How Small Family Size Affect Future American Society

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.

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???

3.   What important changes in family patterns do you see today?   Important changes in family patterns I see today are more independency and the value of family is coming back into perspective.   Do you see positive changes, negative changes, or both?   I see both positive and negative changes in families today.   The positive I see are fathers being more involved in their kids’ lives rather than just the moms and the negative I see is more single parent families.   What do they mean for families, in your opinion?   In my opinion that means that people are not taking family as serious as they should and I also think there is a huge lack of respect in relationships which is why there are many people not staying together these days.

This investigation will focus on; “What impact does family size have on conformity?” This is an experimental design using quantitative subjective data which is achieved through the form of statistics from questionnaires. The independent variable of family sizes will be tested against individual percentages of conformity. According to the Oxford Dictionaries, The definition of conformity is the behaviour with accordance to socially accepted convention or standards. (Oxford Dictionaries, 2016)

Today's nuclear family with mom, dad, 2.3 kids, and dog only came into being just after the Industrial Revolution (Swerdolow 15). This leads to the idea that perhaps the desengration of the nuclear family isn't necessarily a negative things, but more of a retirement of a one way of life in favor of a new one. Even if this is true, the current period of decline still spurns numerous problems and attempted solutions.

S., 2012). Family size can be important because the more kids in the family, the more toys and games that will most likely be purchased. There is more chance of growth in markets when family size is bigger. When it is less than the parents will buy fewer toys. In addition, each child goes through a cycle, and they would soon get to the stage where they do not play with toys.

The Brady Bunch were the ideal families in the 1960's and 1970's, and in the 80's, it was Family Ties. When the 1990's approached us, television shows took on a whole new outlook on American Families. There were shows such as Full House, which was about a single father raising three daughters with the help of his brother-in-law and his best friend. Roseanne was also another show that showed the "dysfunctional" side of families. American Families keep changing, and they will continue to change in our future.

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

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.

Falbo had found that only children tend to have higher self-esteem and perform better in school, as well as a higher number of them get a post-secondary level education than people with siblings (Fablo and Goudreau, 2013). Anne-Marie Ambert, from the department of sociology at York University, had mentioned in her book, Changing Families: Relationships in Context, that children from larger families do not do as well in school, on average as children from smaller families. Also, children from smaller families advance professionally and socially, than from larger families (Ambert, 362). Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Edison, Elvis Presley, Condoleezza Rice, and Tiger Woods are some good examples of adults who were brought up in small family sizes and were only children. Each of these adults eventually made their way to fame and were highly successful in their academics and careers. Family size in the United States as well as Canada, have been shrinking since the 1960’s and only child families have increased significantly over the past few decades (Goudreau, 2013). So why are Canadians having so few children? Firstly, there are many reasons for such to happen, but a major reason is that some people expect higher-quality children; investing more time in them than usual. Zosia Bielski, a reporter who attended Oxford University mentioned in her article, What is so wrong with having only one child?,

He also found that relatives continue to be the main source of informal support in all social classes. The effects of there being more extended families is that in some areas of the world there is an ageing population, which can also mean that there are more empty nest families, these are families where the children have left home and it is just the elderly parents living in the home. An example of extended families can be found in South Asian families, here the family is vertically extended. In one household there is a man, his sons and grandsons, their wives and any unmarried daughters, this would make a family relatively large. Living like this means that kinship ties a strong and it also causes the younger generations to change their behaviour as the family would be quite ‘old fashioned’, which causes them to stay living with their family and increasing family size in Southern Asia.

growing up, I always wished I was the only child in my family. It might not sound nice, but growing up with three sisters and two brothers isn’t easy. I thought being an only child would make me the center of attention, my parents would spoil me, and not have to share or wear hand me downs because my parents would have more money to spent on me. As I got older I learned there was never a dull moment with my family. I’ve realized a lot has changed over the years, back then it was common to have a big family. However, nowadays it has become more likely to have only one child. Having many siblings has its advantages and disadvantages, for example not being able to have privacy, feeling neglected, and always being entertained one way or another by big family.

Is it selfish to have more than two children? The decision about the number of children you will have is really important. This decision will not only affect the family it will also affect the society and the environment. Parents have more than two children do not pay attention to the problems that their children will face in the future. They are proud of having an extended family instead of thinking about the future. People now realize the value of having a nuclear family. Markedly the population is increasing every second and under those circumstances there will be unbearable load on the family and the government. The main concern is whether to have an extended family or a nuclear family, as this issue has raised more than opinion .Nuclear family is mostly preferred on account of the financial conditions of the family , providing better care , and reducing population growth.

Some people may still argue that the big family are better than small family because the child need someone from his age or little bigger so he can play with him and stay with him, and learn new things to gather ' 'brothers and sisters, also when the grow up they can become Source of income for the family or helping their parents in work. However, this argument could be easily refuted .those parents who have a lot of children 's got a lot of pressure because the children 's will fight and do some stuff annoying, also the children 's from small families cannot get good education and that’s mean when the graduate they cannot find good jobs , and the cannot help their families, and maybe when the grow up they will get married so if they find a good jobs they will spend the money they make in their own families ,,and they will not go back and give the money to his parents  ,because they got  responsibility. Also the children 's