Ostensibly rigorous and realistic, contemporary conservatism is an ideology of denial. Its symbol is a smile button.

• The attempt to redefine the family as a purely voluntary arrangement grows out of the modern delusion that people can keep all their options open all the time.
• The left dismisses talk about the collapse of family life and talks instead about the emergence of the growing new diversity of family types.
• It is the logic of consumerism that undermines the values of loyalty and permanence and promotes a different set of values that is destructive of family life.
• The question of the family now divides our society so deeply that the opposing sides cannot even agree on a definition of the institution they are arguing about.
• It is no longer an unwritten law of American capitalism that industry will attempt to maintain wages at a level that allows a single wage to support a family.
• The family wage has been eroded by the same developments that have promoted consumerism as a way of life.
• A growing awareness of the depth of popular attachment to the family has led some liberals to concede that family is not just a buzzword for reaction.
• Liberals subscribe to the new flexible, pluralistic definition of the family their defense of families carries no conviction.
• Most women are pragmatists who have allowed extremists on the left and right to manipulate the family issue for their own purposes.
• The last three decades have seen the collapse of the family wage system.