The Nuclear Family, Research Paper Example

The Many Faces of American Families

The nuclear family: father, mother, a few children and maybe a pet. For the past century this grouping has represented the norm of the family structure in the West. Slowly, as society changed, so did the roles within this nuclear family. Women began to work outside the home and men began to share more household duties. In the last 50 years, however, we have seen a transformation not just in the duties of family members but in what constitutes a family and how society views this “new definition” of family. In this paper I will first examine the traditional definition of family in the West and how it came about. I will then analyze when and why this began to transform into a more diverse definition and examples of alternative types of families. Finally I will look at how alternative families are represented in today’s media and how this representation reflects societal opinions on them.

The idea of the small household family consisting of a male and female parental until and their immediate children first emerged in the 17^th century due to support by the church and state (Bentley, 2008). It grew in prominence during the industrial revolution when it became a more feasible financial option. Before this time it was common, as it still is in many cultures around the world, to live with extended family. This decreases the financial burden by having multiple workers and the family workload as grandparents or aunts and uncles carry out household duties such as child-rearing, cooking and cleaning.

It was not until the 1950’s that this specific definition of family with a father, mother and children in which the father worked and the mother took care of the household duties was coded as “normal.” Of course, such a rigid structure is impossible for many families to maintain in this world of many variables. There were always single-parent households, multicultural and blended families but it has not been until recently that we have seen such a surge in their numbers or seen them functioning so visibly within society. At the close of the 1950s, the nuclear family began to change. They transformed from single-earning households with the father serving as the sole bread winner to dual-income households as women began to work outside the home. Women overall began having children later in life, often because they were pursuing their own careers, which lowered the number of children they were likely to have and thus led to smaller household size in these nuclear families(OECD).

Outside the internal trends of the nuclear family, society was changing as well. The liberal transformation in societal attitude was key to the de-stigmatization of alternative families. Single-parent households are among the most prevalent alternative families. In the 1950’s single-parent households were so stigmatized that they were called “immoral” by many. This view was all but abolished by the late-70s and as a result more and more single-households appeared (Bentley, 2008). Where couples in the past may have endured an uncomfortable marriage for the sake of avoiding negative publicity for the family, today divorce carries much less stigma and is commonplace as are the resulting single-parent families.For many this is the result of the definition of marriage transforming from a traditionally religious contract bound by God and love to a legal contract recognized by the state and entered into for many reasons including financial convenience. It transformed to something that can be dissolved with less guilt than in the past. Children are now more likely to end up with divorced than married parents (OECD, 2011).

With divorce comes not only single-parent household but any number of combinations of blended families as the result of remarriage. In 2000, the census reported that 4.4 million children were living in step-families or blended families as the result of divorce and cohabitation (such as a mother and her live-in boyfriend).In addition to higher divorce rates, fewer people are getting married and some even decide to start a family without a partner (OECD, 2011). The decision to become a single-parent is now not uncommon.

One of the largest indicators of the acceptance of alternative families is the increased visibility of same-sex households. Once a pipe-dream for many, gay marriage is now legal in nine states (Barooah, 2012). These same-sex families are not limited to just the couple. The 2000 census reported that 33% of women and 22% of men in same-sex relationships lived with children (Galvin, 2006). With the legal endorsement of marriage it is likely that adoption and childbirth in these couples will see even larger increases in this family structure.

The growing number and visibility of new kinds of families has brought up many questions for sociologists and society. Most importantly, how functional are these family units and are they healthy environments for children? The well-being of children is a difficult concept to gauge but most studies consider three main factors: education, financial stability and physical health. It is widely accepted that single-parent households produce children with lower education rates and higher poverty rates than those brought up with two parents (same-sex, multicultural or heterosexual). This is a result of living off the single-income of one parent and lacking the support that often comes with two parents.From the nuclear family base, there is still a lot of resistance to these alternative families. Many children, for example from same-sex households, are subject to bullying at school. Mixed-race households also bring some confusion of identity for children. It is a difficult task for any family to successfully integrate the styles and background of two parents into a cohesive household but for multicultural couples dealing with language, cuisine and traditions it can be even more troublesome.

Most articles speak about the difficulty and need to explain and legitimize these diverse familial situations to the outside world. This task can be an especially daunting one for children who might be questioned by others at school. Adopted children might be teased for not having “real parents” or bi-racial children for having a foreign parent. For adults as well, Galvin writes, “over time as diversity increases, communicative definitions of family also increase” (Galvin, 2006). This involves semantics. For example, how do people identify their family members of a non-traditional family? They have a more diverse terminology for how they address or introduce these new family members. For example, adopted fathers might be called “dad” in some families, by their first name or referred to by another term like, “my second dad.” In a world of endless structures, the terminology is equally endless.

We have more unmarried, same-sex, single-parent and multicultural families than ever, so how does the public and society view this change in family definition? A study by the Pew Research Center in February 2011 says the results are mixed. Pew splits society into three groups by how they judge the development of the American family structure. Each of these three groups represented roughly a third of the population and either rejected, accepted or were skeptical of familial trends. These thirds were divided clearly by religion, gender, geographic location and ethnicity. In general, women, minorities, East Coast residents, and adults who seldom attend organized religious services are more likely to accept alternative family structures. The 32% which reject the changing familial structure represent the older, white, married, and politically conservative sector of the population. The largest group of all, the skeptics, while they generally accept a lot of the points of the Accepting group, they have a very negative opinion of single-mothers believing it to be a negative impact on society as a whole. Even in the Accepting category, while they passively accept the changing family structures, very few report that they view these trends as a positive change for society (Pew, 2011).

If we look at popular media discourse we see a reflection of this fractured acceptance by society. Divorce and single-parent households are commonplace in television programs but they are often represented as comical or struggling with the nuclear family still representing the norm or a stable family. Popular sitcoms like “Will and Grace” portrayed openly gay relationships but never with children suggesting that that may have been testing the liberal waters of the public slightly too far. In movies, such as the 2012 film,Friends with Kids in which two friends in their late-30’s both want children but are not in relationships decided to have a child and raise it together as friends demonstrates the acceptability of these kinds of schemes in today’s world. However, by the end of the film we are returned to the nuclear family as the two friends inevitably fall in love with each other and decide to marry to form, we assume, a “real family.”

In conclusion, the nuclear family is no longer the only kind of family in today’s world. Many children are brought up by multiple adults or single adults, by parents of different races and same sexes. As Galvin put it, “contemporary families represent a world of normative instability and definitional crisis.” Yet while these other family structures increase in number, we see from the responses of the public and the current media discourse that the nuclear family remains the core definition of the “normal” family for many. The liberal transformations that have brought us to the current point have occurred so rapidly in the past 30 years that it is more than likely that in the next decades we will see them develop even further.

Works Cited

Barooah, Jahnabi. “Election 2012 Shows A Social Sea Change On Gay Marriage.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 08 Nov. 2012. Web. 05 Dec. 2012.

Belkin, Lisa. “A “Normal” Family.” Nytimes.com. The New York Times, 23 Feb. 2011. Web. 4 Dec. 2012.

Bentley, Jerry. Traditions and Encounters: A Brief Global History. New York: McGraw Hill, 2008.

Galvin, Kathleen. “Defining and Interpreting the Family.” The Family Communication Sourcebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2006. Print.

OECD. “Families are Changing.” Doing Better for Families. OECD.org, 2011.

“The Public Renders a Split Verdict On Changes in Family Structure.” Pew Social Demographic Trends RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2012.