Naomi Cahn

The authors’ stated intentions for this book was to find out “whether red families differ from blue ones… to see if we could find a geographic pattern in the statistics that corresponded to our understandings of red v. blue family strategies.” Their primary tactic for doing this is to look at overall state averages regarding a number of different issues, in an attempt to describe cultural patterns.

As I was reading the introduction, a statistic jumped out at me: “Thirty percent of American girls will become pregnant before they turn 20, and 80% of the pregnancies are unplanned.” This seemed extremely high to me, so I tried to find confirmation of this via the CDC and Department of Human and Health Services, to no avail. This statistic had no citation in the notes either (although other reports which are referenced do have footnotes), and this trend continued throughout the introduction. Similarly, in the first chapter, a chart lists the median age of marriage for men and women alongside the mean age of the woman at the first birth; by listing median and mean on the same chart, the two are being compared when they represent very different statistics (median is the middle of the range, mean is the average).

Overall, I think that this book is attempting to address more than it can actually encompass within the page limitations. The subtitle is “legal polarization and the creation of culture,” but it goes back and forth between addressing regional and political issues, focusing heavily on reproductive and gender role controversies. Although in topics it does manage to address, many interesting points and studies are cited, there are flaws as noted above.… (mer)

This book helped me understand why I vote the way I do and the framework behind the "family values" I live with. Using plenty of statistics, the authors build a case for the politics of families, looking at issues of divorce, contraception, abortion, marriage, gender, and work. Same-sex marriage is also addressed, but this is one way the book shows its aged (published in 2010, before a certain landmark Supreme Court decision.) Despite the numbers and statistics, I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in American politics.… (mer)

Wonderful assessment of the impacts of income inequality in creating different types of families across the income spectrum. Though this is a heavily researched academic text, the majority is highly accessible to the lay reader. It matches up nicely with sociology work by Edin (which the book references), providing an economic perspective to explain the sociological findings on low-income families. This book proves that low-income women who do not marry the fathers of their children are making an economically rational choice given that low-income men are typically unemployed, poor parents, and do not contribute domestically. I wish the frequent "just get married" commentators could understand that.

There are places where the book gets a bit repetitive, which can be a little distracting if you read the book straight through. In addition, I thought the authors paid a lot of attention to Charles Murray as though he is the only conservative commentator to demonize low-income women. However, this is an extremely valuable look into the segmentation of the economy and its impact on American families. Highly recommended.… (mer)