November 14 1994

ARTICLE TOOLS

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A man and a woman meet in college; he courts her for a few years, and upon graduation, they marry. They both get jobs, working hard as school teachers, enjoying each other and their new life together. Soon, they are able to start the family. They bring into the world a wonderful baby girl, causing them to wonder what they lived for before her arrival. To make their family grow, they adopt a second child-a magnificent little boy. They are now a complete and happy family. The man and the woman enjoy a long-lasting marriage and raise two intelligent and well-adjusted children.

A model of a traditional family? Not according to the spin the media put on a recent report by the U.S. Census Bureau. "The Diverse Living Arrangements of Children: Summer 1991." This report captured headlines across the country, claiming that the "traditional family" is nearly the exception, rather than the rule. As proof, the press highlighted the bureau's claims that only 50.8 percent of all children live in a traditional "nuclear" family. What got lost in the interpretation, however, was the fact that the report defined "traditional" as any family consisting of two married adults living with only biological children. Ironically, the father of the family described above, James C. Dobson, founder and president of Focus on the Family, is the nation's staunchest and best-known advocate of the "traditional family." The Census Report would not define his family as traditional because all the children raised in the Dobson home were not biological.

Using the Census Bureau's definition of the traditional family, many of the icons of family life we know through television would also be excluded. The Waltons miss out because they have Grandma and Grandpa living ...