Absent Father : The American Traditional Home

Stephanie Coontz’s book “The Way We Never Were,” addresses the traditional family structure idolized throughout American history. Coontz has studied family structures. She details how familial relationships have always been diverse in function and form. Coontz confronted the damaging misconception that families should remain traditional and unchanged. Coontz emphasized that a nuclear family with a domesticated wife, a husband in the workplace, and children fully enriched in education was a modern social construct.

The most distinctive trait of American family life, then the trait that differentiates it from family life in other western countries, is sheer movement: frequent transitions, shorter relationships. Americans step on and off the carousel of intimate partnerships (marriages and cohabiting relationships) more often. Whether an American parent is married or cohabiting or raising children without a partner, she or he is more likely to change living arrangements in the near future than are parents in the rest of the western world. It is consequential and we should be concerned about it, both as parents and as a nation, because it may increase children’s behavioral and emotional problems. Simply pu, some children seem to have difficulty adjusting to a series of parents and parents’ partners moving in and out of their home. It is not just parental divorces and breakups that are hard for children. Even transitions that bring a new partner or stepparent into the home can be difficult to cope with. Children whose parents have remarried do not have higher levels of well-being than children in lone-parent (a parent who is neither married nor living with a partner) families, despite the addition of a second parent. One reason is that new

It is evident that the family structures have dramatically transitioned over the past 100 years. The “Leave it to the Beaver” family is a thing of the past standards and a number of variations have been formed over the years. In the United States, there are six particular kinds of family configurations that are recognized by the modern society. Some of these family structures are naturally falling into several categories. For instance, a single parent family living in a large, extended family set up. Even though these types of families differ in definition, the lines are not very clear when it comes to practice.

The suffering of terminally and chronically ill patients is also affecting person’s immediate family. The costs for end of life care for terminally ill patients is often too much for the family. The patients are generally aware of this, and with every day that she or he is kept alive, even though they would want to take use of physician assisted death or euthanasia, the medical costs increase rapidly. According to Dworkin, the costs for medically maintaining a terminally ill person near the end of their life can range from two thousand to ten thousand dollars a month (187). Not many people can afford the high costs of end of life care. For the ones who are not able to pay for their medical care at the end of their life will leave the costs

Some scholars have argued the notion that fathers are important contributors to their children and adolescents’ psychosocial development (Mandara, Murray, & Joyner, 2005). According to Allgood, Beckert, and Peterson (2012), researchers are beginning to understand the importance of examining children’s perspectives and the relationships and levels of involvement children have with their fathers.

Changes in American society in recent decades have had a major impact on the social structure of the country. A hundred years ago it was only now forty-seven years is seventy-eight. The meaning of family also change, a hundred years ago only four percent of the women had children out of wedlock, for children was normal losing his parents at the age of fifteen, the marriage rate was high and education it was low. The ideal family was that the man was working and who was the head of the family, and the woman was the figure responsible for the home and parenting, based on the rules of marriage model. Today we see a completely different picture, although the family remains an essential part of our society, has been affected by structural changes,

Families acquired a new form and with it a myth of the American family was created. The myth of the American family is one where “father knows best, mothers are never bored or irritated, and teenagers rush to the dinner table each night, eager to

The Impact a Family has on Children Family structures come in many different shapes and sizes. Not every family consists of the standard father and mother figures. In fact, many children have a different perception of who they look to as their parental figure. The relationship between children and their family will impact how the child will live in the future. After investigation of multiple sources, it has been found that family is the only long-term influence in a child’s life.

Times have changed; the nuclear family is no longer the American ideal because family needs have changed since the 1950's. This American convention of a mother and father and their two children, were a template of films and early television as a depiction of the American family life. Now seen as archaic and cliché by today’s standards, but the idea is common throughout many of the first world nations in the world. This ideal was a vast departure from the past agrarian and pre industrial families, and was modeled and structured as the ‘American dream’ father working, mother maintaining the household and children molded to be simulacra of the parents. This portrayal was not the standard; many communities throughout America had a different

The expected family in a post World War II America was built on the work of the “breadwinner” father, the devoted and loving housewife who completed chores and looked after the children, and the faithful and unquestioning children.” Families often ate as many meals together as possible together and often did family activities together. Parents started to pay more attention to preparing children for life as an adult rather than solely on disciplining their children . The boys were expected to either go to college, join the workforce, or join the military. Meanwhile, girls stayed in their parents’ home until marriage and many were denied the right to go to college. For the first time in decades children started being treated as humans rather

When a boy has a father present in his life he is able to look up to his father. Since he has a role model he is able to know what to do and what not to do in certain situations. Sons who have been nurtured by their fathers are able to stay strong in troubling situations, and are able to help their father out. “Everything I do in this house is to keep my father well. At the same time, I quail before the idea that he could rebound into solid physical health.

While today's society places great significance on acquiring the appearance of the traditional America family, it places little, if any, importance on actually filling its shoes. When two teenagers

Children who live without their fathers are, on average, more likely to choose deviant peers, have trouble getting along with other children, be at higher risk for peer problems and more aggressive.

n the upcoming page’s I will answer the following questions. Why is family the most important agent of socialization? What caused the dramatic changes to the American family? What are the changes? I will discuss the differences in marriage and family, I will discuss how they are linked to class, race, gender, and personal choices. The purpose of this study is to explore the many different family functions and the paths that people are now choosing. I will give my opinion on whether these changes have had a positive or negative affect. I will finally discuss the trend of the modern family, back to pre-World War II family structure, how would that effect the strides that have been made in the progression of women rights.

For as long as human families have existed, the core family group of a father, mother, and the children has been the ideal composition in what could be considered a balanced and fulfilling functional family. There had been many studies of the effects of having certain members of these groups on the family household present and absent. While there are many hypothesis of the effects of the children in the family in household with a missing parent, most of them are indeed negative and there had been studies that these can vary in many different aspects of a child’s upbringing. These effects will be discussed and functionality of the household family itself will be discussed to look at the issues