized. Those rapes committed by slave owners against their “herd” didn’t count though.

Marriage

So, marriage was defined by one man and one woman at some point in our history; does that mean that that’s the ONLY way it could be? I know, I know, some of you out there are thinking that marriage is supposed to be between a man and a woman because God made it so. “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Adam”. So catchy; so brilliant. Before all you religious zealots get your feathers in a ruffle and start commenting on God and how I will burn in hell, let me tell you this: I LOVE Jesus. He is my savior, my Lord. I went through my religious revolution I talk about here and I haven’t looked back since. But we are not here on this earth to judge others; only God holds that power. In Romans 12:16 we read: Consider everyone as equal, and don’t think that you’re better than anyone else. BOOM

So even if religion is the basis of your argument (which it almost always is), how is that a reason to put it into the LAWS of our country? I thought there was supposed to be a separation of church and state? One thing that really gets me is when Republicans want a smaller government, less intrusion, yet they want the law to control who can marry whom! (That’s not to say that Democrats haven’t traditionally been against same-sex marriage although the tides have been turning lately, haven’t they?)

You can’t have it both ways! Either the government CAN intrude into people’s private lives or it CAN’T; you can’t cherry pick in which area you want to stick your nose. I guess separation only applies when the status quo wants it to.

Which brings me to another point: Who the hell are you to tell anybody what they should do in their private lives? Listen, if Tina loves Shannon and they are happy together, how does that negatively impact MY life? Are they inciting a riot, spreading messages of hate or committing murder by being in a loving relationship? No. It seems to me that people who have a problem with same-sex relationships have some internal issues they are having difficulty sorting out.

And let me ask you this: what is the difference between “marriage” and “legal union”? Don’t they both give the same rights to the parties involved? It’s just another game of semantics played but when it comes down to it, you can call a rose a turd but it’s still a rose.

What do YOU think?