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that what is acceptable for young men is not for young women. On the
other hand, some young people — both men and women — accept a
single standard for both sexes before marriage.
After their marriage the young couple is free to decide where to
live. Most newlyweds set up their own household immediately. Most
married people practice some kind of birth control. They plan the
number of children they are going to have and when their children will
be born. Birth-control information and family planning are easily
available.
Today, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 59 percent of men
and 47 percent of women between 18 and 24 depend on their parents
despite all traditional patterns of behavior, at least for housing. This is
part of a major shift in the middle class. Analysts cite a variety of
reasons for this return to the nest. The marriage age is rising. A high
divorce rate and a declining remarriage rate are sending economically
pressured and emotionally battered young people to parental shelters.
For some, the expense of an away-from-home college education has
become so exorbitant that many students now attend local schools.
Even after graduation young people find their wings clipped by
skyrocketing housing costs.
Sharing the family home requires adjustment for all. There may be
the hassles over bathrooms, telephones and privacy. Some families,
however, manage the delicate balancing act.
The familiar structure in present-day America is the so-called
”nuclear family.” It is unusual for members of the family other than
the husband, wife, and children to live together. But the forgotten term
“extended family” is coming back again with a different meaning.
Now it means that there have appeared an increasing number of
families that include half brothers and sisters, and stepmothers and
stepfathers. There is a growing number of people who have been
married three or even four times.
The reasons for re-marriage are: the comparative ease of divorce
and the greatly lessened social stigma that it now carries; a
romanticization of marriage that cannot live up to the long-term
reality; a “flip of the dial” attitude that fosters moving on as soon as
problems or ennui set in; the economic independence of women; a
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level of affluence that makes multiple families possible for some; an
attitude among the so-called “me” generation that places fulfillment of
personal needs ahead of compromise or sharing.
Census figures show that 50 percent of American families now end
in divorce. 85 percent of these divorced people remarry, usually
within five years, with 60 percent of those marriages ending in
divorce.
“I’ve changed my name so many times I don’t know who I am any
more,” said Barbara Freedman, a Manhattan social worker, who has
been married three times, having been widowed as well as divorced.
She went on: “It’s disruptive. It’s hard to maintain a stable core of
friends or pattern of life. So much of your structure is built around
your marriage.”
Children of parents who marry several times are another concern.
They suffer a loss of faith in relationships. Multiple marriages also
aggravate sibling conflicts. Who is entitled to get college money if
there isn’t enough to go around? How do you equitably settle the
claims of children from the different marriages when the parent dies?
What if the children from a marriage are left out of the will? So, remarriage may create unforeseen difficulties for both parents’ and
children’s lives.
Changing Roles within the Family
When the twentieth century began all the different varieties of
American families shared one characteristic: the wife did not work
outside the home. The only exceptions were black wives. At that time,
for a wife to work was a sign that a husband was not able to support a
family or that he was crippled or otherwise incapacitated. The
transformation was relatively quick. It began in the years of the Great
Depression, but the major impetus was provided by World War II.
The pattern established then, though originally intended to be a
temporary war measure, continued after the war was over.
Many women preferred working and many firms found the
relatively low wages of women an inducement to continue to employ
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their labor. The immediate consequence was a great expansion of jobs
open to women. Women became electricians, machinists, carpenters,
as well as lawyers, engineers, and physicians in unheard of numbers.
Simply because work for married women is now accepted and so
commonplace, the internal character of American families has greatly
changed.
For some two hundred years now, American women have been
seeking to enhance their autonomy within the family. This has
involved their gaining better education, a place as the moral guardian
of the family, the opportunity to control childbirth, and to dissolve the
marriage if it proved too limiting or unsatisfactory. They have also
asserted their right to combine family and work outside the home.
Today, as a result of the widening of employment opportunities for
women and also the consciousness-raising fostered by the women’s
movement, the pressure for women’s equality within families has
reached a new height. But still many women do not feel happy to be
torn in two.
There is the so-called Supermom, the woman who tries to juggle a
career with a family. Others have come to the conclusion that the dual
role can often cause them to be mediocre at both. So they have given
up their career to stay home with children. Some view it as a
temporary solution until their children start school. But even when at
home women pursue various interests. They participate in all kinds of
organizations, for example English-teaching committee for the
foreign-born, in fund-raising activities for the colleges they graduated
from, they jog in the morning with friends, compete in New York City
Marathons, etc. All that gives them a feeling of achievement.
But there are many women with children, however, who work
outside the home of necessity. Many women don’t have a choice of
working inside the home or outside the home any more because
economic needs require that they go out and find a job. Many married
women work because their husbands are unemployed or disabled.
Such women are the sole support of their families and themselves.
The wives of low-wage earners who are taking jobs to supplement
their husband’s income, help keep the family budget solvent in the
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face of inflation. Women in middle-income families are taking jobs in
response to the economic squeeze. Such women are taking jobs to
maintain the standard of living to which they have been accustomed.
But increasingly, a second income in the family is being sought to
achieve traditional goals, such as a college education for their children
or for a single family home. Even braces on children’s teeth or
meeting continually raising utility and other expenses make women
work for the money.
Changes in the family pattern with women working have not been
easily accepted by men, who sometimes show anger and resentment.
On the one hand, a majority of men now believe that both sexes
should enjoy equal employment opportunities, but on the other, most
also believe that children may be harmed psychologically if their
mothers work outside the home. This contradiction increasingly rules
the life of Americans.
Very busy spouses sometimes let each other know that they feel
victimized by the requirements of the other partner. One Atlanta
attorney says: “My wife has her own career as a lawyer and when I
arrive home from a tough day, all I want to do is put my feet up and
have a drink — the sort of thing a man has always expected. Instead I
have to help with the household or attend to my children. I frequently
must cut short my own working day in order to pick up our eighteenmonth-old son from day care or to spend time with my older child.
Often, I am also the one who is on call in case of illness, who prepares
many of the meals, and who keeps the house clean. There is no
question that the rewards of sharing career achievement and child
rearing with one’s spouse are great, but the price paid can be high.
There lies much of the trouble. We are faced with having to become
supermen, in response to today’s superwomen. We are now exploring
uncharted territory, with all the mistakes and false starts that such
exploration requires. I found that I had learned something further
about what it means to be a man, something that goes beyond simply
bringing home a paycheck.”
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CULTURAL ASSOCIATIONS
Look up the following entries in the Dictionary of U. S. Life and
Culture (Жизнь и культура США: Лингвострановедческий
словарь) or other dictionaries and encyclopedias:
blind date
Census Bureau
nuclear family
extended family
“me” generation
IDIOMS
cotton to/on: He’s been speaking for half an hour before I
cottoned on (to what he meant).
skeleton in the closet
pop the question
In loco parentis
Dutch treat
draw the line
salad days
ACTIVE VOCABULARY
affluence (n) — 1. great plenty, an abundance of riches, wealth
income (n) —money which one receives regularly, usu. as payment
for one’s work or interest from investments, the government etc:
low-income families
subsistence (n) — the condition of only just having enough money or
food to stay alive
welfare (n) — money that is paid by the government in the U.S. to
people who are very poor or unemployed: to live on welfare; cf. Br.
benefit
thrift (n, fml) — wise and careful use of money, so that none is
wasted
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plight (n) — an awkward, sad or dangerous situation: the desperate
plight of the flood victims; the country’s economic plight. We are
all moved by the plight of these poor homeless children.
flaw (n) — a mistake, mark, or weakness that makes something
imperfect; defect: Your argument has one fatal flaw.
ludicrous (adj) — completely unreasonable, stupid, or wrong;
ridiculous
newlyweds (n) — people who have recently married
emotionally battered
battered (adj) — 1. old and in bad condition: a battered old
suitcase 2. (of a person) having been physically harmed, usu. by a
member of his or her family: battered wife/husband/baby; a shelter
for battered women
exorbitant (adj) — (of costs, amounts, demands, etc.) much greater
than is reasonable, usual, or expected: The hotel charges exorbitant
prices. The job makes exorbitant demands upon my time.
skyrocketing (adj.)
to skyrocket (v) — (esp. of a price, amount, etc.) to go up
suddenly and steeply
stigma (n) — a feeling of shame or dishonor: the stigma of
alcoholism/mental illness, etc. There should be no stigma attached
to being poor.
EXERCISES
I. Translate the following sentences into Russian paying
attention to the active vocabulary:
1. As people become more affluent, their standard of living
improves.
2. People with a high income should pay more tax.
3. His annual income is $ 250,000.
4. Older people may have more disposable income because their
houses are paid for.
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5. Most of the people in this neighborhood are on welfare.
6. A new report exposes the plight of skilled nurses, who work
long hours for very low rates of pay.
7. Roy was sympathetic to her plight and offered to help her look
for her daughter.
8. The table was half price because of a slight flaw.
9. It is ludicrous to suggest that I was driving under the influence
of alcohol.
10. The court granted him the ludicrous sum of $100 in damages.
11. That’s a ludicrous idea.
12. Everyone left at about midnight, leaving the newlyweds alone
at last.
13. It’s a nice hotel, but the prices are exorbitant.
14. The fact that the oil prices skyrocketed was used by the
producers to justify a general price rise.
15. The stigma of alcoholism makes it difficult to treat.
16. There is a social stigma attached to single parenthood.
17. In the U.S., smoking carries a stigma.
II. Find the words and phrases from the active vocabulary in
the text and translate them into Russian.
III. Locate the items below in the story and give a paraphrases
of the meaning.
welfare recipient
to generate programs
decent-paying jobs
high divorce rate
adjustment
social stigma
disruptive
sibling
equal wages for equal work
fundraising activities
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spouse
to feel victimized
to focus on every day essentials
child rearing
a drive for
inducement
IV. Make up 5 sentences with the vocabulary for translation
from Russian into English.
V. Answer the following questions using the active vocabulary:
1. What can you say about the range of problems connected with
family life in the U.S.?
2. What social problems do American families face? Provide
details.
3. Comment on the phrase: “So much of your structure is built
around your marriage.”
4. Speak about the distribution of social roles within the American
family.
5. Why are the patterns of American families so diverse?
6. Where on the social scale are welfare recipients?
7. Speak about the problems related to being a welfare recipient. Is
there any a social stigma related to that?
8. What is meant by casual and steady dating?
9. What is a blind date? What is your attitude to this practice?
10. What kind of adjustment does sharing the family home
require?
11. Explain the notions ‘nuclear family’ and ‘extended family.’
Which is more common in the U.S.? In Russia?
12. What are the major reasons for divorce and re-marriage?
13. Why is a break-up of marriage disruptive?
14. How do family roles change with time?
15. What kind of woman would be called a “supermom”?
16. How do men feel about the changes in the family pattern
nowadays?
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VII. Make up dialogues using the following statements as
discussion starters:
1. Numerous factors account for the diversity of the patterns of
American family life.
2. Welfare recipients find themselves both socially and
psychologically in an extremely unfavorable position.
3. The standard pattern for young people to leave home in their
late teens has been changing lately.
4. Children of parents who marry several times are another
concern.
5. The men’s and women’s roles in the home are changing under
the new circumstances.
TEXT 3
LATER
by Michael Foster
It’s queer, the things you remember. When life has crumbled
suddenly, and left you standing there, alone. It’s not the big important
things that you remember when you come to that: not the plans of
years, not the love nor the hopes you’ve worked so hard for. It’s the
little things that you remember then: the little things you hadn’t
noticed at the time. The way a hand touched yours, and you too busy
to notice; the hopeful little inflection of a voice you didn’t really
bother to listen to...
John Carmody found that out, staring through the living-room
window at the cheerful Tuesday-afternoon life of the street. He kept
trying to think about the big, important things, lost now — the years
and the plans, and the hopes. And the love. But he couldn’t quite get
them focused sharply in his mind, just now. Not this afternoon.
They, those important things, were like a huge but nebulous
background in his mind. All he could remember, now, was a queer
little thing: nothing, really, if you stopped and thought about it in the
light of the years and the plans and the— the great love. It was only
something his little girl had said to him. One evening, two — perhaps
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three weeks ago. Nothing, if you looked at it rationally. The sort of
thing that kids are always saying. But it was what he was
remembering, now.
That particular night, he had brought home from the office a
finished draft of the annual stockholders’ report. Very important, it
was. Things being as they were, it meant a great deal — to his future;
to the future of his wife and his little girl. He sat down to reread it
before dinner. It had to be right: it meant so much.
And just as he turned a page, Marge, his little girl, came with a
book under her arm. It was a green-covered book, with a fairy-tale
picture pasted on it. And she said: “Look, Daddy.” He glanced up and
said: “Oh, fine. A new book, eh?” “Yes, Daddy,” she said. “Will you
read me a story in it?” “No, dear. Not just now,” he said.
Marge just stood there, and he read through a paragraph which told
the stockholders about certain replacements in the machinery of the
factory. And Marge’s voice, with timid and hopeful little inflections,
was saying: “But Mummy said you probably would, Daddy.” He
looked up over the top of the typescript. “I’m sorry,” he answered.
“Maybe Mummy will read it to you. I’m busy, Dear.” “No,” Marge
said politely. “Mummy is much busier, upstairs. Won’t you read me
just this one story? Look — it has a picture. See? Isn’t it a lovely
picture, Daddy?”
“Oh, yes. Beautiful,” he said. “Now, that picture has class, hasn’t
it? But I do have to work tonight. Some other time...”
After that, there was quite a long silence. Marge just stood there,
with the book open at the lovely picture. It was a long time before she
said anything else. He read through two more pages explaining in full
detail, as he had directed, the shift in markets over the past twelve
months, the plans outlined by the sales department for meeting these
problems which, after all, could safely be ascribed to local conditions,
and the advertising program which after weeks of conferences had
been devised to stabilize and even increase the demand for their
products.
“But it is a lovely picture, Daddy. And the story looks so exciting,”
Marge said.
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