Traditional Families In The United States

During the 1990’s, a total of 71.5 million children under the age of 18 lived within the U.S. Of these children more than 70% lived in a traditional two-parent family, 25% lived with one parent, and less than four percent of children lived with another relative. As of 2013, about 46% of children live in a traditional two-parent family. The remaining 54% are divided into three categories: 15% live with two parents remarried, 34% live with a single parent, and five percent live without a parent. Studies show that children who live in an non-traditional family are at a greater disadvantage than children living in a traditional family. Children who live in non-traditional families are at a higher risk of experiencing economic and psychological/health

A total of five families will be participants in this relocation to Ripon Wisconsin and will be under my care for ninety days. Based on traditional family structures is has been deduced that each family will have on average five people, however we will not exclude families that have more than five members. I may come across this if the families want to bring with them extended family members such as grandparents or aunts and uncles. The families that I choose to bring do not necessarily have to be from Rwanda. During the genocide, there were Hutus who left the country because at the time it was not a good place to live and they fled to the surrounding countries. Some of these refugees stayed in those countries, while others went back to Rwanda only to face suspicion and scrutiny due to the genocide (Fisiy 1998). Due to this, I will be considering families in both circumstances, but I predict there will be more families wanting to leave Rwanda due to tensions still in the country. I plan on moving the families to Ripon at the beginning of August so they have a whole month of summer before having to adjust to cold Wisconsin temperatures. Along with letting the families adjust to the temperatures, I have picked August so if any of them want to attend any sort of school they can start with the rest of the state avoiding having to start at an awkward time.

“In the united states, more than 4 to 5 in 10 marriages end in a divorce, and approximately half of American children are affected by this change in family relationships” ( McDevitt & Ormrod, 2015, p.73). The divorce rate is continuously skyrocketing, and more children are having to learn how to deal with this occurrence. In addition to divorce, there are also many different types of family situations, that are not considered traditional, and these also cause children to go through hardships. For the most part, children who grow up in traditional working households have tended to do better in school and grow developmentally stronger than children in non-traditional household settings due to the hardships and the changes these children are going through.

The family structure in America is intertwined with the experience of poverty; that not only affect the people that are going through it but affects everyone and every country. Poverty is lack of basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, healthcare, education, clothing, shelter and influences how the families operate, how the child fits in and their roles.

On today’s date a family consisting of a mother, her two daughters, and three children were sent in to Passport Control Secondary. The family was identified as the following:

Nuclear family is defined as “familial form consisting of a father, a mother, and their children” (Conley, 2015, p. 453). This type of family was considered the traditional family in American society in the 1950s. The traditional family was when the man worked outside the home and the wife stayed at home and tended to the home and children. Also the idea of the traditional family has changed, especially with the rate of divorce and single parents increasing. “The divorce rate has been steadily rising since the nineteenth century, as divorce became less and less of a social and religious taboo” (Conley, 2015, p. 456).

I was raised in the 50’s. My parents came from Europe after the war in 1948 and began a new life with just the clothes on their back. They had some family here and every holiday, birthday, and just some weekends in between we would get together. By the 70’s in was already gradually starting to shift as high school seniors were heading off all over the country expanding their horizons as they embarked on college life. After college students embarked on new adventures stating their careers away from their families. Although it seemed subtle at the time, now reflecting back it seems loud and clear change has arrived. After high school I never moved back home just like many of my friends and of course this included my cousins. Eventually my aunts and uncles also moved to different states and everyone was all over the place. To this day I miss those wholesome days and wished my child could have had that experience growing up.

Traditions are unique customs that a family does together because of the meaning behind it. In the United States, there are different cultures that all have an individual set of values and beliefs. Some standard traditions that can be found throughout Christians is celebrating Christmas by opening presents or attending lunch together after a Sunday morning church service. Family traditions are important because they help to maintain a positive relationship with one another, it’s a pleasant way to stay connected, and studies show it has a positive effect on children. As we all get older and begin going our separate ways it can be difficult to have the entire family under one roof. Traditions are what keep them together.

The family structure throughout the last 100 years has changed drastically in the UK. Societies more casual state of mind towards marriage implies it is no longer seen as unusual to be included in a complicated family structure. For instance a Reconstituted family. This is the point at which one or both folks have been married before and had kids and have remarried to shape another family structure also called a step family. Families are no more simply nuclear families. Nuclear family is made up of married folks living with their children. Families now have more muddled structures as compared to the nuclear families. Other family structures include cohabiting parents, lone parent families, homosexual parent families and extended families.

There have been times when it seemed that America was ready to acknowledge the reality of what we recognize as a traditional family has indeed changed, and make an attempt to merge traditional family values with our current family structure. The more recent agreement to battle single motherhood and its foundation in former family normalcy was a brief period of good will extended to all families regardless of the shape or size, then was quickly followed by a newer, bipartisan movement focused on the family structure that included divorced parent situations as well as single parenthood, and now gay marriage and same-sex homes. This new campaign for dual parent families gained support across the political spectrum to include Democrats, liberals

In 2015, a momentous thing happened for United States, gay marriage became legal in all 50 states. In most states it already was but the remaining 13 became legal this year. There are many concerns regarding gay marriage, and the effects of them involve many legislative, cultural, religious and family issues. Gay marriage is controversial because a lot of people do not approve of it, they think it is immoral, unnatural, and not what the traditional concept of “marriage” really means. Opponents of gay marriage say it is only meant for a man and woman and that it is a sin to be with the same sex. Also, because marriage is for procreation and should not be extended to same-sex couples because they cannot produce children together. They believe that marriage is a privilege, not a right and that they do not want their tax dollars going to something that they do not believe in. Proponents say that to ban marriage from two people that love each other is discriminatory and unconstitutional. Love should be enough for marriage, regardless of sexual orientation. From a legal standpoint, marriage is a civil right and should not have restrictions to people of the same sexual orientation (History and Debate of Gay Marriage). Correspondingly, marriage is not only for procreation, otherwise couples who could not have kids or do not wish to have kids would be prevented from marrying too. Gay marriage can also help boost the economy from people who pay for marriage licenses. There have been

Family is an interesting subject to discuss, as the “traditional” family structure has definitely changed, for example, in 2011 the U.S. Census Bureau, stated that 27.2% of American children under the age of 18 lived with one parent in 2007, in comparison to 1960, where around 9.1% of American children who lived in single-parent families in 1960 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004). Reiss (1981) stated that family shares world views, and together the value and belief systems give the family a meaning in a social context. As human beings are social beings, family is important because, that is the nucleus in where people learn their social cues and behaviors. Family communication has an immediate impact on the self- esteem of adolescents and this is prevalent in many facets of adolescent life, specifically dating.

The structure of families is constantly changing, in the early 1900’s very rarely would a child be born outside of wedlock, or a family be divorced. This dominant structure of one mother and one father with one or more children for life came to be replaced by a majority of families becoming divorced, as seen in  “The Changing American Family” by Natalie Angier. Divorce became common, as well as multigenerational families, a household that has more than three generations. With the legalization of same sex marriage, a whole new structure became to rise as a possibility for couples.  As these new family forms become more normalized, the concern for the children and the doubt of financial stability rises with it. Parents and couples in nontraditional structures can produce successful children,-while maintaining a good financial status,-because a marriage status, partner, or the lack thereof does not determine the worth of a person's life or children.

The United States economy will receive a substantial boost from the legalization of same-sex marriage, due to improved labor mobility and increased productivity. The United States Supreme Court ruled in June that same-sex couples had the right to marry, meaning that all states must now recognize and conduct gay marriages. States decided on an individual basis whether to do so, with some conservative states opting to ban them (Cosgrave). Same Sex Marriage causes kids that are growing up to think it is okay and causes heterosexual marriages break apart. Same Sex Marriage denies a child, turns a moral wrong into a civil right, defeats the purpose of benefiting marriage, and is against the Biblical truth.

Same-sex marriage has been a long debated issue in the United States. Since the nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage in countries such as Holland, Belgium, and Canada American gay couples have been pushing harder for equal marriage rights under the law. Opponents claim that allowing same-sex unions would not only lead to less stable marriages and higher divorce rates for heterosexual couples, but also precipitate an economic crisis. Marriage is intended to be the mechanism by which humans divide and pass on property; same-sex marriage disrupts the traditional practice of passing property on to one’s children. (Allen, 961) However, the breakdown in the economic and social fabric opponents of same-sex marriage fear will not occur. Research shows that same-sex unions greatly benefit the economy at several levels and in many ways. I believe that legalizing same-sex marriage will boost the nations economy by tax revenues, adoption fess, and increases in tourism.