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Traditional Families In America

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The diversity of family forms in modern American society has many individuals questioning how complex family might be. The United States is made up of diverse groups of people that are constantly changing its culture norms, customs, and traditions. With these changes in culture brings controversies on how we are to define aspects of family and what types of families are healthy and productive. A huge controversy in the American family system is whether or not homosexual couples who are married or raise children should be considered a family. Many Americans argue that children raised by homosexual couples are not well off because they lack a traditional family structure. Others argue that a traditional family structure is no longer needed in our constantly changing society and should be accepted just as single parents, divorced and integrated couples have been. Does having a man and a woman at the head of the household of individuals define a family, or is there more to it than just that? I believe that this description of family is too vague to be able to describe the roles and complex structure of family. Sociologists today define family as a group of people who are tied by legal, biological, or emotional bounds. Sociology dives deeper to understand what the family is in American society, what its function are, why it is changing, and if nontraditional families are able to provide the same tasks that traditional families do. …show more content…

Because families are so diverse, it is more practical to define a family by what it does rather than who it is made of. The controversy of changing families can be easily understood and evaluated once we understand what the purpose of family is. In American sociology, the functions of family are to provide economic assistance, be a socialization agent, produce emotional support, and provide

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In a recent surveys it is shown that over 27% of children in America are being raised by single parents, and over 2 million children are raised by homosexual couples. The old average image of a middle class white family with two parents, and a stable environment is no longer the normal or highly viewed social standing. Various movies, television shows, books, and other forms of literature depict families of different background and standings. For example, in the popular television show Modern Family depicts two gay men raising their adopted daughter and a blended family, the people on the show are always caring for and show constant love for their children. Even though they are not under normal circumstances the children of these different families are growing up in a loving and stable environment.

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1154 Words | 5 Pages

Stone writes about three essential functions of family stories– to pass on the family’s standards, to identify family characteristics, and coping strategies. The first of the three functions is the standards of the family since the family act as the “first culture,” teaching people what their family values and their opinions on certain situations like marriage and illness, mental or physical (Stone 384). The second factor is the family’s characteristics and their traits that bind them together, which act as the family member’s confidence boost (384). Furthermore, this boost makes them value themselves more than the next family, so that the family members contently remain together (384). The third factor is influencing how families cope; these “teaching stories” tell each family how to function outside of the family (385).

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244 Words | 1 Pages

In today’s society, there is a wide variety of family configurations which are constantly changing and adapting to things such as cultural diversity, divorce rates, sexual orientation, and religious beliefs. The “typical” family, (commonly seen in American 1950’s television sitcoms) is a rarity in 2015. Problems with communication arise when one makes assumptions about another person’s family dynamic. For example, people with careers in fields like teaching, law, and healthcare have to be especially aware and sensitive to the fact that not all families display the “traditional” European American family model which consists of a household with parents of the opposite sex, their biological children, and a strong value placed on individualism.

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342 Words | 2 Pages

Today we ask ourselves, what defines a family? Will we ever be able to pinpoint one exact answer? Meanings and explanations of our past have been rightfully challenged. The family structures and dynamics that we see today have evolved great lengths from what they once were in the 1950’s. The 1950’s consisted of “standard” families.

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864 Words | 4 Pages

Jean Bethke Elshtain presents a critical perspective about the deteriorating state of the family in contemporary society in her article, “Society's Well-Being Depends upon the Traditional Family”. By employing rhetorical strategies of ethos, logos, and pathos, the author constructs a persuasive case that calls for renewed focus on the family as the fundamental unit of society. Elshtain builds her argument through a combination of rhetorical strategies, including the use of ethos, logos, and pathos. Each of these elements contributes to her overall argument and the extent to which her rhetoric succeeds in convincing readers of the urgency in addressing the challenges faced by the family unit.

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697 Words | 3 Pages

While family structure has changed dramatically since the 1950’s, what current changes are we seeing; and how is it affecting the roles to which we play in a compromising world. In the 1950’s families consisted of a head of household (the Father), the house wife (or mother); and their offspring (the children). The father’s duty was to bring home the bacon, while making end meets for his family, while the wife stayed home and cared for the children, the elderly; and took on the household duties. These families usually lived in the suburbs, where they raised their children; while teaching them the proper ways of life. During this time in history, young women were expected to find a mate through persuasion, then get hitched; and eventually produce an offspring.

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1284 Words | 6 Pages

In the late 19th and early 20th century, family was the foundation and core of society in America (Hussung). During this period of time, the wife was in charge of raising the children and cleaning the house, while the husband worked and provided protection for the family. A strong family unit was something highly regarded and looked upon in society.

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1532 Words | 7 Pages

The traditional American family consisted of the father as the breadwinner, the mother that was in charge of raising children and doing domestics, and their biological children, all living together. However, that image has been replaced with a diversity of other images “Family structure in the United States”. The source of weakness is the breakdown of the structure of the family. It is when children leave their parents` house searching for an autonomous life before they are financially and emotionally self-sufficient. After departing parents’ house, children will have a lack of social support which results in an unstable life for the young individual when exposed to life new challenges.

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541 Words | 3 Pages

58). Marriage is no more about social status or an economical arrangement and individuals are able to deconstruct the orthodox notion of intimate life by liberalizing sexual relations with the same sex and commit to cohabitation (Allan and Crow 2001, p. 81). Homosexual relationships are another form of the nuclear family frame where artificial insemination and surrogacy are ways for both lesbian and gay couples to become parents. This notion of individualisation is reflected in television series such as “Modern Family” where there is a typical nuclear family but with a homosexual gay couple as parents to a girl. The family in the series has been constructed to resemble a nuclear family but their homosexuality in itself is a form of

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1356 Words | 6 Pages

The structural aspect of a family is that since laws and rights have come into fruition, it has led to an increase in couples having civil marriages and partnerships. Currently, the frequency of partners who are gay and lesbian has also increased and has therefore wilted of what was once recognised a ‘traditional family’. Parents who live on their own and taking full responsibility of their children has taken a gradual rise in and around the World, this has also the paved the way towards a lesser representation on how a traditional family would look like to a certain

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1217 Words | 5 Pages

Family members may or may not be biologically related, share the same household, or be legally recognized” (Raney, 2015:6). In the series Modern family, it shows the dynamics of a 21st century family and how traditions and culture has evolved over the years. As opposed to “nuclear family” “No longer does the traditional family consist of two parents and two children; instead, more diverse and shifting family structures are becoming the norm.

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1040 Words | 5 Pages

American Families Today The American family has undergone many changes since the 1900’s. More so, in the past 40 years, the nuclear family seen dramatic changes and has been described as deteriorating. There has been a dramatic rise in divorce, single parent households and child poverty. Studies have shown that children growing up in poverty-stricken single parent households are more likely to be affected well into adulthood. While this is the case, people are also living longer, and families are accommodating this change by living with relatives allowing for more bonding time then in previous generations.

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1100 Words | 5 Pages

“The Changing American Family” by Natalie Angier states, “Fictive families are springing up among young people, old people, disabled people, homeless people, and may well define one of the ultimate evolutions of the family concept, maximizing, as they do, the opportunities for fulfillment of specific social and economic needs outside the constraints of biological relatedness.” The ever changing social dynamics and circumstances of this life have opened the definition of family to encompass individuals who can fill those deep-seated needs

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1672 Words | 7 Pages

It also keeps kinship intact (2002). A child’s identity is based on ethnicity, race, religion and social class and is ascribed at birth through the family. Families permit the transmission of wealth and status from parents to children. According to the American functionalist sociologist Talcott Parsons, the family’s main functions are ‘primary socialisation and personality stabilisation’. Primary socialisation is the processes in which children learn the cultural norms of the society they are born into.

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937 Words | 4 Pages

These roles and rules shape our personal understanding of what we believe a family to be. As a result, newly formed families become a combination of two personal understandings of a family unit. This is pertinent for my future career because it helps me understand a range of diverse families and gives me a great understanding of the ways in which the definition of the term family can differ from person to

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