Nuclear Family

One type of The Family.

Typically defined as 2 (married) parents (of the opposite sex) and their children.

Makes up a surprisingly low percentage of US families. (Sorry, no statistic handy, but I have seen one...) (see below)

vs, Single Parent Family

http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/04/13/p1s1.htm says in 1996 56% of american families were nuclear.

• actually it's that 56% of children are living in a household headed by a married couple. Which is definitely better than I had thought. But lots of households are couples with no kids, or single people, etc. The percentage of married families actually dropped from 1990 to 2000. So it depends on the context you're talking about. --BillSeitz

I wonder how much of the Open Source success of the past few years was driven by young single males having more free time than Geeks With Kids. Once you're Having Kids, it's hard to put time/energy aside.