American Family Dynamics

The concept of family has changed in many perspectives throughout the years. Nuclear families started back in the 1950s also known as ‘ideal families’. Today family comes in many varieties whether it 's nuclear, accordion, or extended families and even same sex marriage. One thing that is undoubtedly true is that family will always be the one that you have an unbreakable bond with. American families have evolved in many ways leading us away from what was known as nuclear families.

Before, characterizing the family was straightforward. Couples had a tendency to live together after marriage, with kids following not long after. Presently, be that as it may, things have changed. Characterizing the average structure of an advanced family is significantly more confounded, with less relational unions, rising separation rates and expanding quantities of common associations testing the present. Throughout the year's American thought of a family has changed in Declining birth rates, moves in marriage and separation levels, and single parent families.

This essay, The Myth of the Model American Family, is a discussion of the concept of an ideal family in the different perspective specifically social, cultural and economic. This is also an attempt to identify the structural changes in relation to the global development and the international economic crisis that immensely created impact on their lives. However, the discussion will limit itself on the different identifiable and observable transformations as manifested in the lifestyles, interrelationships and views of family members and will not seek to provide an assessment of their psycho-social and individual perceptions.

Stephanie Coontz in “The Way We Weren’t: The Myth and Reality of the Traditional Family” emphasizes that the traditional and ideal nuclear family widespread in media and textbooks are false and far from reality. In fact, it is common to see more similarities to the traditional family consistent of “male breadwinner and nurturing mother” (1) today than in the past.

Throughout human history individuals around the world, of various ethnic, racial, cultural backgrounds have linked together to form what people call today families. A lot of questions come to mind when contemplating the complex relationship people have. Since families have a direct bearing on society now and on future generations it is essential to take seriously what is happening to the family. Is the American family in decline, and if so what should be done about it? “Traditionally, family has been defined as a unit made up of two or more people who are related by blood, marriage, or adoption: live together; form an economic unit, and bear and raise children (Benokraitis, 3).” The definition of decline is to “fail in strength, vigor, character, value, deteriorate, slant downward.” The traditional nuclear family consists of a father provider, mother-homemaker, and at least one child (Brym and Lie, 252).” The nuclear family is a distinct and universal family form because it performs five important functions in society:sexual regulation, economic cooperation, reproduction, socialization, and emotional support. Research from the 1950 's to the present will emphasize what trends are taking place among American families. Family trends might not have expected???

Talcott Parsons’ (1956, pg. 309) believed that “the nuclear family is a social system” which consists of a straight married couple and around two to five children, “can be distinguished, and does function as a significant group” (1956, pg.308). Parsons believed that the family benefitted society in ways such as the teachings of gender roles and the overall structure of society: the male going to work and being the breadwinner, while the wife stays at home and cooks and nurtures the children. After the Second World War, the nuclear family was the most common type of family making the structure easily “distinguishable”. However, when we look at the postmodern society, we can see that there are many different types of families nowadays such

The perfect American family was given to us in a form of a photo, an inspiring photograph dating back to the 1950’s gives us light to the perfect portrayal of the American Family. The media painted them as a middle class, white family standing in front of their perfect suburban home. Neatly trimmed grass lined with a white picket fence, husband and wife holding their infant child. In the twenty-first century the nuclear family is not the only type of family around, on a daily basis we see same sex couples, single parents, and blended households all raising families. The traditional American family is no longer traditional, what’s normal and accepted today still causes eye brows to be raised, the family template we have created as a culture

The families in America are steadily changing. While they remain our most valued and consistent source of strength and comfort, some families are becoming increasingly unstructured. In the past, the typical family consists of a working father, a stay at home mother and, of course, well-rounded children. Today, less than 20 percent of American families fit nicely into this cookie cutter image. American households have never been more diverse. Natalie Angier takes stock of the changing definition of family in an article for the New York Times.

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

Falicov, C.J., & Brudner-White, L. (1983). The shifting family triangle: The issue of cultural and

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.

A brief view of the 4 decades within the periods of 1950 to 1990 would show us a significant shift from the conventional nuclear family to the non-conventional modern family. Starting from the 1950s, the families were nuclear, where members worked together, understood their roles, and did what was expected of them; by the 1960s, there were a few sitcoms that began to undermine the television parent’s authority by privileging the independence of nearly adult or adult children; by the 1970s, the authoritative father began to disappear as they were no longer

One of the many changes facing American families is the changing role that family members play within their household. For example, mothers are more frequently working outside of their home, as well as doing household duties. As this may seem like an added responsibility, many benefits arise. Families may be able to afford a bigger home possibly in a safer community. Fathers are becoming more flexible in their gender roles and step up more in the lives of their children. Over time, this flexibility in gender roles opens the door to a better and more diverse family structure.

The idea of the nuclear family was highly valued in the American culture during the 1950s, where romantic love was the central reason for marriage in America; however, love in modern America is not enough to make a marriage last. Likewise, the 1950s was the time for many American marriages to undergo many socioeconomic changes including the rise of the gender minority in the workplace. Due to these developments, marriage is under enormous socioeconomic pressures have given the rise to family structures such as those headed by single parents, multigenerational families and gender roles. The 1950s nuclear family was defined as a heterosexual married couple with children. In addition, social expectations were attached to this idea which was the predictable gender roles of male breadwinner and a female homemaker. The 1950s definition of a nuclear family has for long been engraved as an ideology in America society, but we have failed to see that the contemporary America has experienced dissolution of the 1950s nuclear family. The gradual dissolution of the 1950s nuclear family has had both positive and negative social effects. However, the problem of the 1950s ideology of a family is no longer functional or representative of the contemporary American society.

As a result of industrialization and modernization, the American society is shaped with changes evidenced in the family unit. For instance, today’s families are nuclear and thus separated from their extended kin. Today’s typical American family consists of a husband, a wife, and the dependent children (Schulte 17).