Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" Using the existence of a marriage license to determine when the state should protect interpersonal relationships is increasingly impractical. "

Stephanie Coontz

Related Quotes:

" Being a feminist is not about how successful, talented, and assertive you are in your own life. It's about whether you support the struggle to overcome the limiting gendered stereotypes and barriers that force so many women to restrict their aspirations as workers, to fulfill their aspirations as parents, and force so many men to do the opposite. "

Stephanie Coontz

" For most of America's history, people typically aspired to acquire 'a competency' rather than great riches. A competency meant the ability to comfortably sustain a household without depending on others. 'Competence' also meant being capable and reliable. The American Dream was that people who worked hard and capably could support their families. "

Stephanie Coontz

" No single choice about how to organize work and family life is right or possible - for every family. And every choice has tradeoffs. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Parents who obsess about every detail of child-rearing and orchestrate their children's 'resumes' may run themselves ragged while their own personal identities and adult relationships wither for lack of care. "

Stephanie Coontz

" If we want to revive and achieve the American Dream, we need to change a situation in which the people whose hard work makes this country run cannot earn a living wage, while bankers, speculators, and corporate elites - the real 'takers' in today's society - skim off far more than their fair share. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Our goal should be to develop work-life policies that enable people to put their gender values into practice. So let's stop arguing about the hard choices women make and help more women and men avoid such hard choices. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Inequality was written into the creation of the American Republic when our Founding Fathers denied voting rights to women. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Americans are right to believe the American Dream is fading. But that dream only became a possibility for white men as a result of the labor struggles and reforms of the New Deal, and it began to extend to minorities and women only after the civil rights and women's movements of the 1960s and 1970s. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Valentine's Day is a perfect time to reject the idea that the ideal man is taller, richer, more knowledgeable, more renowned, or more powerful. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Social changes always involve trade-offs. "

Stephanie Coontz

" For a century, women have binged on romance novels that encouraged them to associate intimidation with infatuation; it's no wonder that this emotional hangover still lingers. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Hyper-parenting has many pitfalls. Overprotected and overpraised children may develop an inflated sense of entitlement. "

Stephanie Coontz

" I am not arguing that women ought to 'settle.' I am arguing that we can now expect more of a mate than we could when we depended on men for our financial security, social status, and sense of accomplishment. "

Stephanie Coontz

" We must recognize that there are healthy as well as unhealthy ways to be single or to be divorced, just as there are healthy and unhealthy ways to be married. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Cohabitation itself doesn't cause ineffective parenting. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Rising inequality has changed family dynamics for all socioeconomic groups. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Couples need time alone to renew their relationship. They also need to sustain supportive networks of friends and family. "

Stephanie Coontz

" In the 1970s, family history wasn't yet thought of a serious field for study. I was terrified of being laughed at by other historians. I called my book 'The Social Origins of Private Life.' It should have been 'As Pompous as You Want to Be.' Every sentence was academic jargon, and if I said X, I qualified it with Y. "

Stephanie Coontz

" In 1992, I critiqued the panic over growing family diversity. My skepticism about the doomsayers has since been proven correct. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Nostalgia is a very human trait. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Whatever their relative valuation of the single and married states, most societies in history made sharp distinctions between those who married and those who remained single: They were seen as mutually exclusive ways of life, with different legal rights and social obligations. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Educated parents find more time to spend with their children by reducing time dedicated to home-based activities that involve little interaction with children. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Because we live so much of our adult lives as singles, it no longer makes sense to assume that marriage is the only way people will organize their obligations and commitments. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Investing in living-wage jobs and reducing the inequities between local school districts would give young people more, not less, incentive to postpone childbearing and more possibilities for independence. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Feminism insists on women's right to make choices - about whether to marry, whether to have children, whether to combine work and family or to focus on one over the other. It also urges men and women to share the joys and burdens of family life and calls on society to place a higher priority on supporting caregiving work. "

Stephanie Coontz

" It's always seductive to know where one stands in relation to the average. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Turning back the inequality revolution may be difficult. But that would certainly help more families - at almost all income levels - than turning back the gender revolution. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Especially around Valentine's Day, it's easy to find advice about sustaining a successful marriage, with suggestions for 'date nights' and romantic dinners for two. But as we spend more and more of our lives outside marriage, it's equally important to cultivate the skills of successful singlehood. "

Stephanie Coontz

" In personal life, the warm glow of nostalgia amplifies good memories and minimizes bad ones about experiences and relationships, encouraging us to revisit and renew our ties with friends and family. It always involves a little harmless self-deception, like forgetting the pain of childbirth. "

Stephanie Coontz

" Trump made his fortune manipulating tax laws and stiffing small businessmen, creating a few well-paying jobs along the way. Vulnerable people looking to master 'the art of the deal' learned the hard way that Trump held all the cards. "

Stephanie Coontz