The Nuclear Family, also known as the “Traditional Family” consists of two married adults of opposite genders and their biological children. This family structure has been on the decline for years. With the rise of divorce came the rise of the  “single parent” and “Step-Family” households. Topics of same sex couples and child adoption are ever growing. Couples who are willing to get married are rarely willing to do so without living together first. It has even become very common all over the world to never get married or have children. In the 1950’s this was all seen as strange; if you didn’t have a traditional family something was considered wrong with you. Simply having children out of wedlock was once scandalous, yet now it’s a norm in society and even a personal preference for many.

After taking a look at the decline in the nuclear family, Aaron M. Renn, an urban affairs analyst confirms from statistical analysis, “Now nearly 20% of women aged 40-44 in the US have never had children. This means they likely never will. The percentage of people listing “children” as an important factor for a successful marriage has declined by 37% just since 1990. 30% of German women say they never plan to have children.”

Everyone is living in a “now society”. Individuals are only thinking of themselves in the now. They aren’t thinking about the future as far as their namesake or who will take care of them in old age. They aren’t thinking of the state of the world and how it’s being left to future generations because they have no stock in future generations. The concept of procreation is merely an after-thought; to many it’s something to take various precautions against. The nuclear Family is foreign to many, something that resides only in black and white television shows: a concept of nostalgia. People are marrying their careers, not each other.

Renn goes on to point out, “A society that is increasingly single and childless is likely to be more concerned with serving current needs than addressing the future-oriented requirements of children. Since older people vote more than younger ones, and children have no say at all, political power could shift towards non-childbearing people, at least in the short and medium term. We could tilt more into a ‘now’ society, geared towards consuming or recreating today, as opposed to nurturing and sacrificing for tomorrow.”

The financial state the economy is in here in the United States has also caused another shift away from the nuclear family unit. The “Extended Family” household is far more common. A fall in available jobs means a fall in financial independence. Many mother’s and children live in households containing various members of extended family, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Going back to the old ways of “It takes a village to raise a child,” (at least financially) is once again prevalent.

Executive director of the Alternatives to Marriage Project (ATMP), Dorian Solot summed up today’s outlook quite well.

“The fairy tales misled us. Getting married isn’t the only way to live happily ever after. The truth is that some princes stay single. Some princesses are lesbians. And there are cohabitors living throughout the kingdom.”

While an overly self-serving attitude in today’s society and a decrease in childbearing is a genuine cause for some alarm, when it comes to the family structures children are being brought up in, just because something isn’t traditional, doesn’t mean it isn’t functional, or incredibly happy and healthy for that matter.