Family Structure Essay

Family! Family! Family! Family can be a wonderful thing. It can be healthy or unhealthy. It can be functional or dysfunctional. Family means different things to different people. Some families are loving and close. Some families are mean, hateful, and distant. There are different types of relationships within a family unit. Relationships can be enmeshed, detached, or disengaged; these types of relationships are unhealthy. The family system can be open and homeostatic; these kinds of relationship are healthy. We are all born into different families with different situations. Sometimes life can be hard, with all of its facets and difficulties, and ups and downs. Looking at the past of one 's life can be a happy event for some, but for others, it can be tormenting to have to reminisce about the past.

The family dynamics of the TV show “Married with Children” depicts a dysfunctional, but yet understanding between each family member. Their daily interaction with each other would suggest lack of communication that is taken seriously in the family unit. The husband (Al- Bundy) and wife (Peggy Bundy) presented a disconnection between the two of them steaming from the dysfunction in their marriage. Al Bundy attitude towards his wife appeared to be one with lack of an intimate and emotional connection. Peggy Bundy appeared to have an unconditional love for her husband, but seems to be missing the love that she wants from her husband. Their relationship seemed to be functionally dysfunctional as they move through their

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a family is "a group of two or more people who reside together and who are related by birth, marriage, or adoption.” (Eutk). In the beginning, family was considered to be all of the individuals who contributed to the household as far as bringing in money; including servants and non-parental adults, who are also considered part of the family if they play a large role in the upbringing or care-taking of children other than their own. But in fact, over the last few centuries until present day, the institution of the family has completely changed. In the late-18th Century, marriage was considered just a union based on love, but as time passed, there were other financial, social, and political shifts in the

Though her sons are over the age of 21, Jane sets rigid house rules, curfew times to her children and imposes a great deal of disciplinary actions when disobeyed. They practiced the traditional Chinese culture wherein the eldest or the head of the household has the final say in everything that goes on. Her sons follows her rules with no questions asked. It can be inferred that she is domineering and wants control of her sons even if they are on their way to seek independence and live their life on their own. She wants a say in every aspect or decision that her sons will make and she actually can be defined as overprotective stage mother.

What is a family? There are numerous ways to define “family”. For example, in 2001 The United States Census Bureau’s definition of a family states: “A family consists of a householder and one or more other people living in the same household who are related to the householder by birth, marriage, or adoption.” Nevertheless, families come in several forms of ages, races, and ethnic background. Same sex couples weren’t considered a family, even if it was legal in many states. Years later, in 2015, The Supreme Court ruled to legalize same sex marriages in all fifty states. Other than same sex couples there are other types of families such as affiliated kin, interracial, traditional, extended, childless, and nuclear families. These families are

The colonial family is structured as a husband-and-wife with their children. Each family member had their own role. The father was a worker, the wife cared for the children and helped on the farm. The children, depending on the family's economic position. The husband and wife stayed together and the husband was the decisionmaker of the family.

Family is defined in many ways in this chapter, Dalton stated there are different forms as families. Such as Nuclear family which is “familial form consisting of a father, a mother and their children.” He also describes an extended family, a “kin network that extend outside or beyond the nuclear family.” (Dalton 453, 455) the traditional family in the 1950s was a male known as the breadwinner, a female housewife and their children (Dalton 455) unfortunately that is not the case today. It is sad to say that the divorces have risen steeply since the 1950s, therefore breaking the families in half.

Family is a core plot device in many texts, in particular the relationship between the protagonist and their family. In the texts Darkly Dreaming Dexter and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time the reader can see a clear relationship between the two. Through defining what constitutes family, the importance of family in teaching societal norms and the impact of family withholding the truth, a clear comparison can be found within both of the texts. Before instigating the role family has in shaping an individual it is crucial to first define what constitutes a family. Traditionally a “family includes a married father and mother and kids -- either biological or adopted” (Hater: 2014)

In the article “What is a Family?” the author, Pauline Irit Erera discusses how families come in various forms through social, economic and cultural conditions. There has been an increase in diversity families within the 1960s. Babies were being put for adoption due to being a different race or ethnicity from their adoptive parents. Many women were put in jail because they were using drugs and didn’t have the ability to take care of their children due to the parents being infected with HIV. Children were being taken out of their homes and placed into foster homes. Grandmothers were willing to take care of their grandchildren with full responsibilities. Some women were giving birth and living alone as a single parent and offered greater satisfaction not being married.

In this last chapter, the author briefly summarizes the four definitions of family and how the family has changed over time. Although every family has different definitions of family, I believe most individuals agree that the interactional approach is more accurate. The interactional approach depicts that families have a sense of collective identity that emerges through shared activity and interaction. For instance, caring and helping each other in difficult times or simply just having dinner together every night. Furthermore, a significant change in families was the late transition to adulthood. Today, young adults are more dependent on their parents than they were in the 20th century because the expansion of higher education and the competitive

Murray Bowen's family system theory was one of the first comprehensive theories of family system functioning. It was developed in 1974 and it believed the family can be defined as a set of interacting individuals who are related by blood, marriage, cohabitation, or adoption and who interdependently perform relevant functions through roles. Relevant functions of the family include values and practices placed on health system theory is used to explain patterns of living among the individuals who make up the family systems (Edelmen, 2006).

While a popular catchphrase states that “family is a circle of friends that love you”, from a legal standpoint, the word “family” requires definition. Traditionally, a family has been defined as a married heterosexual couple and their children, but as more and more states are legalizing same-sex marriage, new questions arise. Regardless of one's position about whether gay marriage should be legal, it is clear that the definition of family is changing and the legal system will need to address these changes. Whether it is determining who should be a custodial parent, clarifying adoption processes, or implementing legal protections in cases of divorce, family law must grow and change along with the definition of family.

In her book The Unfinished Revolution, Kathleen Gerson argues that today, family pathways are more important than family structure. In this context, family structure refers to the organization of a family, and the way that it has been changing as a result of the gender revolution. For example, some nontraditional family structures that are explored in the book include double parent families with both parents earning, single parent families (mostly single mothers), and families with same-sex parents. Gerson argues that while family structures are not negligible, it is family pathways that are more important for the children of the gender revolution. That is to say, the children value the dynamics of their family more than the structure. They are more concerned about how well their parents are able to provide them with the necessary emotional and financial support than they are about how well their families follow a norm. For them, it is more about feeling like they’re part of a family rather than just physically being in one. Gerson emphasizes this when she explains that the people she interviewed “focused on the long-term consequences of parental choices, not on the specific form or type of home these choices produced at any one moment in time.” One important implication of this argument is the way in which the children of the gender revolution imagine their own romantic relationships unfolding. Even there, they prioritize a feeling rather than a format. For example, one

Social Structure theory has three main perspectives for what shapes family relations. Friedrich Engels argued that the transformation from feudalism to capitalism altered family life by moving production outside households and into factories which societal view of personal worth became attached to earning capacity (Baker 2014). Political Economy theory shows that families change when the economy does. The change in economy had families changing from extended to nuclear and the importance of establishing lineage to pass wealth onto. Talcott Parsons theorized about family life through Structural

As family structure has changed in the UK, so child care arrangements have become more diverse and complex. What are the implications of these changes for children?