Others give it tepid support as just one of many acceptable adult arrangements. The study analyzes 20 textbooks used to teach about marriage and family in 8,000 college courses around the country. Glenn finds the books riddled with glaring errors, omissions of data, and distortions of research. Last week I read eight of these books and concluded that Glenn is right. The books generally portray families as loose collections of rights-bearing individuals.
Marriage is depicted more as a convenience than as a commitment.
As a result, children appear in the books as almost incidental to marriage, and authors expend great energy to show that they don't need two parents and aren't really harmed by divorce. Families and Intimate Relationships , by Gloria Bird and Keith Melville, strongly argues that most problems showing up in children of divorce actually precede the marital breakups. Most treat the single-parent home as an inescapable fact and glide swiftly past the findings of high risk. The effect of children on parents is handled oddly too. They also cite a Gallup Poll showing that 95 percent of Americans say family life is very important to them, compared with 61 percent who say that about work and 48 percent who say it about religion.