In an Anti-Family Way

STEPHANIE COONTZ is on a mission: She wants to make the world safe for divorce. “We are kidding ourselves,” she says, “if we think the solution to the economic difficulties of America’s children lies in getting their parents back together.”

Coontz is now considered one of America’s leading experts on the family. A professor of history at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., she has written two books—The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap (1992) and The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with America’s Changing Families (1997)—that still earn her regular appearances on TV and in the newspapers. Last May, a Newsweek cover story on single mothers quoted the following Coontz wisdom: “Giving incentives or creating pressures for unstable couples to wed can be a huge mistake.”

About the Author

William Tucker

Mr. Tucker is author of Terrestrial Energy: How Nuclear Power Will Lead the Green Revolution and End America’s Energy Odyssey.

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STEPHANIE COONTZ is on a mission: She wants to make the world safe for divorce. “We are kidding ourselves,” she says, “if we think the solution to the economic difficulties of America’s children lies in getting their parents back together.”

Coontz is now considered one of America’s leading experts on the family. A professor of history at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., she has written two books—The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap (1992) and The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with America’s Changing Families (1997)—that still earn her regular appearances on TV and in the newspapers. Last May, a Newsweek cover story on single mothers quoted the following Coontz wisdom: “Giving incentives or creating pressures for unstable couples to wed can be a huge mistake.”