As we learned from Skolnick's book as well as Rubin's research, family composition is influenced by many factors. Economics, culture, education, ethnicity/race, and tradition all contribute to creating the modern family. Recent decades have greatly influenced family structure, and while some try to preserve the past, others look to the future. Through it all, we find that you can have both. The first part of Rubin's book dealt with "invisible Americans." One of the most thought-provoking statements from the beginning says: “Indeed, one of the surprising findings of this study is how much all these families have in common, how much agreement they would find among themselves – even on some of the racial issues the hottest. current issues- if they could put aside the stereotypes and hostilities that separate them and listen to each other speak. Because if we put race aside, there is much more that can be done to unite working families than to divide them.” (15) For me, this set the tone for the book. More than once, someone in this study, from a different culture or race than mine, said something that I know I had thought or even said before. I found this interesting because with some of them I thought I was the only one who felt this way; that it was a group-specific problem. Rubin's research shows that a lot can happen in a single generation. There has been a lot of talk lately about what Tom Brokaw declared “the Greatest Generation”; those who fought in World War II. These Americans returned from the war, started families, and worked hard to achieve “the Pan-American dream.” But somewhere they must have missed something, because this generation was the one that produced the "marijuana-smoking, free-loving hippies," who then produced the adults in Rubin's study. What changed so much with a generation that was the epitome of hard work, discipline and structure? Stephanie Coontz's article, "What We Really Miss About the 1950s" addresses this topic. The world between 1920 and 1950 is not what we think. There was a high murder rate, a high divorce rate, and "an older generation of neighbors or parents trying to tell them how to manage their lives and raise their children." (Skolnick 33) It is this feeling that their children see the world so differently that is so difficult for working class parents. “Because it seems to say that now, with ...... middle of paper ...... I really miss the 1950s” Family in Transition.Ed. Arlene Skolnick and Jermone H. Skolnick: Boston: Pearson Education, Inc., 2003. 31-39 Kamen, Paula. “Modern marriage: from meal ticket to best friend” Family in transition.Ed. Arlene Skolnick and Jermone H. Skolnick: Boston: Pearson Education, Inc., 2003 152-160 Laner, Mary Riege. Ventrone, Nicole A. “Dating Scripts Revisited” Family in Transition.Ed. Arlene Skolnick and Jermone H. Skolnick: Boston: Pearson Education, Inc., 2003. 143-151 Newman, Katherine S. “Family Values ​​Against All Odds” Family in Transition.Ed. Arlene Skolnick and Jermone H. Skolnick: Boston: Pearson Education, Inc., 2003. 320-334Rubin, Lillian B. Families on the Fault Line, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1994Taylor, Ronald L. “Diversity within of African-American Families » Family in Transition.Ed. Arlene Skolnick and Jermone H. Skolnick: Boston: Pearson Education, Inc., 2003. 365-388 Zinn, Maxine Baca. Well, Barbara. “Diversity within Latin American families: new lessons for family social sciences” Family in., 2003. 389-414