What is a family? How are families shaped and what effect do they have on society? In the United States a family consists of both parents, one’s self, siblings (biological or adoptive) and extended family members; however, this is not the case around the world. The concept of family and who is family changes in each culture, but is mostly centered around who is kin and who a person marries. Family, kin, and marriage are established through how society decides their lineage, which establishes cultural rituals within the society.
No matter what background you come from or how you were raised, family is extremely important. According to Malinowski, “Family is a necessary institution for fulfilling the task of child rearing in society”(Conley, 2013). Society has come a long way when it comes to family and it is much different than it was in the 1950’s. Not all families are nuclear families. A nuclear family is having a mother, father, and children that are all biological (Conley, 2013). This kind of family is what some would call more “traditional.” Today in the twenty first century it is getting harder and harder to find families that have actually stayed together. There are so many different kinds of families in today’s society, and more and more families are becoming blended families. A blended family is when two families come together (Conley, 2013). Many families today have single mons, single, dads, and even same sex parents. Family is not always the people that live in the same house as you, family also consists of extended family. An extended family is a network that goes beyond the main “nuclear” family (Conley,
A total of five families will be participants in this relocation to Ripon Wisconsin and will be under my care for ninety days. Based on traditional family structures is has been deduced that each family will have on average five people, however we will not exclude families that have more than five members. I may come across this if the families want to bring with them extended family members such as grandparents or aunts and uncles. The families that I choose to bring do not necessarily have to be from Rwanda. During the genocide, there were Hutus who left the country because at the time it was not a good place to live and they fled to the surrounding countries. Some of these refugees stayed in those countries, while others went back to Rwanda only to face suspicion and scrutiny due to the genocide (Fisiy 1998). Due to this, I will be considering families in both circumstances, but I predict there will be more families wanting to leave Rwanda due to tensions still in the country. I plan on moving the families to Ripon at the beginning of August so they have a whole month of summer before having to adjust to cold Wisconsin temperatures. Along with letting the families adjust to the temperatures, I have picked August so if any of them want to attend any sort of school they can start with the rest of the state avoiding having to start at an awkward time.
Social class variations in U.S. family life starts with categories of people who share a common economic position in the unequal society in which they live in (Strong and Cohen 82). Classes indicate economic indicators such as wealth and income earned. These show what people have such as bank accounts, houses, stocks, and retirement plans, but eliminates their debt such as credit cards, loans, and mortgages. Social class is known to have structural and cultural dimensions. Structurally, social class shows our occupations that we depend on for earnings, the power it presents us with, and the opportunities we get to experience. Culturally, social class follows people’s beliefs, attitudes, values, and motivations that separate them from other classes. People are grouped together in classes because of their similar incomes, amounts of wealth, degrees of occupation status, and years of education. Social class is experienced differently by people throughout life.
Within the summary of our society, Deedocracy takes elements from the U.S.A., and twist them to fix the problems we faced on Earth. Our family structure is neither patriarchal or matriarchal. We leave this up to every family to decide. Children are the main concern and should come before all else. The educational system is trade based. Students recieve your average education until they turn 16. They have to take a test that will sort them into what field of study they will enter. There are five leaders that run the entire government, Grand Leaders. They are advised by 20 others, Word of the People Council, who are voted in democratically. Each town has a male and female co-counselor that run the city governments, they are voted in by the people. The economy is capitalist, but instead of using a paper currency, we pay in good deeds. People are rewarded with things by the government for following the rules of the world, and working.We still have businesses and your good deeds can be traded for food, and other things. This is the basis of our religion Deedism, we read the Book of Deeds, and follow the rules of the book accordingly.
Many of us overlook the importance of something as simple as “family” because it has been something we are familiar with since our first day on this planet, never thinking twice about to topic. Truth be told, the family unit is crucial to who we are and what we value, and even in the bigger picture, the cultural importance it has on society. When we explore one of the most signature family units to date, the nuclear family, we learn its optimistic appeal, its modern elusiveness, and the professional and personal opinions surrounding it.
+Single mothers are also more likely to be poor because of the lower income earners, inadequate public assistance and lack of child support from fathers which leads to single women headed households are more likely to be impoverished than traditional households.
The word family has changed so much in the past century. A family back in the 1950’s was probably considered a husband, wife, and one or more children. Times have changed and families have become much different. The Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others book defines family as a, “Unit made up of any number of persons who live in relationship with one another over time in a common living space who are usually, but not always, united by marriage and kinship” (Beebe, Beebe & Redmond, 243). Families can be broken up into five different types. The first is the traditional family, which includes a mother, father, and their biological children. Next, is the blended family which includes
What make a family? According to Webster’s dictionary, family refers to a group of persons with similar ancestry. Family unlike friends, we are not given the option of selecting. It is extremely natural to want to have each family members best interest at heart. The perception of family we have today is not that far off from what was demonstrated during slavery, and early emancipation years. Family life and its structure was highly important to not many, but most blacks during these two eras. Although family life today appears to have faults, it is nothing compared to that of those during those years. Issues regarding marriage status, lack of appreciation for the black man, and separation made preserving legacies nearly impossible.
All across the nation, the country’s morals, good traditional values, and religion have been slipping, and as a person who resides in the United States, I believe that we should get back to our roots, but allow for a few exceptions in the matter. In today’s society, people have become so afraid of judgement or being politically incorrect that it has created a nation of passive people; a nation of people who are so afraid to speak-up and be heard by others — a nation of winers. People today are offended by the fact that Christmas trees have the word “Christ” in them, and they are now to be advertised as “holiday trees” because people are becoming incredibly sensitive to religion. Yes, I, as a fellow American and Christian inhabiting this
The family structure throughout the last 100 years has changed drastically in the UK. Societies more casual state of mind towards marriage implies it is no longer seen as unusual to be included in a complicated family structure. For instance a Reconstituted family. This is the point at which one or both folks have been married before and had kids and have remarried to shape another family structure also called a step family. Families are no more simply nuclear families. Nuclear family is made up of married folks living with their children. Families now have more muddled structures as compared to the nuclear families. Other family structures include cohabiting parents, lone parent families, homosexual parent families and extended families.
Family is one of the hardest words to define. There are many definitions and thoughts of what a family consists of. When one accepts the definition of the census family given by Statistics Canada then a family becomes “a married couple and the children, if any… a couple living common law and the children, if any… a lone parent with at least one child living in the same dwelling… grandchild living with grandparents but no parents present… Census families can be opposite or same sex and children may be adopted, by birth, or marriage and all members must be living in the same dwelling” (Baker 2014). With family being such a difficult term to agree on, the creation of a complex study of family life emerges. The factors that influence family life are put into three theory categories; Social Structure, Interpersonal Factors, as well as Ideas, Global Culture, and Public Discourse.
What is a family? What parts make up a family? These two questions are questions that millions of adults and children ask themselves regularly. When people think about a family in their head they think of a nuclear family. Where you have a Mom, Dad, and a few kids running around a home in the middle of a suburban wasteland. That is the nuclear family that I feel most modern families strive to be like. But factors can change within a family and still be a family. I do not believe that a family is strictly based off what people see from the front porch looking in. A family is about the everlasting bond that is formed between a group of people whether they are related by blood or by other means. A family is a group of people who stick together during hard times and good times, they laugh together and they cry together. They eat meals together, party together, are weaved together in life. They are like a strip of palm leaves, and when you weave a bunch of them together it makes a basket, that is a family. The people that someone can call at two in the morning on a Wednesday just because they can’t sleep. The ones who would sacrifice anything to help them. The bond can never be broken because the word “family” holds them together like glue to wallpaper.
A family can be defined in many ways, but the common denominator in all is the love and fulfillment one gets by being surrounded by family members. Families can sometimes be at odds with each other, but the strain of this type of relationship usually creates an upsetting feeling to the people involved. People want others to rely on, talk to, do things with, share, love, embrace, and be part of. No matter what the family dynamic is the qualities the word family has will remain the same, as time goes by, and life evolves once again for every person living their