Behavior: The American Family: Future Uncertain

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That refusal takes place in adolescence, which like childhood is a modern development. Thus the family has had no long historical experience in dealing with the new rebelliousness. Unlike youths of the pre-industrial age, who simply entered some form of apprenticeship for the adult world at the age of puberty, millions of teen-agers now remain outside the labor force to go to college. It is this fact that has made possible the existence of today's separate youth culture, by which parents feel surrounded and threatened in their sense of authority. "A stage of life that barely existed a century ago is now universally accepted as an inherent part of the human condition," says Yale Psychiatrist Kenneth Keniston. Keniston, in fact, now postulates still another new stage of life, that between adolescence and adulthood: he calls it "youth." The youth of the technetronic or post-industrial age often remain out of the work force until their late 20s. "They are still questioning family tradition, family destiny, family fate, family culture and family curse." Naturally, their very existence unsettles the families from which they sprang, and delays the development of the new life-styles that they will eventually adopt.

LIMITED USEFULNESS. According to Sociologist Reuben Hill, among others, the family has traditionally performed seven functions: reproduction, protection and care of children, economic production of family goods and services, socialization of children, education of children, recreation, and affection giving. But during the past century, he says, the economic, educational, recreational and socializing functions have been lost in varying degrees to industry, schools and government.

In three areas of traditional family life there has been little erosion: reproduction, child care, affection. As a matter of fact, many experts believe that the affections! function is the only one left that justifies the continued support of the family as a social institution. As "community contacts" become more "formal and segmental," says Hill, people turn increasingly to the family "as the source of affectional security that we all crave."

But the insistent demand for affection without the traditional supporting structure has dangers of its own. The pioneering sociologist Edward Wester-marck observed that "marriage rests in the family and not the family in marriage." The corollary used to be that the family existed for many practical purposes beyond love. To base it so heavily on love—including the variable pleasures of sexual love—is to weaken its stability.

Mother's Kiss