I am an old woman. The definition of "traditional values" has changed several times during my lifetime. Each time it changes it becomes more restrictive, more exclusive. Now, it seems "traditional values" have been redefined to leave out the majority of Americans.
At the turn of the last century - the 1900s, traditional values meant joining unions to protest low wages, and government developed public services to assist Americans by establishing equality and regulating businesses. The first forays into establishing universal healthcare were made because this was part of the then-traditional values, but the newly conceived insurance industries convinced government they'd do what government planned to do. Values were far more socialized then than they are now. People valued communities, fair wages, cheaper utilities, better services, statewide schools, safe neighborhoods, and clean streets. While they believed in individual initiative, they also believed that government was there to provide safety nets and to assist the individual in achieving their goals, that government's role was to create a common American identity to help everyone transcend social classes - no one was to be trapped in a particular class by peer pressure, laws, or stingy wages coupled to excessive wages and predatory loan interest rates.
There has always been a dual track of "family values" in the United States - the track that believes that rigid adherence to form matters more than the individual, that restriction is the best way to force others to adhere to those rigid standards, and to legislate or otherwise penalize anyone who didn't fit a narrow mold and the track that supported the freedom to define family according to individual need and to provide support for those variations, to offer protections and guidelines so each person, each family, could define itself.
The first track, let's call them the Preservative Party, used oppressive tactics to try to get their way - restricting access to healthcare for women and children, blocking ratification for equality of black people and women, denying access to education and information, and controlling their roles within the family. This track leaves vast swaths of humanity in poverty and under the exclusive control of a few people, who hold life and death authority of those under them. It seems like 100 years and more have taught them nothing about humanity and the human spirit. They are still trying to define family in restrictive, limiting ways and trying to force their views onto the rest of the nation through laws and punishments. The men in this track want to "own" their wives, children, and employees even to the extent that they can apply corporal punishment with impunity, up to and even including killing them without any accountability. They want to be little dictators over a tiny domain.
Publicly, the Preservatives claim what they want is a return to the traditional family of the 1950's, the Hollywood fiction of "Leave it to Beaver". During the height of the 50's, perhaps 60% of Americans had that type of family with an employed man, an unemployed wife, and 2 children. Some reports claim as high as 70%, but I think that was just among the middle class, because I was alive then and the child of a single mother. Many of my friends were also children of single parents, or where they had 2 parents, both were employed outside the home.
Middle class and working class wages were generous enough to support a "Leave it to Beaver" type of family for a brief period of our history. We no longer have generous wages for anyone below the upper class level. A "Leave it to Beaver" type family cannot be easily supported on the eroding wages now existant - and yet now is when the Preservatives battle even harder for a style of family that forces people into poverty.
There never was a widespread "traditional family" consisting of one adult man, one adult woman, and their progeny. There have always been single parents caring for their children, children caring for one another in group settings, single parents of the same gender joining together to care for their combined offspring, households of just adults with no children, single people living alone or in couples or small groups. Any permutation of people living together and taking care of one another has existed for as far back as records go.
A "Leave it to Beaver" type of family structure is not profitable most of the time. Forcing people into that mold without generous wages to accompany it is a quick path to oppression and poverty.
The second track - let's call them the Practicalist Party - recognizes that people are inherently individual, and that family units are highly personal and personalized groupings. Low wages drive people to form unions and alliances that are mutually beneficial. Where people cling to the " one adult man, one adult woman, and their progeny" family they frequently need both adults working just to meet the bills, which breaks that "Leave it to Beaver" mold - and even then, the families are struggling. Increasing numbers are moving in with a parent of the adult, and sometimes two or more families share accommodations - great Ghu! when rent exceeds full time minimum wage employment, they have no choice but to try to share a place. I learned yesterday that there are places in America where the average rents are double my pre-tax income! And I make more than minimum wage (not a lot more, but still more).
The Practicalists understand that people want to be secure, comfortable, and profitable within their family structure. For some people, this means they live alone. Others are single parents. Others are two or more single parents sharing accommodations and resources. Others are childless couples of any gender combination. Others are polyamorous groupings - with or without children. Others are two or more couples, with or without children, sharing accommodations and resources. Practicalists want all these family groupings to succeed, and they understand that our government is us, not some disembodied association that bestows and withholds favors. Therefore, what government does is meant to benefit the individual over corporations. Civil rights trumps corporate privileges every time.
The Republican Party was once a Practicalist Party, but now it's become a very Preservationist Party that believes corporate privileges trump civil rights, and the Democratic Party hasn't made up its mind yet, although it seems to be composed of a great many people who are Preservationist Lite. I'd like to see more Practicalists - in both parties.
Traditional values are the ones that promote individual and small group prosperity and security. Traditional values remain true to an ethical core that allows the structure to be flexible enough to ensure the survival of that ethical core. The ethical core is communities composed of individualized and personalized families and the single people supported through fair wages, affordable utilities, public services, quality statewide schools, safe neighborhoods, clean streets, water, and air, and regulated corporations and businesses. This is all paid for through a sliding scale of taxation because ethical, practical people take care of their less fortunate members.