Arlene Skolnick Responds

I will begin with a general comment, then discuss the specific points raised by Michael B. Katz and Mark J. Stern. There is a great deal of public anxiety about the dramatic family changes of the past several decades, and news about the disappearing or declining family has become a media staple. Conservatives have honed this pervasive “decline” theme into a potent political weapon. The “D” word supplies the symbolism and emotional force for right-wing social policies—abolish welfare, promote marriage, ban gay unions. And the word evokes the a simple before-and-after narrative that explains it all: before the sixties, all was well with the American family; then came the counterculture and feminism, the moral collapse of the family, and the host of social pathologies we have today.

Unfortunately, when progressives try to counter the decline theme by arguing that a healthy “diversity” has replaced the “traditional” family, they e...