Are families becoming optional? Blog 11

          This article is getting to the heart of the problems I have been looking at throughout my blog.  In "Are Families becoming Optional?" The author points to all the varying statistics of how marriage rates are falling
and how single family households with few to no children are dominating.  The author further points to this decline being in direct correlation to a waning emphasis on religion and an increase in the ideals of individualism and career focus.  As I can see where the author is right in the statistics he presents I find that the conclusion he draws about  their connection to be a little over the top.  The true reason as I can see for smaller family sizes the world over is just as he pointed out at one point, the cost of having children far out weighs the benefits gained in a monetary since.  Large family size has been seen to shrink in all post industrial countries as there is a decrease in infant mortality rate and families aren't forced to worry as much about whether or not their children will make it to adolescents and beyond.  I found this article slightly depressing in that the statistics on marriage and families were very low and that the overall trend does seem to be more towards smaller households.  However I have hope for the families of tomorrow and truly believe that they are not in danger of disappearing but instead evolving into something that is normative for the demands of today's world.  On the bright side with lower birth rates the world population has the ability to fall decreasing the strain on its carrying capacity. Are families becoming optional? No families like everything else are evolving to be able to succeed in new ways as we advance as people no one thing can stay the same in an ever changing world and the family structure is just another piece of that puzzle.




http://seattletimes.com/html/opinion/2019699296_brookscolumnfamiliesxml.html