Changes in Roles and Relationship within the Family Essay Paper

Changes in Roles and Relationship within the Family Essay Paper Changes in Roles and Relationship within the Family Essay Paper Families are viewed by functionalists as a nuclear family structure, which are composed of a father, mother and approximated two children. According to Murdock in every society have a form of nuclear family structure, which are the majority type of family in every society that he investigated. However, family structure have gradually changed by several reasons, and different family’s structures have emerged in UK. Functionalists such as Talcott Parsons, suggested that there are two important role within the family, called expressive and instrumental roles. The woman is the expressive role, and it means that she was the one who raised, disciplined, and educated family morals to the children. The father is the instrumental role, which means that is whom maintained the family financially, suggesting these are a segregated type of family, as they have separated conjugal roles. Parsons argued that this separated roles occurred naturally, and it is fundamental in order to have a well-structured family. Young and Wilmott (1970) suggested that nuclear families become to have joint conjugal roles, leading to the development of a more symmetrical family structure, as men and women’s roles become more balanced, with similar roles. They believed this new family structure was developed within the middle class families, and extended to other family class such as working class, knowing as the principle of stratified diffusion. They research showed that couples commenced to share family decisions; and it also showed that the man started to stay more in the house, performing housework and looking after the children, where women began to leave the house to have a salaried job.Changes in Roles and Relationship within the Family Essay Paper Permalink: https://nursingpaperessays.com/ changes-in-roles…mily-essay-paper / ? However, feminists has criticised the idea of symmetrical family, such as Ann Oakley. She believed that there are still existing a considerable difference in conjugal roles. She interviewed several mothers about their family’s relationship and their household roles; and the results showed that women still mainly responsible for the children and the housework, although some assumed that they have had a little amount of help from their partner. This research was supported by others feminists such as Boulton (1983), who also investigated symmetrical family and discovered that domestic division labour still unequal. Margaret Benston (1972), a Marxist feminist, also believed that women are overloaded with jobs, and she named it as triple shift, which are the roles that women execute on the daily basis such as childcare, housework, paid job, and on the top of all of this, they have to deal and manage the emotional side of the family, acting as a therapists. This showed that all this effort that women put into the family are mainly beneficial to their husband, as he would have everything ready for him, such as clean clothes, ready meals and therefore he would be able to go out fresh, and successfully perform well at his job, and eventually leading to pay increase, as he do not have as much responsibilities as the woman still doing at home. Consequently, woman have adopted feminist ideas and decide to reject tiring family’s roles, and from that onwards, family structure have changed even more. Laws such as the 1975 Equal Pay Law Act and Sex Discrimination was stablished, and the number of women going out to paid jobs have expanded. For this reason they become more independent financially and there was no more need to rely on husband financial earnings. Furthermore, women was influenced, and supported by feminists, to divorce or to leave unsatisfied relationship Subsequently, this idea of independence have caused an increase on the numbers of divorce rates, and new family structures have emerged, such as reconstituted family. Reconstituted family structure is when a single parent try to build a new family, with another person that may even have had children, and they raise their children together. Nowadays it has become the most popular family structure in UK.Changes in Roles and Relationship within the Family Essay Paper Over the years, a diversity of family structures have developed, and some of the possible reasons that facilitates those new trends, a part of the financial independence, are the changes on divorce laws. This legal changes collaborate and simplify legal proceedings, such as legal aid act and divorce law reform act. As result, people have more access to divorce, and encouraged to leave failed relationships, such as empty shell marriages, as there were no love between them, but simply other reasons that kept them together, such as the children or financial dependence, and in consequence more family structure emerged. Singletons is also another family structure that have surged as result of divorce, which means that when someone decide, or have to go and live alone. The majority of this type of family structure are constituted by males. However, New Right supporters have linked divorce laws to the reasons of the high rate of family breakdowns, because individuals are not devoted to their family as their used to be Postmodernists see diversity in family structure and consumer choices, as factors that indicates that the society have acquired more choices and freedom. Individuals are not judged as before if they do not live in a traditional family structure, as people’s acceptance have expanded towards new ideas and beliefs, which has led to new laws and rights, in order to support and protect every family, making them equally respected. Postmodernist Beck-Gernsheim (2002) argued that family diversity are the replacement of family traditions and marriages expectations, as people do not feel obligated to follow traditional ideas. The result of this change are the increase of divorce, birth outside marriage, and new different family structures such as same sex family, or cohabitation, which means people that live with someone without being married. However, this have been criticised and disagreed by others that believe that family diversity become extremely, and they believe that basic family traditions still intact by the majority of the society. Childhood has also been affected over the years. Phillipe Aries believed that childhood is a process of development, as in the middle age it did not exist. Children were treated from an early age, such as seven, in the same way as an adult. In the twenty century, people recognised that children were not emotionally and physically strong as an adult, resulting in the decline of child mortality, as their living standards began to improve. Therefore, children’s laws has been stipulated in order to protect them, such as Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act 1889; Children’s Act 1989, which refers to the right to choose which parent they want to live with if they divorce, and 1991 Child Support Act, which demands the absent parent to provide financial contribution. Children also become more family centred. However, Melanie Phillipes argues that the parents are slowly losing their authorities over their child, as the children’s right have given a considerable amount of power to the children. This result in their innocence been taken away with it; as they are in many cases using those rights in order to threat their parents; instead of being motivated to respect their parent’s authority. Adding to that, she argues that the mass media have more influence and effect on the child’s behaviour compared to their parent’s advice, and that they are not prepared and mature enough to understand it. On the other hand, this has been criticised for example by Morrow, whom suggested that generalised conventional approaches do not allow the children to be aware of the dangerous that they can be exposed in the real world. Postman, also believes that the media are ending with today’s childhood, by facilitating them to enter into the adult word at an early age. Nonetheless, David Brooks has criticised it, suggesting that this view was exaggerated and parents has become extremely protective, controlling their child, taking away the child’s own common sense and awareness to what is surrounded them. Britain become a multicultural country as result of international migration. The increase in the ethnicity variety has brought a huge influence on British culture and family traditions. Asian families are more likely live in extended families, whether Afro-Caribbean tend to form lone parent families. In consequence, mixed race marriages has influenced and changed family traditions in Britain, such as the increase of extended families, where more than one family generation live together.Changes in Roles and Relationship within the Family Essay Paper In conclusion, there are a variety of reasons and influences that have modified and increased the variety of family structure in UK. Postmodernists argued that relationships are based on voluntary individual’s commitment. Interactionists such as Clark, suggested that one relationship is different from the other, and some couples are encountering difficulties, and living day after day, without setting any direction. Furthermore, families become diverse and multicultural, and are all influenced by their immediate surroundings through society, media, learning and work environment, and social interactions have a strong effect on relationships roles, resulting in the increase of the variety in family roles and structures in UK.Question 1: 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 The family you come from isn ‘t as important as the family you ‘re going to have.” – Ring Lardner. Even though traditional values should change, families should be more traditional with mortality and respect. A family is the best thing that anyone can ask for. Traditional families hold the true values of friendship, honesty, loyalty, morals, and respect. While this issue is complex and may be hard to discuss there is a simple answer. Traditional families use morals to raise their children and create good people to better the world someday. Morals help better the individual. Traditional families teach each member the respect required to be shown towards others whether it be the workforce or in a grocery store. Morality is the key to a good person. Morality is the quality that drives individuals to better the environment around them and, while doing so, better themselves in the process. Morality is a quality that shapes and develops the world we live in. If all families were built from the ground up such as, the father being the family leader and the mother being the one who keeps things in order amongst the family, then there would be much less problems in the world that we live in today.Changes in Roles and Relationship within the Family Essay Paper When raising a child one is taught values by their families that they feel are important for their child to have. I believe that family values consist of certain actions and qualities that are important to a family to uphold. Values that are important in my family are honesty, trust and to have respect for others. Each of these values is equally important in my family. They played a big role into making me the person I am now. Growing up in my family taught me that honesty is the best policy. When I would get into trouble as a child I would often try to lie to my mom thinking that would save me from being punished. I soon learned that lying would only get me into more trouble than I was already. Respect is an important value to be taught when growing up. Through the years I have learned that in order to learn anything you must have respect for others. I have learned many valuable lessons from listening to my grandmother. She has told me many of her experiences, which has made me a better person. Having respect for other people has allowed me to be more open-minded and see qualities in people that most would not. I have always listened to what my friends and family has to say. That doesn’t always mean that I agree with them, but it is their opinion, so I respect it. In return I receive respect from them. As people begin to respect me more their trust in me also grows. Trust is a value that was very hard for me to learn. I was always afraid that someone was going to hurt me one way or another. My mother was always telling me that I should learn to trust others so that they could help me from time to time, but I never could do it. Eventually I finally learned to trust others a few years ago. I have realized that other people can do many things for you if you just trust in them. This helps me in the relationships I have with my friends. In addition to demographic change, several social changes over the twentieth century have altered family relations involving older people. First, alternative family forms (blended families, single parent families, cohabiting relationships, gay and lesbian unions) have become more common and more accepted. It is not clear how this diversity of “family” forms will affect the lives of older people in the twenty-first century. On the one hand, the plurality of forms may create a broader range of available kinship ties. On the other hand, these alternative kin relationships may not be as strong as the enduring parent-child relationships that have been the primary source of long-term caregiving for disabled older people. The negative effect of divorce on the strength of intergenerational relationships tends to be more significant for males than females.Changes in Roles and Relationship within the Family Essay PaperMore than half the children in the United States are living in homes without two married parents. In fact, in 2013, the Pew Research Center explained that 46% of kids under 18 years of age are living with parents in their first marriage; 34% are with a single parent, 15% are with two parents, one or both of whom are remarried; and 5 % have no parents at home. Family life becomes much more demanding when one parent shoulders the responsibilities of the household. Kids in single-parent families sometimes feel cheated or feel a sense of loss. Because single-parent families result from different circumstances, it is important for single parents to recognize the specific needs of their children. Families In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies, it is the principal institution for the socialization of children. Occasionally, there emerge new concepts of family that break with traditional conceptions of family, or those that are transplanted via migration, but these beliefs do not always persist in new cultural space. As a unit of socialization, the family is the object of analysis for certain scholars. For sociologists, the family is considered to be the agency of primary socialization and is called the first focal socialization agency. The values learned during childhood are considered to be the most important a human child will learn during its development.Changes in Roles and Relationship within the Family Essay Paper Conjugal and Consanguineal Families A “conjugal” family includes only a husband, a wife, and unmarried children who are not of age. In sociological literature, the most common form of this family is often referred to as a nuclear family. In contrast, a “consanguineal” family consists of a parent, his or her children, and other relatives. Consanguinity is defined as the property of belonging to the same kinship as another person. In that respect, consanguinity is the quality of being descended from the same ancestor as another person. Other Types of Families A “matrilocal” family consists of a mother and her children. Generally, these children are her biological offspring, although adoption is practiced in nearly every society. This kind of family is common where women independently have the resources to rear children by themselves, or where men are more mobile than women. Common in the western societies, the model of the family triangle, where the husband, wife, and children are isolated from the outside, is also called the oedipal model of the family. This family arrangement is considered patriarchal. The impact of industrialization on kinship has been no less dramatic. The consequences for kinship, can be seen in its changing functions, smaller size, altered composition, and changing roles of its members In industrial societies, many of the familys traditional functions have been eliminated or greatly altered.The family is now an economic unit only in terms of consumption, not of production. Families no longer control the political system; nepotism may still occur, but it is not accepted as legitimate. Schools, religious groups, and other organizations have assumed much of the responsibility for the education, socialization, and supervision of children, and a wide variety of organizations, from youth groups to summer camps and universities, have taken over the task of providing young people with the skills they will need in their adult lives Changes in Roles and Relationship within the Family Essay Paper Some of the most critical functions, however, still fall to the nuclear family ). Marriage today is taken for more personal reasons and is undertaken primarily to enhance personal happiness Read more on Brainly.in – https://brainly.in/question/1099071#readmore Many sociologists argue that the family has lost a number of its functions in modern industrial society. Institutions such as business, political parties, schools, and welfare organizations now specialize in functions formerly performed by the family. Talcott Parsons argues that the family has become ‘on the “macroscopic” levels, almost completely functionless. It does not itself, except here and there, engage in much economic production; it is not a significant unit in the political power system; it is not a major direct agency of integration of the larger society. Its individual members participate in all these functions, but they do so as “individuals”, not in their roles as family members’. However, this does not mean that the family is declining in importance. It has simply become more specialized. Parsons maintains that its role is still vital. By structuring the personalities of the young and stabilizing the personalities of adults, the family provides its members with the psychological training and support necessary to meet the requirements of the social system. This view is supported by N. Dennis who argues that impersonal bureaucratic agencies have taken over many of the family’s functions. As a result the warmth and close supportive relationships which existed when the family performed a large range of functions have largely disappeared. How Have Families Changed over Time, and Why? The structures, or forms, of the family vary as much as the definition itself. There is no single “true” family form. In Western Europe the nuclear family (a single set of biological parents residing together with their children) was prevalent in the Middle Ages, but at that same time in Eastern Europe multiple generations of the same family lived together in the same household (Coltrane and Collins, 2001). Indeed, the United States has also seen many types of family forms throughout its short history. Stephanie Coontz’s (2005) research on the history of marriage reveals that the family forms we see today in the U.S. are actually the result of an evolution of the family that began with an important shift in the culture of marriage in the mid-18 th Century.Changes in Roles and Relationship within the Family Essay Paper Coontz (2005) found that only in the mid- to late-18 th Century in Western Europe and North America “did the notion of free choice and marriage for love triumph as a cultural ideal…[opening] the way for it to become an optional and fragile [institution]” thus influencing the structure of the family at that time and into the future (p. 7). Earlier in history, during the Stone and Middle Ages, marriage was not based on love and men and women had very little choice about whom they married. In the Stone Age men and women married in order to improve the economic situation of their respective clans, then in the Middle Ages and into the 18 th Century marriage served the economic and political needs of a particular extended family group (Coontz, 2005). As marriage evolved in the mid- to late-18 th Century into a union based on love, other economic, cultural, and political shifts in the U.S. and in other nations were happening that would further influence the structure of the family. In the 19 th Century an ideal of the husband as breadwinner and the wife as homemaker became popular, but the majority of families could not achieve this ideal, as few jobs paid wages high enough to support a single-earner family. This changed as World War II ended and the U.S. experienced a time of dramatic economic growth. The economic prosperity of the time combined with the popular cultural ideal gave rise to family trends in the 1950s and early 1960s that had never been seen before. “ Ozzie and Harriet” families that married young, remained married, and had many children were the major family form at this time (McLanahan and Casper, 2001). The realization of the Ozzie and Harriet ideal did not last long, however. In the late 1960s and 1970s divorce rates rose, births to unmarried women increased, and the average age of first marriage also rose. The reasons for these changes in the ’60s and ’70s were many: real wages for women rose while those for men fell, the economy weakened, wives joined the workforce due to the downturn in the economy, and women gained access to legal rights, education, birth control, and paid work (McLanahan and Casper, 2001; Coltrane and Collins, 2001). This historical examination of the evolution of the family and marriage shows that the family has constantly been under pressure to evolve and shift with changes in the economy, our values, and even politics. The evolution of marriage into an institution of love along with changes in the economy, our culture, and the political scene since the 1950s has meant that American men and women have been able to realize their ideals of the male breadwinner and marriage for the sake of love and personal freedom as time changes.Changes in Roles and Relationship within the Family Essay Paper These influences and trends in marriage, divorce, and non-marital fertility did not escape rural America. Comparing urban and rural parts of the country between 1950 and 1970 reveals, however, that rural divorce rates were lower, fewer women age 20-24 were unmarried, and the number of children per 1,000 ever married women age 35-44 was slightly higher in rural America (Brown, 1981). The changes in marriage, divorce, and fertility we observe during the 20 th Century in all parts of the U.S. demonstrate that the structure of families are changing and becoming more diverse. While there are now many forms available to people, the family itself is not disappearing. Why Do Families Matter? The increasing diversity of the family in the U.S. has led scholars to examine if and how different family forms are associated with different groups of people who then may experience different outcomes. Research has found that not all racial groups participate in each family type equally, thus not all family forms are equally available to all people (McLanahan and Casper, 2001). Scholars have also found that each type of family (e.g., married with kids, married with no kids, single-parent with young children, etc.) is associated with different economic, child, and health outcomes. Demographers Sara McLanahan and Lynne Casper (2001) explain that past research has found that: Children who grow up with only one of their parents”¦are more likely to drop out of high school, to become teenage and single mothers, and to have trouble finding and keeping a steady job in young adulthood, even after adjusting for differences in parents’ socioeconomic background (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994). (p. 6)Changes in Roles and Relationship within the Family Essay Paper They clarify, however, that “about half of the disadvantages associated with single parenthood are due to lower incomes [of single parents]. Most of the rest are due to too little parental involvement and supervision and too much residential mobility” (p. 6). Stephanie Coontz (2005) also clarifies that the psychological, health, and economic benefits of marriage for families are due to a number of factors like: the effect of selection (people who are already healthier, more psychologically stable, and better able to manage finances tend to marry more than those who are not), the “expectations about responsibility, fidelity, and intimacy” in marriage, and the freedom to exit psychologically, physically, and economically stressful unhappy marriages (p. 309-310). While we see increasing diversity in family types in the U.S. across time it is clear that not all types lead to equal outcomes or are equally available to all. Dennis argues that in the impersonal setting of modern industrial society, the family provides the only opportunity ‘to participate in a relationship where people are perceived and valued as whole persons’. Outside the family, individual’s must often interact with strangers in terms of a number of roles.Changes in Roles and Relationship within the Family Essay Paper Adopting roles such as employee, customer, teacher and student, they are unable to express many aspects of themselves or develop deep and supportive relationships. Young and Willmott make a similar point arguing that the emotional support provided by family relationships grows in importance as the family loses many of its functions. They claim that the family can provide some sense of wholeness and permanence to set against the more restricted and transitory roles imposed by the specialized institutions which have nourished outside the home. The upshot is that, as the disadvantages of the new industrial and impersonal society have become more pronounced, so .the family has become more prized for its power to counteract them’. Not all sociologists argue that the family has lost many of its functions in modern industrial society. Ronald Fletcher, a British sociologist and a staunch supporter of the family, maintains that just the opposite has happened. In The Family and Marriage in Britain Fletcher argues that not only has the family retained its functions but those functions have ‘increased in detail and importance’. Specialized institutions such as schools and hospitals have added to and improved the family’s functions rather than superseded them. Fletcher maintains that the family’s responsibility for socializing the young is as important as it ever was. State education has added to rather than removed this responsibility since ‘Parents are expected to do their best to guide, encourage and support their children in their educational and occupational choices and careers’.Changes in Roles and Relationship within the Family Essay Paper In the same way, the state has not removed the family’s responsibility for the physical welfare of its members. Rather than removing this function from the family, state provision of health services has served to expand and improve it. Compared to the past, parents are preoccupied with their children’s health. State health and welfare provision has provided additional support for the family and made its members more aware of the importance of health and hygiene in the home. Even though he admits that the family has largely lost its function as a unit of production, Fletcher argues that it still maintains a vital economic function as a unit of consumption. Particularly in the case of the modern home-centred family, money is spent on and in the name of the family rather than individual. Thus the modern family demands fitted carpets, three-piece suites, washing television sets and ‘family’ cars. Young and Willmott make a similar point with respect to their Stage 3 family. They argue that, ‘In its capacity as a consumer the family has also made a alliance with technology’. Industry needs both a market for its goods and a motivated workforce. The feelings kids have about their relationships with both present and absent parents create dynamics that affects their capacity to trust. For example, hostility and anxiety of children during divorce also generates very different kinds of emotions than the feelings of grief and resentment a child may feel when a parent dies that may affect the relationships of that child with members of the opposite sex positively or negatively. In both of these situations, however, experiences of abandonment and loneliness may interfere with a child’s ability to trust and invest in relationships. In divorce, children often feel torn between their allegiances. Many struggle to balance or negotiate a connection with both parents. Parents are often unaware of or unable to manage the strain that their marital plight places upon their children. While the circumstances of divorce may disable coordinating parental guidance of relationships and sex education, parents need to communicate clearly about specific relational and sexual needs that their children are confronting for their overall well-being.Changes in Roles and Relationship within the Family Essay Paper The sometimes reactive and changing moods of teens, especially in families of divorce or with children whose parents have died, can set parents into a tailspin. It’s helpful to keep in mind that many adolescent manage their angst and defy parents even in the most stable homes. When intense stressors occur for families, it’s understandable that emotions intensify that can be particularly overwhelming for single parents. At the same time, it’s important to recognize that for children, the dissolution of the family or home means dissolving both critical established relationships and parts of their very life. No matter how our children act out, it will help if we can sympathize with their needs and offer reassurance about love and intimacy. It’s true that without direct experience of demonstrable intimacy and love between their own parents, this discussion may feel remote, yet the demonstration of accessible love for them becomes the foundation for learning lessons of how the power of love can overcome pain and loss. Building blocks for intimacy and love are created through our own relationship with our children and through working through discussions of appropriate loving and intimate experiences in relationships that we have with others or in relationships that exist around us, and in managing the struggles of emotions and communication. To appreciate the powerful impact that a single parent can have, consider how the feelings of one mother affected her son when single parentingemerged not from the struggles of divorce but of an absent parent (Note details are changed to protect confidentiality): Lou, a handsome, young man in his early twenties came to see me in therapy because of erectile dysfunction. A competitive kick-boxer, Lou had created a macho public persona that many women found attractive; however, Lou felt deep feelings of inadequacy that led him to overcompensate in school and work. Lou was a classic perfectionist, never letting up on himself. He knew that a medication for erectile dysfunction wouldn’t help him because he realized that the source of his difficulty was primarily emotional. Changes in family patterns are being produced by many factors. The important among these are science and technology (industrialization), expansion of towns and citie