The Role Of Becoming A Primary Caregiver

As the family structure and needs within the family are changing, the grandparent role is becoming more considered as the parent. As societies problems are growing such as substance abuse, violence, incarceration, homicide, mental illness and at the time this article was published the presence of Aids, the children in these families are starting to be cared for by their grandparents due to these issues being present in their parents’ lives. In just the African American culture according to the article “Empowering African American Custodial Grandparents”, “13.5% of African American children are living with their grandparents or other relatives.” This article discusses the imploring of the Family Systems Theory in the area of empowering the grandparents

In Annette Lareau’s study and subsequent book Unequal Childhoods, she examined the lives of twelve children of different social classes. In particular, she focused on parenting styles within their households and their effects on the children’s future and found a direct correlation. Two of the children from her study were Alexander Williams and Tyrec Taylor, both African-American nine-year-old boys.

Author Harriette Pipes McDoo addresses how family values are influenced by racism in her book, Black Families. She expounds that the challenges faced by African American families have given them the ability to strengthen their core family values through overcoming racially fueled injustices (McDoo 69-71). Factors like racism, poverty, and the fight for equal rights are all factors which vary across the nation within each household affecting individual family value systems. Along with the challenges of adversity, each passing generation inside of American culture have emphasized less and less on multigenerational relationships with families moving and growing into new families to new locations. This rift in the familial structure stems from the evolution of the traditional family combined with the self-motivated desire to succeed

In today’s world, families are dynamic and interdependent systems. The developmental processes of the children in the family are deeply affected by how the family system operates. However, a family’s structure does not determine whether it is a healthy family system or not. Today, families consist of single parents, stepparents, divorced parents, remarried parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. They are all able to contribute to a healthy functioning family system by meeting each family member’s needs and encouraging positive communication (Jamiolkowski, 2008). Unhealthy family systems have negative and possibly

Annette Lareau, author of Unequal Childhoods Class, Race, and Family Life, revealed her research findings in this enlightening text featuring twelve socially, economically, and culturally diverse families having a child nine to ten years of age respectively in their nuclear family unit. These families were garnered from the author’s coinciding study comprised of eighty-eight children. Lareau, along with her research assistants, visited each family approximately twenty times. Visits included time spent within the home, as well as family events, school functions, doctor’s visits, structured activities, shopping trips, and church services. Wide-ranging contexts allowed researchers a unique opportunity to observe and record a multiplicity of interactions within each family unit.

However, Amanda’s family has potential to thrive despite these challenges if they are resilient (Black & Krishnakumar, 1998). African American families commonly show resiliency by having a strong kinship bonds, central role in religion, racial biculturalism, and enforcing positive self esteem (Black & Krishnakumar, 1998). Amanda’s father can continue to protect her from negative consequences of communities by providing structured activities, like sports, or involvement at recreational centers (Black & Krishnakumar,

     The African-American family is defined as networks of households related by blood, marriage, or function that provide basic instrumental and expressive functions of the family to the members of those networks (Hill, 1999). It is one of the strongest institutions throughout history, and still today. Family strengths are considered to be cultural assets that are transmitted through socialization from generation to generation and not merely adaptations or coping responses to contemporary racial or economic oppression (McDaniel 1994; Hill 1999). This definition is contrary to the belief that the Black family is an adaptation to harsh conditions, instead of an ongoing establishment. Hill (1999) discusses

I chose to interview Hayward Thues for this paper. Hayward is an African American male and he is my paternal grandfather. Hayward was born in Ringgold, Louisiana in 1930 and is currently 86 years old. He relocated to Phoenix, Arizona, along with his mother and siblings when he was an adolescent. Hayward’s father died when he was very young, so he does not have any memories of him. Hayward currently lives with his wife, my paternal grandmother, and they have been married for 65 years. One of my oldest uncles also lives with my grandparents, as well as a few cousins. My grandparents typically have one or more family members residing with them at any given time; they have never lived in their home alone. My grandfather utilizes

The Moore family is a family that is made up of three generations, starting with the grandparents, parents, along with the children. The Moore family also consist of multiple racial groups, such as African American and Caucasian that causes divided within the family because of the cultural differences within each group. The Moore family is made up of Jessica, Caucasian mother, Ed, African American father, Derrick, adopted African American son, Terrence, Jessica’s biological biracial son, and Debbie, Ed’s biological biracial daughter. With the listing of the both husband and wife along with the children, it is clear that this family has encounter a few life transitions, trajectories, cohorts, turning points, and life events. Understanding life course perspective will assist with understanding the family dynamics that are displayed within the Moore family. Life transitions, trajectories, cohorts, turning points, life events, along with other terms will be defined and discussed to fully examine the Moore’s family behavior and life events that guided their family’s development. With all of the issues that the Moore family has encountered both Jessica’s and Ed’s marital problems may be seen as the core of their family’s dysfunction, therefore, this will be explained under the life course perspective.

According to Conner and White (2006), the traditional definition of fatherhood within the African American community underestimates the role of a father and further do not describe the systems that surround the African American experience adequately. Many interpretations of “fathers” have been discussed, with several scholars working from different perspectives offering

Often times the young African American mothers end up being young African American single mothers. The father’s involvement impacts many aspects of young African American mothers’ parenting. In a study by Cynthia O Lashley, Sydney L Hans, and Linda G Henson “Young African American mothers’ changing perceptions of their infants during the transition into parenthood”, Lashley et al. included research from McElroy & Moore stating “although most African American teenage mothers are not married to their children’s fathers, there is great variability in the patterns of involvement young men have with their families”. According to Gee and Rhodes, Fathers are usually more involved close after birth, however involvement decreases as the child gets older (Lashley 482). Because the young parents are not married and the pregnancies are often unplanned there is a lot of strain on their couple relationship and the relationship could diminish due to the stress of parenthood, making it easier for the father to be non-present in the child’s

The purpose of this paper is to critically critique and evaluate the study: Parenting a Child With a Disibility: The Role of Social Support for African American Parents, written by Jung – Hwa Ha, Jan S. Greenburg, & Marsha Mallick Seltzer. This paper will critically apply the Ecological Perspective and Systems Theory, to the social concern as it addressed in this study. This paper will accomplish this critique by assessing the hypothesis, evaluating the method of study, and critically discussing the results of the study in question by using the key concepts of the fore mentioned theories. Upon the completion of this paper, the reader

The purpose of this paper is to discuss and review my observation of a 7 year old African American male who is being raised by his grandmother (45 year old Bi-racial female who has 9 children of her own; 7 of the children are still in the house). During my observation of “Jackson”, I focused on the following domains of child development:

Culturally is it unusual that Lanesha’s grandmother is her primary caregiver? I would like to say no to this question, but the facts behind this issue don’t support it. Within the African American community, approximately 12% of African American children nationally are cared for by their grandparents, compared to approximately 7% of Hispanic children and 4% of non-Hispanic White children (NCBI, 2010). Lanesha and her grandmother are part of a larger issue that is reflected in today’s society. Several reasons can exist for this paradigm, anything from the parents needing complete education, the grandparents supplementing expensive daycare costs, or simply because the parents are not involved in the child’s life.

In many ways family systems theory can be seen as a broad field where there many different implications that make up the system, it is a system. A system is a set of objects that are bound together by a relationship, which are based around the attributes of the objects as drawn upon by (Janet.BB, 1982). Family systems theory addresses the many different ideals and values that make up a typical family, these include the roles each member of the family, the power relations either from the male of the family or both parents of the family, the boundaries that are set within the family to ensure that the structure of the family is secure, in both individualistic and collectivist families this can be seen (Fred Rothbaum, 2002).