Many of the problems this article talks about are relatively new, historically, and I can't help but wonder if the problem isn't really other trends like high-intensity helicopter parenting, rather than "atomic" families. I grew up in a fairly typical American suburb, in the 70s, and lived in a single-family, single-generation household. But, there were 35+ kids on my one-block street! The neighborhood consisted enti…
The nuclear family is also relatively new. It probably just seemed normal to you if you grew up in it. It was almost certainly not how families worked when your parents or grandparents were kids.
I don't know enough about my grandparents to be able to answer, but I think it's likely that small three-generation households were common somewhat common, i.e. a grandparent and one of their children, that child's spouse and that set of grand children. But I think multi-family households and intentional household relationships not bound by marriage or parent/child bonds were rare in their day as well, at least in the US and western Europe.