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Families from the 50's
Essays on the social and cultural history on the 1950's in america
The ideal family of the 1950's
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Main Analysis The varieties in family structure are exposed in the television series Parenthood. The small families within the Braverman family give relevant examples of the change. Each of the children in the show has their own unique support system. All families prove relevance to prior research conducted on the topic.
As I mentioned previously, the sixties were a time of change. For instance, young people, watching their friends and family drafted into the Vietnam War, began to question traditional society and the government. Additionally, women changed their views on their place and role in the family. Also, new ideas emerged, changing the look of families both then and now. In 1960, more than 70 percent of families still looked much like the family of the 1950s, with a man who brought in the family 's sole income, children and a stay-at-home wife and mother.
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.
Since the 1950s, the structure of American families has been shifting due to historical events that cause society to rethink the purpose of families. Beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, the peak of the nuclear family model occurred, but soon began to crumble as the 1970s approached and continued to fall apart into the 21st century. Social and economic factors caused single parent families while multigenerational homes increased in popularity. Throughout the decades, the ideal nuclear family portrayed on television in the 1950s gradually morphed into a postmodern family system on television with new gender roles and greater diversity and representation to reflect the society they render.
Young men were rarely allowed to go out to look for a future spouse, and had little to no say on who they married. When a couple was allowed to date, it was usually to decide if they really wanted to commit their entire lives with the other person. This is completely opposite from modern dating, which can last for years before actual marriage. Also divorce was highly looked down upon, which created
If they weren’t married by the age of 25 they were socially humiliated.
Due to the low number of men, marriage rates climbed and the average of those marrying went down. By the middle of the 1950s, they had what they called “going steady”, where the man would give the women something symbolic like a class ring or letterman jacket and that meant that either person could not date anyone else. Going steady often resembled divorce because when the couple would break up, they would have to decide who gets what and what each person has to give back. After the invention of birth control in the 1960s, sex and marriage were no longer closely linked together because premarital sex was a more common
Maureen Samms-Vaughan’s article “Children Caught in the Crossfire” sends a very sensitive message to the families out there. The title encompasses the whole issue presented in the article. Vaughan creates a forum for families undergoing this issue, as well as for other families out there, to be educated about the severe consequences that the change in family structures have on children. Vaughan introduces her message by beginning with the thesis statement, “The change in family structure that children experience during their lives are not without consequences.” Even though the thesis would have been much more effective at the end of her introduction, it still helped to pave a path for the readers.
SXU – 1003 – Understanding Society In what way can ‘traditional family’ be viewed as a myth Evidently, as decades have advanced, changing societies in and around the World have had impacts on the way we perceive the dynamics of family social life. Over the last couple of centuries, the overall impact on has lead us into thinking that significant changes could be due to the Global influences such as the World Wars, a changing demographic picture and the Industrial Revolution that driven us to the way we live not just in the UK, but also around the World.
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.
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.
“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
The family can be defined as ‘any combination of two or more persons who are bound together by ties of mutual consent, birth and/or adoption and who, together, accept responsibility for the care and maintenance of group members through procreation or adoption, the socialisation of children and social control of members’ (UN, cited in McDonald 2003:80). However, the ‘family’ is
As the traditional idea of the nuclear family has faded over the last couple decades, many are finding family not in people they are related to, but rather people they connect with on a emotional level. Regardless of this, a parent-child type bond is important even if the participants in that relationship do not share a lineal connection: “The parent-child relationship is arguably the most important of all family
The family is viewed as an essential part of our society, it always has been and it always will be. Although the family as a unit is vital for the continuous running of our society it can no longer be known as a fixed category. The first definition of a family found online is “a group consisting of two parents and their children living together as a unit”. This is still the only way many people can view a family. Another that deviates from this particular image is seemingly wrong or incomplete.
