ABSTRACT
This chapter argues the teen pregnancy: that family values hoopla rests ultimately on a monstrous hoax that paints the postwar era as a golden age for American families. Women and men married younger, had more babies, spaced their babies more closely, and lived together longer, in single-family homes, even after their children had moved on. Divorce rates, along with women's job prospects and educational parity to men, fell, and many Americans reported in polls that they hoped to find their life's satisfaction within the nuclear family. Social scientists, politicians, and journalists then proceed to concoct stories about the epidemic, often searching for a single cause that will in one fell swoop account for all pregnancies: the burdensome legacy of sharecropping or a quest for self-esteem. The golden age for Black Americans surfaces very differently, resting on an urban myth that celebrates those downtown areas white suburbanites fled.
