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18 chapter eighteen Families What is a family? How are families in the United States changing? Why is there a debate over the future of the family? Rosa Yniguez is one of seven children who grew up in Jalisco, Mexico, in a world in which families were proud of having many children. Rosa remembers visiting the home of friends of her parents who had a clock in their living room with a picture of each of their twelve children where the numbers on the clock face would be. Now thirty-five years old, Yniguez is living in the United States and working as a cashier in a San Francisco department store near her home. Recalling her childhood, she says, “In Mexico, many of the families I knew had six, eight, ten children. Sometimes more. But I came to this country to get ahead. That is simply impossible with too many kids.” As a result of her desire to keep her job and make a better life for her family, Yniguez has decided to have no more than the three children she has now. Hispanics have become the largest racial or ethnic minority in the United States because of a traditionally high birth rate and large families. But today more and more Latinas are making the same decision as Rosa Yniguez and opting to have fewer children. Studies show that the birth rate for all immigrant women has dropped by 30 percent during the past decade (Navarro, 2004). ( Families have been with us for a very long time. But as this story indicates, U.S. families are changing in response to a number of factors, including the desire of women to have more career options and to provide better lives for their children. In fact, the family is changing faster than any other social institution (Bianchi Spain, 1996). This chapter explores the changes in family life, as well as the diversity of families both around the world and here in the United States. Families: Basic Concepts The family is a social institution found in all societies that unites people in cooperative groups to care for one another, includin