 | ||
|
| |    What Is a Family? by Robert Needlman, M.D., F.A.A.P. reviewed by Robert Needlman, M.D., F.A.A.P. To understand how families work, it's worthwhile to ask what makes a unit of people a family. The old idea that a family is mom, dad, and 2.5 kids is, well, outdated at best. In fact, the 2000 census found that, for the first time, less than 25 percent of Americans live in a traditional nuclear family. Most people have gotten used to the idea that families come in all different shapes and sizes: There are families with a large number of children, many with two or three, and some with one. The parents may be married or divorced or never married, or there may be just one parent. They may share ethnic, racial, religious, and cultural backgrounds, or none of the above. Most two-parent families have a mother and father, but some have two mothers or two fathers. Increasingly, the folks doing the day-to-day parenting of some young children actually are the grandparents. Often, there are other adults who are not parents, but who nonetheless belong in the families. Families come into being in different ways, giving rise to foster, adoptive, divorced, and stepfamilies. Families differ not only in their make-up, but also in how they function. There are smooth-running families and families that jerk along from crisis to crisis; noisy families and quiet ones; families in which everyone is very involved with everyone else, and families in which each member is very private. And yet, despite all these many differences, there are some things that are true of all families. Rules and roles Each family has rules. For example, a rule might be that the children are assigned certain chores or that there's no TV on school nights until homework is finished. On a deeper lever, families have rules that control how different members show affection, for instance, or express anger. These rules aren't usually talked about, but everyone in the family knows them, and if someone breaks one of these rules, everyone notices. Another sort of unspoken rule has to do with the role each person plays in the family. There are obvious roles, such as the 1950s' stereotype that father makes money while mother takes care of the children. Less obvious roles include, for example, one child being cast as the "troublemaker" while another is the "good" child. Father's role might be to diffuse family tension through humor, while Mother might be the one who blows off steam for everyone. The family history and life cycle Each family has a history and a life cycle. The family's history answers the question, How did we get to be who we are? Children find stories about their parents' childhoods fascinating. The sense of belonging to something that continues over time is a powerful part of what it means to be a family. But this continuity can have both positive aspects (how the past generation overcame difficulties) and negative (criminals in the family tree or mental illness, for example.) The family's life cycle describes how it changes through predictable phases and faces predictable challenges. In the beginning phase, the challenge is for two people to create a family with its own identity. To do this, one of the first orders of business for the recently married couple is to exclude their parents from the core of the new family. The older generation is included only so far; the primary loyalties of the couple have to be to each other. In the middle phase, a key challenge for the family is to balance outside priorities (career and financial success) with inside ones (child rearing, romance, personal fulfillment). In the final phase, the main challenges are dealing with death or separation. Putting it together In thinking about your own family, see if you can answer these questions:
| |  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| About Us |
Contact Us |
Our Partners Privacy Policy | Ethics | Advertising Policy | Terms of Service © Copyright 2004 The Dr. Spock Company. All Rights Reserved. THIS SITE DOES NOT PROVIDE MEDICAL ADVICE. The information drSpock.com
provides is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for
professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your health care
professional if you have a specific health concern. Mention or advertisement
of any product, service, or brand does not constitute endorsement, guarantee,
or recommendation by The Dr. Spock Company. Please read our full
Terms of Service. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
