Why is the Traditional Family not Trending?

Define trend. A trend is the "general direction in which something is developing or changing," quote Oxford Languages. Trends are always appearing, changing, disappearing, and perhaps reappearing decades down the road. From crimped hair to mustache tattoos on index fingers to TikTok dances, there are hundreds that come to mind. I'm barely nineteen years old and I've seen several come and go.

But how do trends catch on? One person wears their baseball cap backward, and all of a sudden, every boy on the block's doing it--and eventually, every single boy that has a baseball cap. It may be found foolish one day, but then it's stylish the next.

Trends don't revolve around only physical appearances. Subjects can trend too--meaning how much they are being talked about. A trending subject right now in 2020 is the conversation on the evergrowing global mental health crisis. Not only the conversation is trending, but also the number of people suffering from mental illness and committing suicide. The 2020 global coronavirus pandemic contributed greatly to the already rising suicide rate. (If you are struggling right now, please know you are not alone and you are greatly loved. Suicide hotline number: 800-273-8255). As you can see, trends are not always positive.

Now, you may be thinking, "Katie, how do trends apply to the family? Are there even family trends?" Well, friend, let me tell you. Society's concept and definition of family has changed drastically over time, and today we will be discussing some statistical trends of the family.

Let's begin with babies born out of wedlock. Looking back in the mid to late 1920s, roughly 1 in 10 (10%) women had given birth to at least one baby before they turned 30 years old. In the mid to late 60s, that ratio changed from 1 in 10 to 1 in 4 (25%). When the year 2007 rolled around, the percentage had risen to 39.7 (Lauer & Lauer, 2011). Interestingly enough, the percentage of births to unmarried women living in the United States in 2018 was 39.6 (National Center for Health Statistics).

Let's talk about birthrate and fertility rate. Birthrate is the number of children born per 1,000 women. Fertility rate is generally defined as the number of children a woman gives birth to in her lifetime. Not only have these been fluctuating over the past few decades, but women are simply waiting longer to have children or are choosing to forego having kids altogether. The longer a woman waits to have children, the less likely she is to actually get pregnant. A woman's legitimate fertility and the body's ability to handle pregnancy and the birthing process decrease with age.

In the year 1950, the birthrate was about 36 births per 1,000 women (Mauldin, 1976). On a decline, in 2008, the birthrate was 13.9 births per 1,000 women (Lauer & Lauer, 2011). The rate has gone down even more, hitting 11.99 births per 1,000 women in 2020 (Macro Trends). This decline is leading to a diminishing population, which can only be revived through immigration if the birthrate doesn't increase in the future. Currently, in the United States, the fertility rate is 1.779 births per woman (Macro Trends). That means the average woman is having only one or two children. The fertility rate needed to maintain the population--not considering immigration and emigration--is 2.13 births per woman.

As you can see, families with fewer children are trending. Not only that, but living alone, abortion, cohabitation, delayed marriage, and the number of employed mothers are on the incline (Lauer & Lauer, 2011). Divorce, on the other hand, is constantly fluctuating. Divorce rates increase, decrease, increase again, and so on. 

It's easy to say that the traditional family is not the norm anymore. The traditional family, I dare say, is not an increasingly popular trend. Unmarried couples with one or two children, single mothers, and unmarried singles with no children are becoming more popular and are, in fact, trending. Will a married couple with more than two children ever trend again?

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Thank you for reading! I make new posts on the family every single week, so stay tuned.

- Katie

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