• write a 600 word essay on the topic of "Who are American Families?"

I have attached 6 resources– you can use any 4 of them for this paper, and any other 2 outside website.

• one theory application to the topic
• 4 scholarly references
• 2 website references
• title page
• references page
• no direct quotations allowed

Sample Paper

America has always been known to have the ‘perfect’ way of life, from their jobs, to their education system. America’s families have been known for consisting of a mother, father, and children, but with immigration and social changes that have happened over the past decade, the image of the America family has drastically changed. American families are no longer the stereotypical nuclear family of the past.

In figure HH-6 from the United States Census Bureau, it shows that from 1947 to present day, the number of members in both family and all households, has decreased. The reason for the decrease in members could be because taking care of children can be expensive; some families may choose to only have one child, rather than two or three. Sadly, even with the decreased family members in a home, especially children, there is still a high number of children in foster care and adoption agencies. The 2014 AFCARS Report from the Children’s Bureau shows that in 2009 the number in children of foster care was 418,672 and those waiting to be adopted was 113,798. This substantial number could have been caused by America being hit with the worst economic crisis it has seen in seven decades, according to Times magazine’s “America's Economic Crisis: Now for the Non-Recovery.” With the amount of unemployment increasing rapidly, many families could not properly take care of their children, resulting in many children being removed from their homes.

It could also be that there are Americans that choose to live alone or not get married. Figure AD-3a from the USCB shows that 70% of adults aged 18 years and older in 1967 lived with their spouse, but in 2016 that percentage decreased by 30% and the percent of those adults living alone went up 5%. Our generation of millennials is known for straying away from old social norms and relationships have become more complex than the typical heterosexual relationship. A news article from the Washington Post, “Bad news for older folks: Millennials are having fewer babies”, it says that millennials are having fewer children. Even though the desire of children is strong, many people are holding off because they are not financially stable or ready to bear the expense of raising a child. Another example of American families differing now from the past is there are more couples that are cohabiting with or without children, but not marrying. Figure UC-1 from the USCB, shows a large jump in how many unmarried cohabitating couples without children from the year 2006 to present (2016). While cohabitating couples with children goes up about 1 million, this figure does not explain the many different situations these unmarried cohabitating couples may be in. There could be couples that have children, but they do not live with them. These couples also may not be heterosexual couples, but instead be homosexual couples and the children that live with these couples could be their relatives or younger siblings.

With the amount of change that has happened to America, from economic recession to the millennial ‘selfie’ generation, the nuclear family has become a stereotype. In our present time, family has become many things. Families consist of single parent households, unmarried cohabitating couples, or in some cases, people not having families and living a life of solitude. Whatever the circumstances might be for any family in America, the image is now something new. With the vast amount of information that can be found on the Internet, many credible sources will show that a ‘nuclear family’ is but an example that is used to simplify what family was.

Figure AD-3a. Living arrangements of adults 18 and over. U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved August 28, 2017, retrieved fromhttps://www.census.gov/topics/families/families-and-households/data/tables.html

Figure HH-6. Changes in household size. U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved August 28, 2017, retrieved fromhttps://www.census.gov/topics/families/families-and-households/data/tables.html

Figure UC-1. Number of unmarried couples (opposite sex). U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved August 28, 2017, retrieved from https://www.census.gov/topics/families/families-an…

Timecom. (2017). TIMEcom. Retrieved 30 August, 2017, fromhttp://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1945379_1944421,00.html

The AFCARS Report. Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) FY 2013 data. Children's Bureau. Retrieved August 28, 2017, retrieved from http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb

Washingtonpostcom. (2017). Washington Post. Retrieved 30 August, 2017, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/among-millennials-theres-a-baby-bust/2015/05/04/c98d5a08-f295-11e4-84a6-6d7c67c50db0_story.html?utm_term=.c86e0e63b1cc