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Discussion And Analysis Of Structural Issues

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Discussion and Analysis of Structural Issues My family of origin consists of the family members I spent the most time living with in my life: my mother, her boyfriend and son, and my grandparents. I did not know most of my father’s side of the family until I was nearly 16 years old, as my mother’s side is cut off from them completely. I have cut off from them as well for several years, which makes an analysis difficult as I do not have much information about them (see Appendix for a genogram of three generations of all of my family members). Although my family of origin is relatively small, there are still subsystems contained within it. For example, my grandparents; my mother, her long-term boyfriend, and their son comprise separate …show more content…

My mother would then relate the incident to past injustices, and continue talking about it until in response, my mother’s alliance began to about my grandparents. Eventually, they would collectively agree to communicate less frequently with my grandparents, and generally resented them for months at a time. The alliances depended to shift, however, based upon whether my mother was currently living in my grandparents’ home, and how much assistance family members could offer to one another.
The hierarchy of a family refers to the way power is distributed throughout the family system (A. Johnson (Ed.), 2000). Research suggests that families are essential for teaching children lessons about hierarchy which “translate into success in school and in occupations” (Nock, 1988, p. 961). In most families, the parents or caregivers have roles that are distinguished from the children in the family, and the relationship between the two is often described as “subordinate-superordinate” to denote the power of the parents and the child’s relative obedience (Nock, 1988, p. 962). In my family, there was no clear hierarchy, which may be partially attributed to the fact that I was collectively raised by a single mother and

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