The Family in America - Article Example

Professor Name Institution, course number Date Family in America “The family is the most pervasive and central of human institutions. Scholars exploring the breadth of relationships underscore the importance of family, situating it as the “focus point for nearly all relational encounters” (Braithwaite, D. O., 2010). Family plays the most important role in person’s life. It gives him the feelings of safety and happiness, providing the greatest support in the most difficult periods. Once the person becomes mature, he realizes the necessity to create a family within the society, satisfying by this not only his personal but also public demands. However, the image of modern American family does not always exist in the same form, but has various representations. Karen V. Hansen wrote, “Overall, the Crane network illustrates the centrality of kin as care providers. The Cranes demonstrate that networks centered around care for children typically involve the exchange of many things besides child care, and involve caring for individuals of different ages, not just children”. The aim of this work is to analyze Hanson’s report and describe how it allows us to build the concept of family in America. The concept of family in America has various representations. It is a term, which includes multiple meanings. Nowadays, we can face different kinds of human relationships within a family. Some of them are passionate, others friendly, but all of them are united by the tights of responsibility. Family belongs to the most important social value. According to some scientific theories, the form of family has determined the general direction of the evolution of macro-systems for centuries. Every member of the society, in addition to the social status, ethnicity, property and financial situation, from birth to the end of his life has such a characteristic as family or marital status. The functions and status of the person in the family change together with his lifestyle. For the mature individuals family is a source of satisfaction of their needs and the small team with particular requirements. For a child the family is the environment in which predetermines the conditions of his physical, mental, emotional and intellectual development. Despite its common usage, the concept of family is quite multifaceted, and its scientific definition is quite difficult. In different societies and cultures, the definition of family may differ in some way. Each of them depends on the specific historical, ethnic and socio-economic conditions, as well as the specific objectives of the study. However, one of the most important things, which predetermine the interrelations within the family, is the reason for its creation. Among the most wide-spread reasons there are: reproduction and upbringing of children, sharing of economic functions, sexual affection, keeping social status and so forth. Nowadays, the institution of family undergoes certain troubles, which arose because of the different social changes. There are various reasons for that. The first of them is the increase in domination of women over men. The standards of family, which were originated from ancient time state that man is the person, who heads the family and bears the highest level of responsibility for its proper functioning. However, modern times changed the state of things. Women became more liberated. Thus, with the rise of women’s status in the society, the rate of family institute declined. The second reason is demographic. Such a decline in the marital institution represents people, who prefer to live not in the groups and communities, but hold a separate individual life, without depending from someone. Such independent position of modern generation is explained by their struggle for personal growth and development. The third reason is institutional. This area includes many aspects, such as the existence of members of the family institutions, their cooperation and living conditions, the performance of family’s main functions and so forth. The latest scientific researches indicate the great weakness in all these fields. Thus, modern families have unstable and changeable characters, which lead to misunderstandings and divorces. The fourth reason is cultural. This reason concerns the function of the family in the culture, which has been diminished for the recent time. American culture strongly supports the family values and keeps stable position in relation to it. However, most of Americans nowadays consider the situation as living together for the sake of children as inappropriate one. They also are not concerned with the questions of marriage or children as the issues of paramount importance. Thus, the cultural motivation, which proclaimed marriage as the most important part of person’s life was lost or changed. “While there are a few modern Americans who would like to return to the strict patriarchal authority of colonial days, in which disobedience by women and children was considered a small form of treason, these individuals would doubtless be horrified by other aspects of colonial families, such as their failure to protect children from knowledge of sexuality” (Coontz, S., 1992). Of course, modern representation of family does not coincide with the one, which appeared long ago and represented husband, as always busy, and wife, who is constantly on service. However, if the standard provisions for people of keeping and living in the family were missed, there is a question of how people would be able to survive. During many years, the functions of family as a structure were greatly reduced. “From its earliest incarnation as a multifunctional unit, the streamlined family of today is left with just two principal functions: childrearing and the provision to its members of affection and companionship. Both family functions have become greatly magnified over the years” (Popenoe, D., 1993). The great regret about this cultural loss does not change the state of things. Providing such data, Hansen’s report allows us to build a concept of family in America. It represents not the vision of a married couple and their life, but reveals it on the world level, paying attention to the interaction between the groups of people, calling it the social network. Nowadays, the USA takes the twenty first place among the infant mortality. The other troubles, which faces American society in terms of family institution is the poverty of children, homicides, murder, robbery, teen suicides, children abuse and so forth. All these factors show us, that the evolution of family during the last centuries has not been successful. The liberation of human rights has positive features. However, the institute of family suffers from the frivolous activities of its members, which leads to the unpredictable consequences. On the other hand, family myths and representations are very different from the reality. All families face both happy and difficult times, there is no ideal picture of the real relationships, as human are always held by their emotions. However, some of them live with constant complain as for the discrepancy between the imaginary and real style of living. In this case, the prejudice, provided by the society can have a harmful effect on the family institution itself. Hansen formed the concept of American family using the statistic data of the cultural values decline and the reasons for that as well as on the basis of particular examples. Cranes’ case is the example of how people can create a community, which brings them together and provides the feeling of unity. Such an event creates the concept of family. It consists of several parts. One part of it belongs to the interaction between people. Thus, in the family of Crane, we can observe an active cooperation of people, who tried to help Patricia. The second part comprises the social security of people, who have difficult living conditions. Returning to the issues of poverty, we can see how important the financial support is for Patricia. This area is responsible for the maturity of the family in terms of their financial abilities to keep it. The third part of the concept is the mutual interest and interference with each other. Crane’s network represents the deep interest in the life of all its members, who are not indifferent to the troubles of each other. They perceive the problems of others as their own. That is the thing, which indicates a family. The forth part is a sacrifice. In families the two sides always have to sacrifice for the sake of the third part or comfortable coexistence. These sacrifices are revealed in time, place, character and so forth. In case of Crane’s family, Patricia managed to support Fran, by relocating to another place and sleeping on the couch in one-bedroom apartment. Such an action represents strong family values. They manifest great devotion of one person to another. All these parts of family concept are based on the ethical principles, which nowadays are rarely maintained. Family begins with love between two people. The purpose of love is not just selfish satisfaction and joy, but the happiness of another person, bringing pleasure to him and respecting his desires. This ability is directly dependent on the skills of the individual to think not only about his own feelings but also the feelings of the beloved person. Family relationships rarely begin with the thinking about how to live together. But gradually it becomes clear that mutual coexistence greatly depends on the moral, psychological, sexual, and other qualities of the partners. The culture of family relations is manifested through the moral characteristics of its members, indicating their love by means of kindness, care for each other, responsibility, tact and tolerance. These qualities are of paramount importance for the family, as it includes people from different cultures with different views, habits and interests. Psychological culture along with certain moral character contributes to the formation and improvement of harmonious relations within the family. Psychological culture demands to respect the individuality of the family members without breaking and re-educating of each other. The concept of family relations is based not on the avoiding of family conflicts, but on the right methods of their resolution from an ethical point of view. Concluding this article, it is necessary to state that Hanson’s report does not contain the description of the ideal American family. It reveals the advantages and disadvantages in the relationships between family members and analyzes the changes of marriage values. “Sweeping economic and social changes in the twentieth century altered the landscape for all families, of all races/ethnicities and classes” (Hansen, K., 2005). This article helps to formulate the real concept of American family, which is not similar to the standard picture of public tights, provided by the society. Hanson calls the members of the family to accept each other as the ordinary people who have different character features, but choose to be together and overcome the arising problems. He represents family as the tightly cooperative network, which has a strong system of ethical values. Works Cited Popenoe, D. American Family Decline, 1960-1990: A Review and Appraisal, 1993. Retrieved from: http://staff.washington.edu/dechter/classes/Soc352/Readings/Popenoe_AmFamDecline_JMF_Aug93.pdf Coontz, S. The way we never were: American families and the nostalgia trap. New York, NY: BasicBooks, 1992. Print Braithwaite, D. O., Bach, B. W., Baxter, L. A., DiVerniero, R., Hammonds, J.R., Hosek, A.M., Willer, E. K., & Wolf, B. M. (2010). Constructing family: A typology of voluntary kin. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships Hansen, Karen V. Not-so-nuclear families class, gender, and networks of care. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 2005. Print Read More