Reddit reviews The Way We Never Were: American Families And The Nostalgia Trap
We found 15 Reddit comments about The Way We Never Were: American Families And The Nostalgia Trap. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
> The reasons why it is flawed is not part of this argument, only that it is flawed as evidenced by the divorce rate
This is an enormous leap. How can you expect people to believe this without evidence?
> Long-term relationships are good for societal and individual health
This is not what your quote said. Your quote said:
> Healthy marriages are good for couples’ mental and physical health.
I think this is the issue here. These marriages that ended in divorce were not happy marriages. In the past there was a huge stigma associated with divorce and women were less able to make a living wage. This put tremendous pressure on unhappy couples to stay together. Now that divorce is considered more acceptable these unhappy marriages are ending. I think that this divorce rate is actually a good thing. It frees people from unhappy, unhealthy relationships and gives people another chance to be happy. If you are interested you can check out The Way We Never Were by Stephanie Coontz. It talks about the history of marriage and tries to dispel the false, idealistic notions we have of the concept.
Nostalgia is a dangerous emotion, especially because it usually is rooted in memories of the way we never were.
And it wouldn't have been possible without massive government handouts and the GI bill.
Some good reading for the curious.
>I think you have a very romanticized notion of the past.
The Way We Never Were. Coontz is a lefty, but it's still a really good book. I read the passage on Alcoholism among housewives during the 50s and 60s, and my Grandmother surprisingly opened up at how huge of a problem it was for her and her friends.
I have a book about this nostalgia for a false past: The Way We Never Were: American Families And The Nostalgia Trap
It is about exactly what you describe - the belief so many Americans seem t hold that we were like Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver, when things were actually a good bit more nuanced and complicated. And for a lot of people, really a lot worse than now.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Way-Never-Were-Nostalgia/dp/0465090974
It is a myth
The Way We Never Were
The Way We Never Were: American Families And The Nostalgia Trap.
For more nostalgia-bubble-bursting (bad memory bursting), see:
"The Way We Never Were: American Families And The Nostalgia Trap" by Stephanie Coontz
https://www.amazon.com/Way-We-Never-Were-Nostalgia/dp/0465090974
There's a great book about this called The Way We Never Were ...
Not sure how relevant it is, but there is an excellent book that deals with this in Americal politics and thought called The Way Things Never Were. It's jam packed with great statistics and interesting information and really supports the conclusion that things weren't all that awesome back then.
The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap is a landmark of social history.
http://www.amazon.com/Way-We-Never-Were-Nostalgia/dp/0465090974/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411273226&sr=8-1&keywords=the+way+we+never+were
> They want you to be living like “Leave It To Beaver” is still on black-and-white tv, and that people still live in white picket fenced bungalows, with mom’s wearing aprons and dad’s smoking pipes and reading the newspaper.
>
> That world stopped existing quite a while ago.........
Never really existed in the first place.
https://www.amazon.com/Way-We-Never-Were-Nostalgia/dp/0465090974
For a very comprehensive look at families in that era, I recommend the book "They Way We Never Were". It was assigned reading for my undergrad in American History.
https://www.amazon.com/Way-We-Never-Were-Nostalgia/dp/0465090974