Abstract

Subject to Debate

This article reports that according to the census American families increasingly come in all shapes and sizes-single moms, single dads, live-together with kids. Nuclear households, two married parents with children are down to 23.5 percent of all households, the lowest ever. The census doesn't measure gay and lesbian parents, but their numbers are on the rise as well. So this is exactly the moment for Wade Horn, head of the Fatherhood Initiative and scourge of nontraditional families, to be nominated as assistant secretary for family support, where he will be in charge of a vast array of programs serving poor children and families-from welfare and childcare to child support, adoption, foster care and domestic violence-and will have a great deal of influence over the reauthorization of welfare reform, coming up next year.