Coontz teaches family studies and history at Evergreen State College.  She also serves as Director of Research and Public Education for the Council on Contemporary Families, which she chaired from 2001-2004. She authored and co-edited several books about the history of the family and marriage, including Marriage: A History.

She won the Washington Governor’s Writers Award in 1989 for her book The Social Origins of Private Life: A History of American Families. In 1995 she received the Dale Richmond Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics for her “outstanding contributions to the field of child development.” In 2004, she received the first-ever “Visionary Leadership” Award from the Council on Contemporary Families.

She has been published in The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. She has also appeared on CNN.  Her grounded views on the modern family continue to fuel her noteriety.