The Audacity of Hope

But back then I saw only the joy of the Robinson house. For someone like me, who had
barely known his father, who had spent much of his life traveling from place to place,
his bloodlines scattered to the four winds, the home that Frasier and Marian Robinson
had built for themselves and their children stirred a longing for stability and a sense of
place that I had not realized was there. Just as Michelle perhaps saw in me a life of
adventure, risk, travel to exotic lands—a wider horizon than she had previously allowed
herself.
Six months after Michelle and I met, her father died suddenly of complications after a
kidney operation. I flew back to Chicago and stood at his gravesite, Michelle’s head on
my shoulder. As the casket was lowered, I promised Frasier Robinson that I would take
care of his girl. I realized that in some unspoken, still tentative way, she and I were
already becoming a family.
THERE’S A LOT of talk these days about the decline of the American family. Social
conservatives claim that the traditional family is under assault from Hollywood movies
and gay pride parades. Liberals point to the economic factors—from stagnating wages
to inadequate day care—that have put families under increasing duress. Our popular
culture feeds the alarm, with tales of women consigned to permanent singlehood, men
unwilling to make lasting commitments, and teens engaged in endless sexual escapades.
Nothing seems settled, as it was in the past; our roles and relationships all feel up for
grabs.
Given this hand-wringing, it may be helpful to step back and remind ourselves that the
institution of marriage isn’t disappearing anytime soon. While it’s true that marriage
rates have declined steadily since the 1950s, some of the decline is a result of more
Americans delaying marriage to pursue an education or establish a career; by the age of
forty-five, 89 percent of women and 83 percent of men will have tied the knot at least
once. Married couples continue to head 67 percent of American families, and the vast
majority of Americans still consider marriage to be the best foundation for personal
intimacy, economic stability, and child rearing.
Still, there’s no denying that the nature of the family has changed over the last fifty
years. Although divorce rates have declined by 21 percent since their peak in the late
seventies and early eighties, half of all first marriages still end in divorce. Compared to
our grandparents, we’re more tolerant of premarital sex, more likely to cohabit, and
more likely to live alone. We’re also far more likely to be raising children in
nontraditional households; 60 percent of all divorces involve children, 33 percent of all
children are born out of wedlock, and 34 percent of children don’t live with their
biological fathers.
These trends are particularly acute in the African American community, where it’s fair
to say that the nuclear family is on the verge of collapse. Since 1950, the marriage rate
for black women has plummeted from 62 percent to 36 percent. Between 1960 and
1995, the number of African American children living with two married parents
dropped by more than half; today 54 percent of all African American children live in
single-parent households, compared to about 23 percent of all white children.