The Way We Never Were: American Families & the Nostalgia Trap

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The Way We Never Were: American Families & the Nostalgia Trap

by Stephanie Coontz

3.86 · rating details · 452 ratings · 58 reviews

The Way We Never Were examines two centuries of American family life and shatters a series of myths and half-truths that burden modern families. Placing current family dilemmas in the context of far-reaching economic, political, and demographic changes, Coontz sheds new light on such contemporary concerns as parenting, privacy, love, the division of labor along gender line...more

Paperback, 432 pages

Published October 6th 1993 by Basic Books Inc. (NY) (first published 1992)

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Apr 17, 2008

Donitello rated it

We Americans have long cherished certain images of ourselves, many of which fall under the heading, "This is How Life Should Be Lived." The problem is not that these images don't exist outside the US--many have never really existed for us!

Here's just one example. "Always stand on your own two feet" (ie., the Horatio Alger-like reliance on self alone). The book cites Senator Phil Gramm, co-author of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings amendment and famous for his opposition ...more

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Jan 03, 2008

Trudy rated it

This is another of the sociology books that has caused me to be pretty skeptical of most blanket statements we hear about how things are. This, in particular, is about our collective past. Coontz uncovers facts and figures that contradict the popular myth of the family of the 50s, 60s and earlier, as well as shining a light on both conservatives' and liberals' tendencies to blame the other for society's ills. Though it contributed to making me a skeptic, it is also encouraging. If you like y...more

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Sep 30, 2011

Cathy rated it

Shelves: not-finished

this book started out well, easy to read, etc. but it turned out to be a text book and although i got thru 2/3 i remember almost nothing except that things are not as we remember but the facts and figures are lost to me. i finally started marking passages.

most of what coonz says is that economy determined family life styles so in the colonies the family was an entire work unit each one contributing to the final work product. as industrialization took over work went out of the house ...morethis book started out well, easy to read, etc. but it turned out to be a text book and although i got thru 2/3 i remember almost nothing except that things are not as we remember but the facts and figures are lost to me. i finally started marking passages.

most of what coonz says is that economy determined family life styles so in the colonies the family was an entire work unit each one contributing to the final work product. as industrialization took over work went out of the house mostly for unmarried and children and fathers. the mothers had to take care of the house and children not old enough to work. sexual roles were delineated between wage earners and home care.

the state began difining roles, eliminating abortion for example. the nuclear family is only as strong as the state.

the history of mother's day which began in 1858 by anna reeves to improve sanitation in appalachia. it celebrated mother's accomplishing something outside of the home and during the civil war for medical services.

in the 1920s it became more acceptable for married women to work. in 1950 married woment were over 50% of the female work force. during the depression married women began increasing in number. between 1940 and 1950 29% growth, 1960 39% and 41% in 1970s making them more obvious.

the age of marriage today is no higher than in the 1870s, the rate of childlessness is lower. 1/3 of all children born during the twenty years prior to the american revolution were illegitamate. 1780s and 1790s 1/3 of brides in rural new england were preganant at marriage. in north caroline the out-of-wedlock birth rates for white women were approximately the same in 1850 as in 1970. and further currently the women with illigitamate children are usually those with bleak futures and 1950s gender mentality. teenage childbearing rate in north america in 1957 when more than 97 of every 1000 births were from women aged fifteen to nineteen. today only half as many teenagers give birth.

the population of denmark has more elderly than the u s will in 2015 and has generous care for elderly and has not gone broke.

i regret that i was unable to finish the book. it was overdue at the library. i was on page 213.(less)

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Mar 29, 2009

Lyn rated it

Shelves: 2009

Very interesting read. There is a lot of buzz about "traditional families" but what does that really mean? Coontz looks at the history of families in the US to see what the true "traditional" families have been. Turns out it isn't at all what we think. The traditional family where dad went to work and mom and kids stayed home has been the privilege of only the very wealthy.

I knocked a star or so off because of two things: the book reads like a text book - I re...more

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Mar 12, 2011

Debra Marsh rated it

Shelves: history-books-read

One of my professors referred to this book in the question he asked me for my written exams. So, I decided to read it in preparation for my oral exams. The author seemed to have an agenda, so I did not know how far the information she presented can be trusted. Nevertheless, this book really made me think and question certain beliefs I have long held about "traditional" families. I would highly recommend it for that reason alone. Books that cause you to really think and ponder an i...more

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May 18, 2008

Mary rated it

For anyone who still thinks the Nelsons or the Huxtables were normal.

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Jan 16, 2011

David rated it

Stephanie Coontz is a serious scholar and historian of relationships, marriage, and families. Here she provides strong evidence that many of the traits we consider normal and traditional are actually historical aberrations that occurred mostly among some white, middle-class families in the USA in the 1950s. In doing so, she draws upon her deep knowledge of the way that families have evolved over time, revealing that our "family values" have always been specific to our time, place, clas...more

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Dec 09, 2009

Starbubbles rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: family-studies, history, post-ww2

really good book. just continuing where she left off with her "origins of a private life," or something to that effect. you know perfectly well that if i ever find that book i will most likely be reading it b/c for some reason i can't escape from the coontz. but that it's a bad thing, she does good work. i don't always agree with her interpretations, but hey that's how history works. this one in my opinion is better than her later one, "the way we really are." goes fort...more

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Dec 23, 2011

Alaine rated it

· review of another edition

Traditional family values are a concept tossed around by right wing conservatives, usually as they attempt to restrict rights of anyone who doesn’t agree with them. We hear about families in crisis and the breakdown of society and how if we could only return to traditional values, life would be just peachy again. In The Way We Never Were, Stephanie Coontz illustrates how those traditional family values never actually existed. The idea of 1950s families being more self-reliant than modern fami...moreTraditional family values are a concept tossed around by right wing conservatives, usually as they attempt to restrict rights of anyone who doesn’t agree with them. We hear about families in crisis and the breakdown of society and how if we could only return to traditional values, life would be just peachy again. In The Way We Never Were, Stephanie Coontz illustrates how those traditional family values never actually existed. The idea of 1950s families being more self-reliant than modern families, buying a home on one income? No problem if the families included a returned soldier. With a government program designed to assist former GIs, WWII veterans could purchase a home for a dollar down. Teenage pregnancy a modern problem, driven by easy access to birth control and the liberal media? Coontz points out that there was actually more teen pregnancy in the 1950s. “In 1957, 97 out of every 1,000 girls aged fifteen to nineteen gave birth, compared to only 52 out of every 1,000 in 1983.” And if you want to go way back into the annals of American tradition, she says, “In Concord, Massachusetts, a bastion of Puritan tradition, one-third of all children born during the twenty years prior to the American Revolution were conceived out of wedlock.” June Cleaver would be scandalized! The archetypal idea of a happy family defined by that ‘50s idea of a father who works and a mother who takes care of the home and the children is addressed early on: “The...idea that a woman can be fully absorbed with her youngsters while simultaneously maintaining passionate sexual excitement with her husband was a 1950s invention that drove thousands of women to therapists, tranquilizers, or alcohol when they actually tried to live up to it.” Oh, hey. The prescription drug problem is not exactly a new issue either.

The Way We Never Were is something of a dry read. For the most part, it’s like reading a textbook. But it’s a textbook full of interesting facts. They pop up every now and then in between long passages of statistics. Television families in the 1950s were, “so completely white...that even the Hispanic gardener in ‘Father Knows Best’ went by the name of Frank Smith.” The contrast with modern portrayals of brown people in the media is compelling. I loved the story about Mary Angel and Abigail Galloway testifying in court in 1773 that, “they had caught sight through an open window of a man they knew ‘in the Act of Copulation’ with a woman not his wife.” The book describes how these two women strolled into a man’s home, caught him in the act, watched for a while, then confronted him about his adultery. But it’s also full of excruciatingly dull and dry lines of text containing little more than numbers, percentages, and dates. Those pages are difficult to read even if the subject matter is not tough to process.

Much of the book is written in a manner akin to that of a textbook but there are somewhat random passages in which Coontz begins speaking in the first person. You might think these little casual chats would be easier to read and engage the reader but stuck in the middle of facts and figures, they’re incongruous and disconcerting. Chapter 4 begins as Coontz quotes her grandfather on, “pioneer life in Puget Sound.” I had to read the passage more than once before I could digest what had just happened and continue with the rest of the book. The previous chapter had just ended Chapter 3 by saying that the self-reliant family will be proven to be a historical myth in the next chapter. Did she seriously just use a personal anecdote to prove her point? Yes. Yes, she did.

The Way We Never were was originally published in 1992 but still sounds current almost twenty years later. With the current controversy about social networking websites sharing personal information, how much information the government should be collecting on private citizens (i.e. The Patriot Act) and so forth, it was interesting to read that, “Since the 1870s and 1880s, privacy has become such a cherished value that it now has attained the status of a basic right.” Americans in 2011 do expect a certain amount of privacy. But Coontz says, “In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, city officials, social superiors, and prying neighbors regularly entered homes and told people whom to associate with, what to wear, and what to teach their children.” By the year 2011, most of us would call the police if a neighbor invaded our homes and dictated child-rearing practices but traditionally, Americans have been a bunch of busybodies. Americans today are fully engrossed in consumer culture. We watch television shows as filler between advertisements intended to sell us things we didn’t realize we needed. Life in the 1950s was no different. “Ozzie and Harriet, for example, had some of their most heartwarming talks in front of the Hotpoint kitchen appliances that the show was supposed to help sell.”

Is it the lack of traditional family values that is responsible for a perceived decline in American society? “In nineteenth-century America, the ‘age of consent’ for girls in many states was as low as nine or ten.” In nineteenth century America, “New York City contained one prostitute for every sixty-four men and the mayor of Savannah estimated his city to have one for every thirty-nine men.” In the 1950s, “college boys...sometimes roamed through a campus chanting ‘We want girls! We want sex!’” Mothers throughout history didn’t stay home raising children and keeping house. That’s a modern idea that was pushed on those pill-popping, alcoholic, depressed and unhappy 1950s mothers. In the past, women found fulfillment outside the home. Household staff helped raise the children and keep house and mothers involved themselves in various forms of social work. Mother’s Day, Coontz says, was not originally intended as a day to praise one’s individual mother. “The people who inspired Mother’s Day,” Coontz says, “had quite a different idea about what made mothers special. They believed that motherhood was a political force. They wished to celebrate mothers’ social roles as community organizers, honoring women who acted on behalf of the entire future generation rather than simply putting their own children first.” It was only in those so-idealized 1950s that mothers were expected to truly be housewives, staying at home, raising their own children, finding fulfillment through baking pies and dusting. Traditionally, mothers took care of children, not just their own children.

I really wanted to love this book. I’m the kind of nerd who watches documentaries about social issues and reads Michael Pollan for entertainment. And I was raised in what most people would find a freakishly conservative family. I love debunking the myths I was raised to mindlessly accept as fact so a book dispelling myths about the traditional family seemed like exactly my cup of tea. But I cracked the book open and was almost immediately bored to death. Chapter 1 defines the traditional family. I suppose if you’re going to write a book debunking myths about the so-called traditional family, you need to define your terms. But who really has a traditional family? We all know that idealized 1950s Cleaver family was a complete work of fiction and for most people, it doesn’t take much looking around their own family trees to find examples that deviate from the so-called norm. I don’t think fifteen pages of textbook speak were needed to describe the mythical family. On second thought, perhaps a person with such limited exposure to life in general as to buy into the idealized white ‘50s family as real, historical reality needs it driven home repeatedly over the course of fifteen pages.

Does anyone in the year 2011 really still believe the 1950s family is any kind of model for life? Aside from the very conservative, I don’t think too many people do. But if you found yourself viewing the past with a pair of rosy-colored nostalgia glasses and pining for a traditional lifestyle, The Way We Never Were is happy to hand you a lens cleaner. (less)

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Sep 30, 2009

Jessica rated it

I wish I wrote this book! Coontz makes the overarching argument that those who hearken back to the “good old days” when families were intact and morally superior—leading to a better overall society—are, at best, misinformed. When I picked up the book, I was nervous that Coontz’s myth-busting was going to be a superficial list of statistics on how much better we are now, based on progress in areas such as interpersonal violence and gender equality. I was pleasantly surprised that Coontz does much...more

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Oct 30, 2009

Emily rated it

Shelves: politics

Coontz presents a much-needed argument on the futility of conservative nostalgia for "the good old days," chock-full of statistics. Anyone advocating a patriarchal family model taken from back in time when men, women, and children knew their place needs to study the history of the American family first, and Coontz adeptly proves that few have. Gender roles have almost always been determined by economic systems, and throughout history couples have engaged in premarital sex, domestic v...moreCoontz presents a much-needed argument on the futility of conservative nostalgia for "the good old days," chock-full of statistics. Anyone advocating a patriarchal family model taken from back in time when men, women, and children knew their place needs to study the history of the American family first, and Coontz adeptly proves that few have. Gender roles have almost always been determined by economic systems, and throughout history couples have engaged in premarital sex, domestic violence has been more common than anyone wants to admit, and (poor & working class) women have worked to support their children. Domestic violence and incest, she points out, have in fact always occurred more commonly in families with rigid, patriarchal gender roles like those emblazoned on TV in the 1950's.

Unfortunately, Coontz spends little time addressing those who advocate the 1950's ideal that never existed and why they do, perhaps because she hopes to give her arguments bipartisan appeal. She mentions the fact that the greatest change since the 1950's has been the empowerment of women to take charge of birth control when engaging in pre-marital sex and the opening of the workforce to middle class as well as working class women. All her evidence contradicts the cries of the angry backlash against women's rights, gay rights, single mothers, and "immorality," and proves that in the end it all comes down to the threat these movements pose to patriarchy. Hesistant to identify her opponents, she doesn't emphasize it.

She also fails to address the central role television has had in this national debate, albeit at the crux of her argument is the fictional American family conservatives love to cite as their model. While pornography, homosexuality, pre-marital sex, and swearing have always existed, the invention of the television and sitcoms posed the question of how much of it should be nationally on display in our homes every evening. Social critics can pretend all they want that families like the Cleavers dominated the suburbs as well as the airwaves back in the day, but in truth the Simpsons and their ilk were everywhere. My relatives at the time reflected back the Cleavers' nuclear family image while in fact there was alcoholism, previous marriages, abortion, and teen pregnancy. The difference between that generation and mine is that their non-idealistic family moments remain family secrets.

With ninety pages of end notes and almost ten statistics per paragraph, the book is much more of an academic thesis than a social or political commentary. This is excellent in terms of giving her argument more substance than all her opponents' books combined, but it makes for a dry read. I had bought it under the impression that her writing style would be as fluid and wry as it was in the introduction, but she scrapped it to make room for statistics.
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Jan 16, 2009

Rebecca rated it

This book is BLOWING my tiny mind.
Assumptions so deep and unexamined that they seem like Truth are carefully teased out into the open, and examined in the light of history. You think that we've got new and original family problems these days? Unprecedented government meddling into family affairs? Rigid definitions or overly lax ones? Hah-- nothing is new under the sun. Coontz takes us through American history and explores chapter-by-chapter such Truthy ideas as Families stand on their own...more

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Jan 06, 2012

Damona rated it

· review of another edition

this is a very, very interesting book. it's also a terribly slow read. i found myself re-reading paragraphs and pages, just to be sure that i really understood what the author was getting at. that said, it was sufficiently fascinating that i did finally finish it!

the author's position on marriage, family, race, sex, and other topics makes a lot of sense and seems to be pretty well substantiated. basically, she's saying that all eras idolize another, earlier era, and the way things wer...more

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Jul 27, 2011

Carolyn rated it

Shelves: nonfiction

This is the TRUE story of American families, as opposed to the non-existent "good old days" that a lot of people want to go back to. The author looks at families from the colonial era to the modern day, and thematically discusses issues like child and spousal abuse, women working outside the home, the invasion of family privacy, "non-traditional" families, welfare, etc. Her arguments are surprising but well supported by endnotes.

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Dec 22, 2008

Radioanngal added it

Ah, this is such a classic. My former professor at Evergreen wrote it, also just a cool lady. But essentially, she takes logic and data and applies them to the mythos of the 1950's "nuclear family" and debunks every stereotype we had about what a family looks like. That families have always changed with the social and economic structures of their times. A great book.

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Oct 18, 2009

Melissa Johnson rated it

Chapters 1 through 8 provide an insightful analysis of the rhetoric and realities of the American family. The last three chapters are little too polemical to be good history. Still, worthwhile information to have in your back pocket the next time someone starts decrying the disintegration of "traditional" family values.

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Oct 23, 2010

InfoShaman rated it

Originally published in 1992, this book could benefit from updating many of its statistics. Despite this problem, this sociological study scrutinizes the popular myths about the American family, many of which are based upon misplaced sentimentality about post-WWII middle class white suburbanites.

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Jun 08, 2010

Scott Dishman rated it

I had to read this book for my liberal arts class in college. Definitely not something I would pick off the shelves.

If you like to read historical data on families then this is the book for you. I read only parts of the book to include most chapters as the book did no hold a interest for me.

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Jul 07, 2011

(a)lyss(a) rated it

Recommends it for: Anyone interested in ever getting married

Stephanie is a very witty and talented writer. She lays out the history of marriage in several books and makes some fascinating comparisons between the 1950's and now. She points out glaring mistakes in calling anything in the US "traditional" and dissects thoughts of the times.

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Jan 28, 2010

Ryan rated it

Though the book lags a bit in some areas and gets a bit repetitive, it was, on the whole, very well written and exciting. The main premise is that the 1950s nuclear family really only existed for a few decades, and its existence was mostly the product of America's unique economic situation. But, it didn't spread to all families in all classes and races. And the economic climate that made it possible to have a one-income family with several kids and a house in the suburbs had mostly changed by...more

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Mar 17, 2010

Melanie rated it

This totally changed the way I think about the history of the past century. There are so many assumptions we make about how life was "back then" that are slightly skewed and even completely incorrect. This book is chock full of well-referenced information on many aspects of American living since the early 1900s. Touching on economics, ideals, gender roles, child rearing philosophy, marriage, religion, families, this book has taught me so much about our history that I never learned i...more

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Apr 19, 2009

Emily rated it

I started this book after having it fervently shoved into my hands (this personal copy being heavily highlighted & annotated, you understand) by an old friend & former English professor who used it in her general studies classes. She thought it would help me understand, frankly, that the demise of my marriage is hardly a new event in the course of human history - or one to be necessarily deeply lamented.

I started this book with every intention of reading it & being able to converse w...more

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Jun 25, 2009

Cgilson rated it

This book is often used in Sociology classes. Illuminates the context of popular perception of what "traditional" families have meant at different times in history.

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Mar 19, 2011

Theresa Sivelle rated it

Okay, I got to page 218, but that was as far as I could go. Was glad to hear that no one else in my book club was able to get through it either. There was some interesting information, but it was way too much work to get to it. This would probably make a great educational type book but didn't make for good casual reading, which was pretty much the concensus from my bellow book club readers.

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Mar 29, 2011

Kelly marked it as to-read

Looks unsurprising but perhaps useful for arguments with the next pushy social conservative I meet.

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Oct 03, 2008

Kristin rated it

This book helped me filter through all the crap that politicians, special interest groups, and cultural institutions tell us about how we should live our lives. The argument of "it's always been that way" or "it's natural" or "that's our legacy" is a bunch of crap. The stereotype of the 50s is not how Americans have generally lived; it's not even how they lived in the 50s. The family on Leave it to Beaver does not reflect a reality we've lost, it was fictional. I th...more

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Jul 05, 2010

Daniel rated it

Shelves: 2010, textbook, humanities-program

Rating based on the several chapters of required reading for a class I'm taking. (The little I read of a follow-up book by Coontz, "The Way We Really Are," is similarly good.)

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Jun 28, 2009

Elizabeth rated it

Shelves: nonfiction-cultural-criticism, nonfiction-history-modern

Also known as: Everything You Know About the American Family and the Social State Is Wrong, or, other lies your grandparents told you.

A little dry, in the endless evocation of statistics, but that's what gives it its power. It's certainly depressing, I think, because it points out the systematic failures of policy and rhetoric that has not been, you know, based in reality, so it's hard to avoid the sense that the whole problem of policy and myth and whatnot is just unsolvable. But ...more

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Apr 13, 2011

Richard Cytowic rated it

Part of my 50's trip. Memory lane, but looks at the dark side and implications.

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Mar 03, 2009

Bruce rated it

A history of what was perceived to be popular culture in the 50s

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About Stephanie Coontz

Stephanie Coontz teaches history and family studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, and is Director of Research and Public Education for the Council on Contemporary Families, which she chaired from 2001-04. Coontz is the author of "A Strange Stirring": The Feminine Mystique and the Wives of "The Greatest Generation" (Basic Books, forthcoming 2010) and the...more

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Books by Stephanie Coontz

Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy

A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique & American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s

The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with America's Changing Families

American Families: A Multicultural Reader

The Social Origins of Private Life: A History of American Families 1600-1900 (Haymarket)

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“Like most visions of a 'golden age', the 'traditional family' evaporates on closer examination. It is an ahistorical amalgam of structures, values, and behaviors that never coexisted in the same time and place.” — 2 people liked it

“Contrary to popular opinion, 'Leave it to Beaver' was not a documentary.” — 1 person liked it

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