Dorothy Lee: Individual Autonomy And Social Structure

The purpose of this paper is to discuss one of the tasks of family development and the life cycle theories. The task I chose was assuming mutual responsibility for child care and nurturing.

I believe there are many factors that define culture, such as language, food, traditions from past generations, religion, and values. All of these factors have the power to influence the individuals within.

“George Murdock (1897 – 1985) examined over 250 societies, ranging from small hunter-gatherer communities to large industrialized societies, and found some form of family in all of them. Murdock claimed some points about family and their functions. For example, The reproductive function provided stability for the rearing of children and socialization include the responsibility of teaching children the acceptable ways of behaving in society” (Stretch and Whitehouse, 2010, pg.310)

However, in order to become a successful human being, human nature is something that to a certain extent needs to be individually developed through one’s own challenges and experiences. At some point in a person’s life, significantly at an early age, they are ultimately helpless, therefore they need the attention and guidance of the family to be put on the right path to achieve and flourish as a human being. This is why the family is the core of humanization and education. This is where the values of family and responsibility play a vital role in guiding and promoting the right beliefs and concepts for the development of successful, well-developed human beings. This also means that mothers have an extremely important role in the East Asian families, because they nourish and educate their children from adolescence till they can become independently grown individuals (Magagna, Oct 13). Such nourishment and uprising, also requires the person to experience events solely by themselves, forming their own opinion and judgment. Therefore, requiring one to self-cultivate and prosper. While the Self-cultivation can be done anywhere, the most important and logical place to do it would be at home, where one receives the humanization and education from their parents. Even if the individual can’t go to college to develop such experiences, they can still receive the self-cultivation to the wider world at home from their family (Magagna, Oct 13). Therefore, this means that the

When raising a child in this society we find ourselves asking questions like “to what extent can we allow a child to make his own decision” (lee,2). We have no trust in these kids, whereas in many other societies we know,” it would be presumption for any person to “allow” another to take what is essentially his prerogative” (lee, 4). The Wintu Indians believe the child should decide for himself. “It is in the parent’s mentality to give permission or freedom because it is not within their rights to give” (lee, 7) .An example of this would be .There is no time schedule for their children. When a child is hungry, they will feed them, when a child is sleepy, they will put them to sleep. They are showing the respect for the individual’s personal being. The individual is shown absolute respect from birth and valued as sheer being for his own uniqueness.

Families are organized with fathers as the figures in control and the mothers are subordinate to them. Mothers, however, take compete charge of the children, and so from a child’s point of view, mothers appear to be authority figures as well. Children are obligated to respect and obey these authoritative figures. (p. 103)

The job of child rearing is widely regarded as a maternal responsibility for most cultures

In the initial determination of parental rights the conceptual basis for removing a child from the custody of his/her parents is widely discretionary and the evaluation process involves the imposition of cultural and familial values which are often opposed to values held by the Indian family. Second, assuming that there is a real need to remove the child from its natural parents, children are all too frequently placed in non-Indian homes, thereby depriving the child of his or her tribal and cultural

Most importantly, “an individual has to learn to walk safely through life, maintaining his harmony with the universe” (Lee 11). In simple words, the individual is left to figure out things on his own, he is left to go through hardships and explore to find out what is good and what is bad. Such as “what is to be done with the left hand… what to avoid touching, or saying, or looking at” (Lee

Dorothy Lee, a critical anthropologist, addresses the key social problems in American culture, in her literature piece Individual Autonomy and Social Structure. Lee identifies that in American culture, the definition of individual autonomy varies from other cultures; in American culture, autonomy is defined to be secluded from authority so one does not influence another being, whereas in other cultures their culture as a whole encourages individual autonomy with no influences. This is shown by an observation Marian Smith had of a Sikh family’s display of allowing their child to be expressive without any influences by playing with a toy truck.

Adults not only in Afghanistan but in countries around the world often dictate all aspects of the child’s life until they become adults themselves; thus, the children’s desires are frequently disregarded and neglected. However, as trivial as their wishes may seem, decisions made by the adult can directly impact the child’s life forever. Therefore, one, especially a foreigner who is not accustomed to their radical principles, must wonder if bacha posh, daughters chosen by their families to live and behave as a boy, enjoy their borrowed status. The palpable answer would be of course, why wouldn’t they cherish their conversion to boyhood. However, “it all depends

While all societies acknowledge that children are different from adults, how they are different, changes, both generationally and across cultures. “The essence of childhood studies is that childhood is a social and cultural phenomenon” (James, 1998). Evident that there are in fact multiple childhoods, a unifying theme of childhood studies is that childhood is a social construction and aims to explore the major implications on future outcomes and adulthood. Recognizing childhood as a social construction guides exploration through themes to a better understanding of multiple childhoods, particularly differences influencing individual perception and experience of childhood. Childhood is socially constructed according to parenting style

Parenting a child from infant to the adult stage is a full-time responsibility that every parent takes on. The type of style used to socialize their children to conform adequately to the expected standards of conduct to function successfully in their society is the option that is decided by each parent. Since there are different ways of parenting a child, it is the parent’s responsibility to ensure that the child’s behavior is sufficient to live in society let alone act compliant in it as well. It is interesting to observe the different methods that a variety of parents demonstrate in order to make sure that the children of that society will be considered ‘acceptable’ by the environment itself and of course by the parenting

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

For as long as humans have existed, there has been the practice of two members of the human species coming together to raise their offspring. This practice is commonly known as parenting and over the course of the millenniums several styles or, ways of parenting have emerged from different cultures. The focus of this paper will be over two distinct styles of parenting: Chinese-style parenting and Western-style parenting. These two styles can be compared to the parenting style described by Psychologist Diana Baumrind; equating Chinese-style to Authoritarian parenting and Western-style to Authoritative parenting. With Chinese-style being shown as similar to a dictatorship and Western-style being shown as more of a democracy. As a result, Chinese parents believe Western-style is weaker, for focusing on a child’s emotional and mental well-being and allowing children to be independent and respected, but it can also be said these are Western parenting strongest points.