Going Beyond The Bedroom Sex Therapist Dr. Ruth Takes On A New Topic: The Family

Mention the name Dr. Ruth Westheimer and most of us automatically think about one thing: SEX.

Dr. Ruth, perhaps America’s best-known sex therapist, is synonymous with her subject of expertise. Her radio program “Sexually Speaking” and syndicated newspaper column, along with her books and television appearances, have altered the way we think, at least publicly, about a private matter.

Now, Dr. Ruth has turned her attention and her down-to-earth humor to a subject that is perhaps even dearer to our hearts - the state of the family in America.

Working with journalist Ben Yagoda, Westheimer has written “The Value of Family: A Blueprint for the 21st Century” (Warner Books, $21.95) as a call to action. Not that she will stop talking and dispensing no-nonsense advice on sex. Never, she assured me.

“I will always talk about sex,” she said in a phone interview from Sao Paulo, Brazil, where she was visiting. “No need to worry about that. But I also want to talk about the family. We have to do a lot of rethinking about the family and I want to encourage a dialogue with my book, not any finger-pointing, but a dialogue.”

Besides, she adds, writing and talking about the family means her career will be coming full circle: Her doctorate was in interdisciplinary studies on family. She hopes those who listen to her advice on sex will listen as carefully when she talks about family.

“Sure, of course, I want my name to attract readers,” she said, laughing. “If that is what it takes. I hope they see Dr. Ruth, common-sense, and pay attention. I use humor. I can joke, but I want them also to understand that we are changing.”

Westheimer may be particularly suited for the topic. Her own family history is extraordinary. An only child, she was separated from her parents during the Holocaust, then orphaned by the time she was 10.

She has been a single parent and was married and divorced twice before meeting her current husband of 40 years, Fred.

It’s her attitude about change, and our own resiliency and power to change to help our families, that comes through in the book. And that’s exactly what she wanted to do.

“I don’t want to write a book that life is so terrible. That’s not my philosophy,” she explained.

Though she agrees that the American family is not what it used to be - or what we thought it used to be - she refuses to lament. She puts a positive spin on the emerging network of blended families, extended families, single parents and families that include gay couples. The reason for her optimism: “There already are programs in place that are working. We can continue and learn from them.”

“The Value of Family” is divided into two parts. The first examines the historical background of the family, analyzes how it developed as an American institution and traces the many faces of today’s families. The chapters have lots of statistics, none of them from her own research or new studies.

But Westheimer says she and co-author Yagoda “didn’t want to re-invent the wheel.”

She prefers to use the information already at our fingertips, poking at it with skeptical questions if necessary, and then offer her own observations. For instance, she explains how there isn’t one definition of family, suggesting instead that families come in every imaginable shape and size.

She is both progressive and conservative, lauding the unconditional love and caring two homosexual parents can give a child while advocating the responsibility above all to a family’s foundation, marriage.

“A family,” she writes, “is a group of people linked together by some combination of love, commitment, cohabitation, children, bloodlines, memories and thoughts about the future. It’s a matter of connection - with each other, with a shared past and future, and with generations before and since.

“And it’s a matter of responsibility. When you’re in a family, you don’t need to see each other every day, or even every week, but you need to know, unconditionally, that if necessary, those people will be available to you.”

Part II of the book, “And What to Do About It,” is the most interesting section. It’s vintage Dr. Ruth:

“We also need the constant reminders - at home, in school and on the airwaves - that having a baby is an extremely difficult, demanding, time-consuming, messy and expensive endeavor that can throw a serious monkey wrench in any life or career plans you might have.”

“I believe that cutting welfare to the extent that has been proposed would result in a level of suffering that has not been seen in this country since the Great Depression.”

“… The importance of symbolism should not be forgotten. Perhaps as much as specific programs, it is critical that the government be seen as having a commitment to the family.”

Westheimer fills the last half of the book with plenty of advice that’s geared toward parents. But her aim is clearly toward Washington, D.C., as well.

“What I would really like to see is a czar of family in the White House,” said Westheimer, who proposes the idea in the book. “We have czars for other things, an oil czar. Well, we need a czar for the positive.”