While this book is not just about making choices, it is aimed at presenting the kinds of family structures that are prevalent in the world today in comparison with the original family structure as God designed and ordained it. To be able to detect a counterfeit, one must know the original very well. In effect, many people may not know wrong family structures because they do not know God’s choice of family structure. This book is, therefore, meant to point the reader to the right direction in order to prevent errors in choosing the kind of structure to have, or where to make possible corrections – depending on your current marital status.

While this book is not just about making choices, it is aimed at presenting the kinds of family structures that are prevalent in the world today in comparison with the original family structure as God designed and ordained it. To be able to detect a counterfeit, one must know the original very well. In effect, many people may not know wrong family structures because they do not know God's choice of family structure. This book is, therefore, meant to point the reader to the right direction in order to prevent errors in choosing the kind of structure to have, or where to make possible corrections - depending on your current marital status.

While this book is not just about making choices, it is aimed at presenting the kinds of family structures that are prevalent in the world today in comparison with the original family structure as God designed and ordained it. To be able to detect a counterfeit, one must know the original very well. In effect, many people may not know wrong family structures because they do not know God's choice of family structure. This book is, therefore, meant to point the reader in the right direction in order to prevent errors in choosing the kind of structure to have, or where to make possible corrections - depending on your current marital status.

A remarkable number of women today are taking the daunting step of having children outside of marriage. In Single By Chance, Mothers By Choice, Rosanna Hertz offers the first full-scale account of this fast-growing phenomenon, revealing why these middle class women took this unorthodox path and how they have managed to make single parenthood work for them. Hertz interviewed 65 women--ranging from physicians and financial analysts to social workers, teachers, and secretaries--women who speak candidly about how they manage their lives and families as single mothers. What Hertz discovers are not ideologues but reluctant revolutionaries, women who--whether straight or gay--struggle to conform to the conventional definitions of mother, child, and family. Having tossed out the rulebook in order to become mothers, they nonetheless adhere to time-honored rules about child-rearing. As they tell their stories, they shed light on their paths to motherhood, describing how they summoned up the courage to pursue their dream, how they broke the news to parents, siblings, friends, and co-workers, how they went about buying sperm from fertility banks or adopting children of different races. They recount how their personal and social histories intersected to enable them to pursue their dream of motherhood, and how they navigate daily life. What does it mean to be single in terms of romance and parenting? How do women juggle earning a paycheck with parenting? What creative ways have women devised to shore up these families? How do they incorporate men into their child-centered families? This book provides concrete, informative answers to all these questions. A unique window on the future of the family, this book offers a gold mine of insight and reassurance for any woman contemplating this rewarding if unconventional step.

"Many argue that the modern family is an anachronistic institution whose demise is only a question of time. Looking to the family's future, the eminent sociologist Brigitte Berger argues that despite being weakened and embattled, the family will survive as a fundamental social institution. The family has been the cradle of the modern social order for some three hundred years, and will remain the basis for any society concerned with happiness, liberty, equality, and prosperity for all its members. Rather than being condemned to the dust heap of history, or becoming a simple lifestyle choice, the modern family has a number of enduring strengths that will ensure its survival. In The Family in the Modern Age, Berger focuses on four major areas of concern. First, she demonstrates that the short shrift given to the institutional dimension of the family misrepresents the importance and the role of the family today. Second, she documents the close cognitive fit between core elements of the modern family and the stability of modern society, and argues that any society that ignores this connection does so at its own peril. Third, Berger investigates the degree to which currently identified problems may endanger the modern family's vital individual and social functions. And finally, she develops reasonable projections of the future of the family that will be core elements contributing to the creation of a politically democratic and economically prosperous world. Berger takes a long-range view of ""the career"" of the conventional family in the twentieth century. Her perspective is distinctly different from that widespread in scholarly literature today. She takes account of recent demographic shifts in behavior relating to sexuality, marriage, family structure and values, relationships, and family functions. Berger considers hotly contested contemporary issues relating to the family-gay marriage, divorce, abortion, women and work, issues of child-care, among others. Bu"

No matter your size, shape, or pedigree--if you love each other, you are a family! Moms, dads, sisters, brothers — and even Great Aunt Sue — appear in dozens of combinations, demonstrating all kinds of nontraditional families! Silly animals are cleverly depicted in framed portraits, and offer a warm celebration of family love. From School Library Journal PreS-Gr 1—Imagine a house with many rooms, whose walls each have a different color or wallpaper, accenting a family portrait hanging there. On a rustic wooden wall hangs the first portrait—a large family of ducks posing beside a still pond. The next spread shows three pandas in pink vests, much like the pink oriental wallpaper behind them. Each portrait features a gently rhyming line: "Some children live with their grandparents…/and some live with an aunt./Some children have many pets…/and some just have a plant." All of these appealing images demonstrate different ways of being a family. "Some children live with their father./ Some children have two mothers./Some children are adopted./Some have stepsisters and—brothers." The cartoon-style critters contrast pleasantly with more realistic elements—a bamboo plant, a slender ceramic dog, a fat ceramic cat. Families of hippos, tigers, lions, ostriches, and whales join the other family groups in the final spread. The loud-and-clear message is that "if you love each other, then you are a family." And imagine the many children who will be reassured because they have found a portrait of a family they will recognize as their own. A solid choice for most libraries.—Mary Jean Smith, formerly at Southside Elementary School, Lebanon, TN

The third edition of Choices and Constraints in Family Life is a concise yet comprehensive introduction to the sociology of the family.

Of all concepts used by family therapists, the family development framework is among the least studied, in spite of its relevance to understanding spontaneous family change and to facilitating therapeutic intervention. The notion that a "developmental difficulty" underlies the appearance of clinical symptoms has become a time-honored tradition in family therapy just as it has been in individual therapy. Yet, unlike the well-established and well-researched models of child and adult development, those in family development are rudimentary. Despite increasing interest in the family life cycle as a framework for family therapy, relatively little has been done to elucidate the specific dimensions and processes of spontaneous and therapeutically-induced change over the family life cycle. This volume gathers original contributions of some of the most prominent family theorists, researchers, and clinicians of our time to improve our understanding of these important and hitherto neglected domains. The book opens with a comprehensive overview by the editor that outlines contributions to the family life cycle framework from family sociology, and crisis theory. This is followed by a comparative analysis of developmental thinking, explicit or implicit, in the theory and interventions of the major family therapy approaches. Then divided into four parts, FAMILY TRANSITIONS introduces new conceptual models that integrate the temporality of the life cycle approach with systems theory.By their very nature, these models cut across therapeutic orientations and have important clinical applications. In Part II, family therapy's views of development are freed from the confines of the therapist's office, and placed in the context of other disciplines. Chapters provide analysis of changing--or static--sociocultural values that can affect conceptions of development; potential misuse of the concept of "cultural identity" in health, mental health, and education; how "family identity" operates as a vehicle for cultural transmission over generations; and family therapists assumptions about women's development. The role of expected and unexpected events in the family life cycle is the focus of Part III. Chapters on clinical approaches geared to dislocations of life cycle occurrences due to unexpected crises, chronic illnesses, loss, or drug abuse provide illustrations of interventions that utilize, enhance, or potentially detract from the family's developmental flow. Part IV explores the articulation of the life cycle framework within four major family therapy orientations: intergenerational, structural, systemic, and symbolic-experiential. Each of these chapters endeavors to elucidate: what is the place of family development in each orientation; concepts of continuity and change; use of the concept of stages, transitions, or developmental tasks; the specific dimensions that change in most families over time; and the links between family dysfunction and life cycle issues. Finally, each chapter illustrates through clinical example assessment strategies, formulation of treatment goals and interventions as these emerge from a particular life cycle model. FAMILY TRANSITIONS presents a significant advance in our understanding of functional and dysfunctional family development and offers a range of interventions to promote developmental change. It is an invaluable resource for clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and counselors that will also interest human development professionals, family sociologists, and family researchers. FAMILY TRANSITIONS can serve as a developmentally oriented textbook for teaching family therapy in academic and professional settings.

Since the 1950s, divorces and out-of-wedlock births in America have risen dramatically. This has significantly affected the economic wellbeing of the country's most vulnerable populations. In Home Economics: The Consequences of Changing Family Structure, Nick Schulz argues that serious consideration of the consequences of changing family structure is sorely missing from conversations about American economic policy and politics. Apprehending a complete picture of this country's economic condition will be impossible if poverty, income inequality, wealth disparities, and unemployment alone are taken into consideration, claims Schulz. This book will trace how family structure has transformed over the last half century, ruminate on the causes of those changes, consider what conclusions can be drawn about the economic consequences of the changes in family, and offer ideas for how to handle the issue in the years to come.

This book brings a modern critical approach to bear on the broad range of subjects that used to constitute 'family law.' A key consideration in this collection is the way in which law itself is premised upon, constructing a particular image of the family. By bringing different areas of law together, Probert et al suggest it is possible to explore how differing ideas about 'the family' inform different areas of law. This approach allows Family Life and the Law to analyze the extent to which the law is consistent and/or inconsistent in its concept and treatment of the family across and within disciplines. The book is particularly timely in view of the passage of the Civil Partnership Act 2004, the implications of which reverberate throughout family law and allied disciplines, and the current reconsideration of the position of cohabiting couples.