The Way We Weren 't : Myth And Reality Of The Traditional Family Essay

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.

Talcott Parsons’ (1956, pg. 309) believed that “the nuclear family is a social system” which consists of a straight married couple and around two to five children, “can be distinguished, and does function as a significant group” (1956, pg.308). Parsons believed that the family benefitted society in ways such as the teachings of gender roles and the overall structure of society: the male going to work and being the breadwinner, while the wife stays at home and cooks and nurtures the children. After the Second World War, the nuclear family was the most common type of family making the structure easily “distinguishable”. However, when we look at the postmodern society, we can see that there are many different types of families nowadays such

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

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

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.

A brief view of the 4 decades within the periods of 1950 to 1990 would show us a significant shift from the conventional nuclear family to the non-conventional modern family. Starting from the 1950s, the families were nuclear, where members worked together, understood their roles, and did what was expected of them; by the 1960s, there were a few sitcoms that began to undermine the television parent’s authority by privileging the independence of nearly adult or adult children; by the 1970s, the authoritative father began to disappear as they were no longer

Since the nineteenth century, in the western societies, family patterns changed under the forces of industrialisation and urbanisation. Another factor which has been involved in those changes is the growing intervention of the state, by legislative action, in the domestic affairs of the family. As a result of these trends, the modern “nuclear” family has been substituted for the traditional extended family. The increase of values such as individualism and egalitarism has influenced the patterns of

This paper will discuss the differences between families from the 1960’s and the families of today. There are many differences between the different times. I have focused on the parentage portion of the families. I explained what the ideal family is and how it is different today. I’ve also included ways that will help these families of today become stronger as a family.

In this paper, I will use the sociological imagination to connect my personal experiences of growing up in a nuclear family to comparison of growing up in a divorced family. I’m from a nuclear family and my best friend is from a divorced family. “Some people still think the average American family consists of a husband who works in paid employment and a wife who looks after the home, living together with their children” according to Giddens, Anthony pg. 447. That’s not the case in many households. There are many differences, from values, financial issues, and how having one parent opposed to, two parents growing up. Growing up in a nuclear family household has given me the opportunity to have both parents supporting me and always being there, having both parents at special events, giving me the guidance from both perspectives man, and women, love, and financial aid. My best friends parents have been divorced for over 19 years, her living style is much different. She has to make certain days available to visit her father, and her mother has financial difficulties.

In The Way We Never Were, Stephanie Coontz suggests that society romanticizes past generations of family life and points out that these memories are merely myths that prevent us from “dealing more effectively with the problems facing today’s families” (Coontz x). Coontz proposes that researchers can take empirical data and create misleading causality for that data, thus feeding cultural myth and/or experience. Coontz believes that “an overemphasis on personal responsibility for strengthening family values encourages a way of thinking that leads to moralizing rather than mobilizing for concrete reforms” (Coontz 22). She calls on us to direct our attention to social reforms, which can be accomplished by avoiding victim-blaming

Families have changed significantly over the last decades, leading the ideal “traditional American family” to become, if not already, extinct. Although popular in the 1950’s, a “traditional family” is no longer sought after as modern families have evolved to incorporate diversity and acceptance into the household structure. In present-day, the majority of households encompass non-traditional families, accordion families, divorce, and modern technology.

Modern family, what does this mean? The importance placed on families is seen all over the world and every country is quite different. Here in the United States we are seeing a drastic shift in the American family dynamic. In the past, a family where the mother and father both had equal power was uncommon. In fact, if the father was not seen as the head of the household and the mother did not stay at home to raise the children there family was seen as abnormal. This dynamic is changing as other unique types of families become accepted. We are now seeing unusual families such as two gay men, two gay women, single parents, and even roommates now falling under the category of “family”. “We expose the institution of marriage as one of the most insidious and basic sustainers of the system,” proclaimed the Gay Liberation Front in 1969. Yet by the 1980s, gay men as well as lesbians were insisting that “ love makes a family” and demanding rights for “families we chose”. There has also been a trend of birthrates declining, children being raised by single parents, and couples getting married much older than in the past. While there may be several similarities between traditional and modern families, there are some new and important differences. This paper explores the history of the traditional American family and describes how the definition of family is being redefined as society evolves.

Wives have been professionals outside of the home for many years, which changes the dynamics of a marriage from a codependent situation to a true partnership. As a bona fide team effort, the parent’s union becomes stronger while they share the responsibilities of their household. Insofar as refusing traditional roles and positions in a relationship, it is true that more women today want independence from household work and child rearing duties. Nonetheless, I do not think this is a major reason for the countless marriages that end in divorce, for other classic problems between married people are far more likely candidates such as money, sex, drugs and societal pressures to conform. Instead, women’s freedom of house duties is liable to be a reason that couples do not marry in the first place.

The changes that shaped this domestic family were not only economic ones. Ideological transformations always accompany drastic economic changes. One such ideological change was the emergence of the Republican Mother. While women were discriminated against in politics as well as other forms of self-expression, they were still needed by the state. Because of the influence that women had in their families especially in the raising of the children the state had to convince women to be virtuous and to bring up good intelligent voters. This ideal was most likely applied only to middle class women as they were more virtuous and did not work outside of the home. Unlike the women of the colonial period, these women were responsible for their children and were blamed when the children were bad.