Dr. Elizabeth Tracy, a professor at Case Western Reserve University, reported on the changing family. Only 10 percent of families today are of the traditional variety, with father working, mother at home, and marriage of lifelong commitment. In this changing nation, there are 1,300 “step families” formed each day. Dr. Tracy, a teacher of social work, reported that children in step families need at least six years to adapt to the changes that have occurred in their lives! She said, “Average married persons today – because of multiple marriages – have more parents than children!” That is something new for us to handle, and its newness feeds the worry, the fear.
__________
Leonard H. Budd, The Spirit’s Tether, CSS Publishing Company, 1993.