Andrew Cherlin's Essay 'How American Family Life Is Different'

630 Words3 Pages

Natalie Martinez
English 10-35
September 30, 2016 In the article “How American Family Life Is Different” by Andrew Cherlin, a professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University states that people tend to believe that a nation should be “consistent” and “unified.” However, he also states that culture is inconsistent where people can choose between how they would like to see and view life specifically towards how Americans deal with the cultural model of marriage and the cultural model of individualism (Miller-Cochran, Susan, Roy Stamper, and Stacey Cochran. An Insider 's Guide to Academic Writing: A Rhetoric and Reader.). Cherlin uses a metaphor such as a toolkit to describe how people pick and choose how they want their relationship to be and we can identify this with utilitarian individualists, people who choose to advance their self interest with effort within society and expressive individualists, are people are trying to improve themselves as a person in order to be happy ("Individualism and Moral Commitment: Robert Bellah Et Al." Individualism and Moral Commitment: …show more content…

Individualism has allowed Americans to develop who they and how they see their relationship with their partners overtime. So if you 're not content then you have the choice of leaving your relationship and I believe Caitlyn does a good job of model expressive individualism. However, individualism is big in the Western society and so overall Cheelin describes this as the way Americans live their life as a family.

Works Cited
Miller-Cochran, Susan, Roy Stamper, and Stacey Cochran. An Insider 's Guide to Academic Writing: A Rhetoric and Reader. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
"Individualism and Moral Commitment: Robert Bellah Et Al." Individualism and Moral Commitment: Robert Bellah Et Al. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Sept. 2016.
Dooley, Sean, Margaret Dawson, Lana Zak, Christina Ng, Lauren Effron, and Meghan Keneally. "Bruce Jenner: 'I 'm a Woman '" ABC News. ABC News Network, n.d. Web. 30