1

The post World War II years were a roller coaster in America.

This was where citizens were either embracing the American way of life

or using the time to really find out who they are. When the men

returned home from the War a large spike in the birthrate, known as

the baby boom, took a major hold on the American family because a

proper fella had a wife and kids and everyone in society expected

that.1 The 1950s was significant in America because of the major

social and cultural changes inside and outside the home; two themes

include the American dream and the beginnings of the American

nuclear family. This decade is known as the very definition of the

perfect American family. Dad goes to work to make the money as

breadwinner and head of the household, mom stays home to take care

of the house, kids, and her husband, all while also trying to figure

herself out in a world where woman were expected to stay home.2

Within the confines of the post World War II family home, the parents

brought the values and traditions that were enforced on them during

their childhood; therefore it was only logical for them to run their home

the same way. Obeying authority, taming your emotions and not

causing problems, were amongst the rules the children of the home

1 Michael Rich, 1950s Family Life, Fifties Web (United Site, 2015)
Fiftiesweb.com/pop/info-family: 1.
2 Marynia F Farnham and Ferdinand Lungberg, Modern Woman The
Lost Sex (Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1947): 2.
had to listen too.3 And with these strict rules and traditions opposed

onto the 1950s youth were major contributing factors to their rebellion

in the 1960s.

To understand the meaning of these rules and the opposition of some

the youths of the 1950s, the first place to visit is that of the parents

and understanding why they insisted on continuing the legacy of these

rules. With the prosperity that follows World War II, the culture of

suburbanization rapidly became impudent in American society and

predicated upon a return to domesticity, marriage, child rearing and

consumption . . . the suburbs pivoted around the changing agency of

the American party. In the 1950s the social act of marriage and family

raising, became crucial in conveying that an individuals private sphere

was healthy and prosperous.4 The traditional roles of mother and

father came back to life because the family social unit and their roles

determine not only the character, but also the structure became

acceptable among all men and women.5 It was thought that this way

of life was characterized by affluence, located in suburbia and

3Family Life of 1950s,

(http://www.wdeptford.k12.nj.us/high_school/prockwell/documents/195
0s/societysuburbs2.pdf): 1.
4 Andrea Carosso, Cold War Narratives: American Culture in the 1950s
(Bern, CHE: Peter Lang AG, 2013): 72.
5 Ruth Nanda Anshen, The Family: Its Function and Destiny (New York:
Harper & Row, Publishers, 1959): 3.
epitomized by white middle-class nuclear families.6 Like their parents

before them, they conformed to the idea of proper gender roles within

the household. In an article entitled How to be a Good Wife outlined a

typical day in the life of the 1950s American middle-class housewife.

She cleans the house, prepares dinner, freshens up with a clean

comfortable dress, makes sure the kids are washed up for dinner,

and the list goes on.7 This way of life was all the parents were exposed

to, and of course it would be hard to run their home any other way

because the parents of postwar babies had grown up in leaner times,

they wanted their kids to have what theyve missed out on

themselves.8 All the parents wanted was for their kids to be the best

that they could be. However under their roof, the children had to

follow their rules and traditions that they themselves had to follow.

Most children of the 1950s would act the way that their parents wanted

them too, in terms of following the rules; but behind closed doors, the

children would begin to figure out who they are. The rules in question

6 Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold

War Era (New York: Basic Books, 2008): 8.
7 How to be a Good Wife,
(http://web.viu.ca/davies/H323Vietnam.HowToBeAGoodWife.1954.htm,
1954): 1.
8 Hugh Downs, The American Dream: The 1950s (Alexandria, Virginia:
Time-Life Books, 1998): 63.
include obeying authority, not causing problems, and taming your

emotions. These rules were set in place because the certainty (of)

family unity was the focus of eternal values.9 They are important

because if the children disobeyed them, their parents frustrations

would be projected onto them, all while wanting them to live up to

their full potential.10 Most youths do not respond well to their parents,

but in this decade regardless on what they do or think, they had no

choice but to conform to their parents way of life. One of the best

examples of the house rules is through a 1950s film that displays a

night in with the family. This film entitled A Date with Your Family

shadowed a typical American nuclear family and show the various

situations that happens on within the household after the children get

home from school. It

depicted that the children should keep your emotions to yourself when

the father comes home because he does not want to come home to a

miserable family. When you sit down at the dinner table it is the

parents who choose the topic of pleasant unemotional conversation,

therefore obeying the parents, not causing any problems and not

showing emotion at the diner table for this was to be a pleasant time

9 Anshen, The Family, 15.

10 C. Wright Mills, White Collar (New York: Oxford University Press,
1953): 31.
for the family.11 However, the relationships between father and son,

and that of mother and daughter, had different bonds between them.

Outlined in the film and other bodies of work, the son would be

diligently doing his homework after school and bond with dad before

dinner in pleasant chat, while the daughter stays in the kitchen,

helping mom with dinner. For the daughter this is normal and natural

behavior because she belongs to the same sex as the mother that

provided the functions of housewife and mother are immediately

before her eyes.12 For the son the relationship between him and his

father is very different. Boys were expected to be the proper sex; the

ones that were meant to carry on the conformity of the American

dream and the traditional house rules. The relationship with their

fathers in the 1950s is not only stressful, but also one of continuing

affection, solicitude, and anxiety.13

Although the relationships between parents and children can be

strained at times, the family unit in the 1950s remained normal to the

public sphere as the perfect version of the American dream and by

staying true to the rules. In regards

to how the perfect family is suppose to act, it is as important to look

like the perfect family. Fashion was huge in the 1950s with it

11 A Date with your Family, Film (Phelinger Archives: Internet Archives,

http://archive.org/details/Datewith1950, 1950).
12 Anshen, The Family, 256.
13 Anshen, The Family, 28.
continuing to change and was used to deceiver the individuals from

the conformed. Therefore for the 1950s suburbs had a sense of

uniformity, order, community, and safety in their fashion.14 Even

inside the home dress was an important for different times of the day.

Children would have their school clothes, while mom and dad wear

their perspective work clothes, and when they would get together for

dinner they would change into something more comfortable, which

would entail basically the same outfits but more designed for home

comfort.15 However, acting and dressing the part of the perfect

American nuclear family does not stop nor help the feelings of wanting

to break out of this routine and conformity amongst the youths in the

household.

With fashion and traditional rules running the lives of the 1950s youth,

these were the breaking points to them wanting individualism. Like

their parents, teenagers in the 1950s were a conformist lot, at least on

the surface, stating that in this decade, the youths began to develop a

sense of nonconformity.16 This was widely known as the Beat

generation that included the youths who believed that there was more

to life then just conforming to the traditional American rules and values

that their parents have opposed on them. These factors were the

14 Karal Ann Marling, As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday

Life in the 1950s (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,
1994): 114.
15 A Date with Your Family, Film.
16 Downs, American Dream, 68.
major contributions that gave the youths the push to begin little

rebellions against the rules. There were many ways where the youths

of the 1950s adapted to this

cultural rebellion. Teens decided that it is time for the American dream

era to have a twist. Parents however, where not thrilled with the idea

that their children are different, but it was the fact that their children

were openly rejecting the rules that they have set in place for them.

Generations of elders were publicly outraged with the various activities

and attractions that their children were becoming apart of.17 There are

two ways in particular that would be the indicators that certain youths

would be apart of the new Beat culture: rock n roll and fashion. First,

rock n roll music was making major strides the latter part of the

1950s, and had become the Beats music of choice. With the advances

in radio technology, it had become portable. Therefore teenagers

could pick up rock n roll in their bedrooms rather than participating in

shared familial experiences around the radio.18 Second, fashion

became the ultimate notion of the Beat generation. In the way one

dresses tells the public which group they belonged too, either

conformist or nonconformist. With poodle skirts and leather jackets,

teens were now able to not only act the part but also look the part of a

17 Boy Studying, Colliers, 28 January 1950,82.

18 Christopher Gair, The American Counterculture (Edinburgh
University Press, 2007): 3.
Beat. In terms of Beat fashion bright colors in the clothes was the

biggest indicator for an after-hours revolt from the conformity, and to

the parents the biggest disappointment.19 Associated with the Beat

culture and fashion, was the assumption of juvenile delinquency. This

Beats phenomenon was described as youths began to affirm specific

styles and behaviors which set them off from previous adolescents: for

the first time in history, youths acquired social and

cultural identities that no longer allowed their assimilation with either

children or adults, as they associated themselves with changing forms

of speech, fashion, music and mores . . . they looked an acted

differently and often seemed remarkably hostile or even criminally

inclined appearing to adults like outright juvenile delinquents.20 The

little rebellions within the households of the American nuclear families

were just the beginning of social and cultural change amongst the

1950s teenagers and as they came to age in the 1960s. These turned

into the American counterculture; and changed the face of the

American family and society from that point on.

For Americans in the 1950s, the idea of the American dream was

the symbol of hope and prosperity during the post-war years.

Overwhelmingly the evidence of the American family life reiterates the

conforming society of suburbia as well as reaffirms domesticity that

19 Marling, As Seen, 41.

20 Carosso, Cold War, 132-133.
rested on distinct roles for women and men.21 However, their children

who developed the sense of a bigger world outside of the conformity,

aged into the counterculture that included descendants of the Beats,

who blasted the materialism and stifling conformity.22 For the youth of

the 1950s, this was their time to discover who they were and wanted

to be, and for most of the youths it was continuing of the legacy of the

traditional rules passed down from their parents. For others like the

Beats conformism works as a disguise under which teenagers mask

their dissatisfaction-discontent with society at large . . . they are, in

fact, rebels without a cause, alienated youths who perceive the adult

society surrounding them

as a waste land, but have no viable solution through which to

overcome middle-class conformity.23 It was through the Beats in the

1950s and the counterculture in the 1960s where the youths found

sanctuary from the strict rules and traditions that were opposed on

them.

21 May, Homeward, 6.
22 Richard B. Stolley, Turbulent Years: The 60s (Alexandria, Virginia:
Time-Life Books, 1998): 137.
23 Carosso, Cold War, 156.