Family Stereotypes

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???

Gerstel and Sarkisian both argue that minority families do not have weaker family ties than whites, contrary to popular belief, and that the reason for this myth is because of social class. Both authors describe how minority families aid one another through practical help, financial aid, and emotional support. They claim that minority families surpass white families in all forms of assistance for financial help and emotional support in terms of women. By revealing white families to be shockingly inadequate compared to minority families, Gerstel and Sarkisian prove that social class and money are the two defining factors that make a decent family. However, financial assistance seemed to be their only argument when explaining why minority families were not as loving and caring as they could be.

In order for a family to be considered nuclear, the parents must be married and have children However, the number of unmarried couples in the United States nearly doubled in the 1900s as it grew more common for people to not further their relationships. This caused the number of homes consisting of nuclear families to reach their lowest level--”falling from 45% of all households in 1960 to just 25.6% last year” (Feder, 2001). Not only did it grow common for couples to not get married, divorce grew common. This influenced the number of children who, instead of being a part of a nuclear family, were a part of a single- parent family.

In the article, ‘The Color of Family Ties: Race, Class, Gender, and Extended Family Involvement,” by: Naomi Gerstel and Natalia Sarkisian, they conducted a study on black, white, Latino or Latina families to confirm the assumption that the minority family is not like the white family. In terms of family ties and the lack of unity between family members. Throughout the article, the two authors provide data for the audience to compare and contrast. Gerstel and Sarkisian includes the ethnicity, class, gender, and the involvement with other family members in their study to show that even with a different background and ethnicity, people can still cope physically and mentally. In addition, with the obstacles and difficulties black, white, Latino

The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) reports that millions of children around the world are imprisoned daily into illegal child labor, depriving them of their childhood. The conditions of the work facilities are often life threating to their health. Instead of getting an education, these suffering children are working. Without an education, they really have no chance of escaping poverty. If you are thinking this only happens in poor countries, you are mistaken. It happens everywhere, including the United States. There are an estimated 50,000 children slaves in the United States. We can all agree this is horrific. In “The Color of Family Ties: Race, Class, Gender and Extended Family involvement”, Sociologist Naomi Gerstel and Natalia Sarkistan challenge popular notion that minority families have weaker ties and are more fragmented than white families. They find if we only focus on nuclear families, thus ignoring extended families, it creates a biased portrait of families of color. Furthermore, we are missing much of what minority and families of color do for one another. According to their research, the second wave of the National Survey of Families and Households contests stereotypes that Black and Latin families lack strong family’s ties. Most importantly they find social class is more relevant in revealing statistics than ethnicity. Their research also reveals Blacks and Latinos/as typically have less income and education than whites, so they rely more on their family for day-to-day needs: such as childcare, household task or rides. Furth more, Economic deprivation of minorities leads in many ways to higher levels of extended family involvement. The tendency of minorities to live near kin may also reflect their greater need for kin cooperation as well as decreased opportunity’s and pressure to move away, including moving for college. Because Whites tend to have more income than Blacks and Latins, they are more likely to give or receives money to/from family. They find races with the same amount of income have similar involvement with their extended families. Middles class families are more probable to share their private concerns and lend money to relative

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

“Modern Family,” a television show created and written by ABC Network is one of the funniest, most relatable and cleaver shows that has ever hit our television screens. “Modern Family” centers on the lives of three families living in modern day Los Angles, California. Jay – aged husband and Gloria Pritchett – sexy Latino wife are the modern day California couple. Gloria has a son named Manny from her previous marriage. Jay’s son, Mitchell, is a very feminine man married to an even more feminine man, Cameron.

Modern Family is a show that portrays marriage and families. They are all one big family due to different marriages that take place. However, there are three separate smaller families. They have a family with a wife, husband, and three children. There are three distinct families: "the cliche family," wife, husband, kids, and middle class, gay couple with an adopted child, an interracial couple with the husband being a lot older than the wife, and her child. Occasionally, she discusses the hardships of being a single mother before marrying her husband. For the most part, the show seems to attempt to be inclusive about all of the different types of families there are now. However, there are gender stereotypes included in the show involving the

There is so much social pressure on girls to look sexy, whether they are sexually active or not, for many reasons. The first reason that comes to mind is Hollywood, the media, and entertainment. Britney Spears first video when she was like 16 was her in a sexy Catholic school girl uniform, singing, “Hit me baby one more time.” Miley Cyrus, the new Britney Spears, has done racy photo shoots that suggests nudity, and recently come out with new provocative songs, which she accompanies with provocative attire. Now these two celebrities didn’t start out being sexy. They both reeled in their fan base on shows like the Mickey Mouse Club and Hannah Montana. So they already had a following of young girls “Tweens”, which mimicked their every

To begin, we should define just what this “nuclear family” is, and what makes it so traditional, as many contemporary Americans view it. Therein lies a trick question, however, because this particular family model was not traditional in any sense. As Colombo et al, put it, “…what we call the ‘traditional’ family, headed by a breadwinner-father and a housewife-mother, has existed for little more than two hundred years…” (17). That, compared with the aforementioned fact that the “family unit” has been around for centuries, really provides one with a wide scope of the situation. This particular organization of family members (two first-time married heterosexual parents and a few straitlaced kids) was actually quite experimental at the time, as the United States was just shaken up by the Great Depression and World War II, along with women’s rights and minorities’ rights tensions, labor strife, and

In the article written by Naomi Gerstel and Natalia Sarkisian, “The Color of Family Ties: Race, Class, Gender, and Extended Family Involvement”, overviews the differences between the class, gender, and extended family involvement to Latino, Blacks, and Whites family. They researched that the so-called minorities stay close to their families. They prefer living in large extended families to provide each other with financial support and general family support.

Constance Ahrons, a doctor who coined the term “binuclear family” once said, “Pessimists say that the family is eroding. Optimists say the family is diversifying. Both points of view are right. Families are more diverse and they are more in trouble-but not because of their diversity. The families of today-whatever their size or shape-are in crisis because our economy is failing, our national resources are shrinking, and our governmental policies to support them are inadequate.” This quote gives a perspective of several reasons for the decline of the nuclear family. A nuclear family is a type of traditional family, consisting of a mother, a father, and their children. It involves time spent with the children, emotional support, low stress, and a stable economic environment. This type of family became most popular during the 1950’s, and was regarded more as a universal form of a social organization, and not just a simple family. Both parents worked secure jobs, and would come home to their children, and would enjoy this happy-go-lucky lifestyle. However, this fantasy of a family evolved over time, and the idea of a nuclear family curtailed. New generations were created that opposed the idea of a nuclear family, and began to reject society’s values: Generation X and Generation Z. In addition to the new generations, there was a development to the word “family”, as many families differed from the traditional template of a mother, a father, and children; changing the idea of a

Many people are aware of the reputation that goes along with PDA and as a result many people are afraid of the criticism and stigma that goes along with PDA. Thus, they are too embraced to participate in it. I remember having the same fears of being criticized by others around me with my girlfriend. I envisioned how the scene would go down in my head several times

The first images show my mother carrying me as a baby girl on our way home from the hospital, and while cooking. These images represents my ideas and beliefs because I believe that it is important for newborn babies to be very close to their parents, especially the mother. This also represents the beliefs of my community because most Congolese people expect the mother to be the closest, primary caregiver of a baby. Their function is to show that I was raised in a loving home with loving parents who took, and continues to care for me and my needs. This images symbolize the unbreakable bond, and love of my mother and I. In both pictures, I was not crying, and that means that I felt safe, and I was comfortable in my mother’s arms. The second

More often than not, stable and functional families serve as a prerequisite to a good society. Hence, the society’s support system for families must be flexible because needs and goals of families vary over time (Loveless, 2007). However, nuclear families face many challenges because parenting, child-rearing, and other economic responsibilities had to be done by two adults only (Bowden & Smith, 2010). In this paper, we look into the development of the nuclear family: its origin, evolution, and status today. We also look into the most influential factors that led to the current status of nuclear families. We also look into the recommendations that represent different values and belief systems that promote the revival of degraded idealization and decline of the nuclear family.