On the other hand, non-traditional families can be said to be better for society as the societal status quo is challenged encouraging tolerance, though the weakness remains that this model results in higher poverty and rate of delinquent children. One of the key features which define traditional families is their abidance to role expectations, specifically gender role expectations which are ultimately transmitted to the children. Raising children in such a setting yields the advantage of producing children who are more balanced. Certain biological approaches have looked at unravelling the differences between the two sexes with the common belief that women are perceived to be
Family structure in reality, there are variety of family structures, including single-prent families, stepfamilies, grandparents raising grandchildren and same –sex headed families. Yet many families today struggle with how to function in a society based on a traditional model of married couples with biological children. One common family structure that exists today due to divorce is the binuclear family (Ahrons , 1994). Because of the prevalence of divorce, he binuclear family is considered by some to be normative; however, few models exist for how divorced parent can successfully continue their parenting roles when the family no longer fits the traditional model. This is especially problematic for nonresidential parents those who do not live with their children following divorce.
The standards for an ideal family back in the 1960s are extremely different than the standards held by an ideal family today. The principles of marriage, on what a family consisted of, father’s leadership skills, wife’s job, how they managed a family, families having meals together, families attending church and children respecting parents and abiding to their schedule. In the 1960s an ideal family would consist of a woman who was pure and innocent prior to her engagement. The wife had to be a virgin for self-respect purposes and
Whereas, their family structure was a traditional mother and father structural unit with seven children. My grandmother spent time with my grandfather on Sunday’s. My maternal grandmother was not highly involved in the activities of the children due to the lack of self-confidence from her language barrier. My grandparents had established rigid boundaries brought with them from coming to the United States from Italy when they were both in their teens. Their central struggle was communication due to the language barriers for them to overcome.
In the 1950s, there were usually a specific guideline for what a family is supposed to look like. According to a Washington Post article by Bridgid Schulte in 2014, called “Unlike in the 1950s, there is no “typical” US family today”, the United States has since changed the family dynamic. In the 50s, the head of the family was always the father, and he made the money to support his wife and their kids, who would someday do the same for their families. The mother would almost always stay home to care for, feed and clothe the children as the stereotypical “Homemaker” that was romanticized during this decade. Schulte mentions that, “But perhaps what we haven’t fully understood yet is that today, there is no one “typical” family.
Therefore, the immediate family structure was my mother, father and a triangle of his mother, at times. The generational triangle only began with my paternal grandmother. Bowen postulates addressing the continuing family pattern differentiation or the lack of patterns that evolve over successive generations. In my family of origin, there was/is a generational calmness in discussions in the event of a family conflict. Therefore, in conversations, individual ideas matter along with acknowledging and validating all family members’ feelings.
Compare contrast (Asian Parenting and Western Parenting) Nowadays, in society if one was to take a look into the lives of a typically family one would see many different scenarios. The question that the people seem to ask is what makes a perfect family unit? Many believe that the style of parenting has a lot to do with how a child develops and interacts with society, it is apparent that a parenting style can influence a child’s behavior. Parenthood is a privilege but is also a great responsibility. How parents act in child rearing is called parenting styles and geographically speaking there is a wide variety of styles practiced.
I agree that children who grow up in single parent/stepparent families are at greater risk for child abuse and violence more so, then if they were residing in a two-parent, nuclear, biological family environment. Furthermore, in single parent/stepparent family environment, parent-child conflict and forms of family dysfunction takes place. Firstly, it is complicated for children to adjust and develop to a stepparent relationship within a new family
This has led to nontraditional familial roles. Fathers exhibit greater social sensitivity than they did previously. This means that the traditional family structure has changed and become more flexible that causes the redefining of family roles. Grebelsky (2014) concluded that in low social-economic status families (SES), “mothers were more supportive and focused more on the child, while the fathers were more like authority figures”. Fathers are considered as tougher and more task-oriented which try to set the activity.
The degeneration of a family structure in today’s society has resulted in a major shift in the views of family, love, marriage, and other things that play an important role regarding this topic of discussion. Even though the there are still “Traditional” American family structures being built, the ideas and practices of “Non- Traditional” family structures are constantly overriding. This drastic change has caused a numerous amount of parenting styles to take place. Today, there are six different parenting styles that consists of a family structure. To introduce them by name, there are: single parenting, same-sex parenting, grand-parenting, adoptive parenting, foster parenting, and co-parenting.