David Brooks: The nuclear family was never going to last

[appalachiablue]

10. In general I think Brooks has gone a bit overboard here. Nuclear

families were still the standard, even in rural areas and labor needs were rarely as large as what he describes which sounds like a clan, village or plantation, far beyond the 'Waltons' even, lol.

The family unit was normally a husband, wife and children with the occasional grandparents. Adding in single persons ('strays' wth?) such as an aunt, uncle, cousin or servant was uncommon except in unusual circumstances and in areas with larger farming or ranching operations, more space and greater need for labor.

My ancestors who lived in rural areas had large families, for example my grandparents had eight children but there were no others in the family household. In two generations there was a single sister/aunt who worked and lived on her own, quite independently in the city and one brother/uncle who was able to live on his own with some support since he was blind.

Going back even more years, I know that at Monticello when I first saw it as a child, the guides referred to extended family members of Thomas Jefferson who lived at the large plantation, an entire community really, c. 1780-1830.

Included in the household was Jefferson's disabled younger sister, and his daughter's husband with health problems who lived separately from the large main house.
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> "People needed a lot of labor to run these enterprises. It was not uncommon for married couples to have seven or eight children. In addition, there might be stray aunts, uncles, and cousins, as well as unrelated servants, apprentices, and farmhands. (On some southern farms, of course, enslaved African"...).