The American Family - a Nostalgic Microcosm - Coursework Example

The American Family: A Nostalgic Microcosm I. Introduction In the late twentieth century, the social organization of the American family trivially presents itself. Moreover, this period witnessed the disintegration of the nuclear family, which is characterized by a male breadwinner, a wife and their natural children. Social historians agree that the increasing breakdown of what was thought as the permanent and universal family arrangement is a serious social crisis. This pervasive distress is not unexpected, provided that even those who did not grow up in a traditional household have reflected the firm, socially dominant principle of the long-established family organization (McCarthy 1998). The traditional family has been looked upon for a long time as a happy and contented type of family; people often think that deviating from this customary arrangement will be adverse, detrimental or even abnormal. The crumbling of the traditional nuclear family has been coupled by an expansion of household arrangements in the United States. The presence of these alternative households essentially defies mainstream attitudes regarding the appropriate role and status of women, the regulation of sexuality, the limitations of families and suitable child-rearing environments and values (ibid). Beck-Gernsheim (2002) disputes that family life has turned out to be more complex as the time-honored traditions and rules collapse, relationships became not as much of stable and the family is frequently faced with conflicting and occasionally irreconcilable demands and decisions. Gradually, people who live within the type of family recognized as normal in the 1950s, lessen. Manifold societal changes such as the division of sexuality and reproduction, greater equal opportunity for women, the acceptance of same-sex relationships and more global migration and intermarriage have resulted in the simultaneous existence of numerous alternative family lifestyles (Baker 2003). Given the dynamism of the social organization of the American family, this paper will explore the changes that have occurred from the 1950s to the present to the institution of the family in America, or a comparative analysis of the American family in 1950 and the American family in the present. The aspects that will be extensively included are the prevailing social norms regarding family and family roles, gender roles and family’s functions. In order to achieve the objective of analyzing these changes in the nature and make up of the family in a sociological manner, the functionalist perspective will be duly applied, particularly the functionalist theory of Talcott Parsons. The comparative analysis will investigate on the theory of individualization which argues that traditional social relationships, associations and value systems that customarily determine people’s existence have been dropping more of their significance, liberating new alternatives for individuals to contour their own lives. People are associated to other social institutions such as the labor force, the political system as sole individuals rather than as individuals belonging to a family. These institutions more progressively expect individuals to assume on more initiatives in their own lives, hence becoming entrepreneurial and economically self-reliant (Baker 2003). For instance, even though politicians address the importance of family and family value systems, these societal reforms and anticipations actually dampen marital solidity and compassionate family relationships. II. The Traditional American Family versus Alternative Family Lifestyles Many question the true definition of a family. However, this question may seem to be initially symbolical. All human beings are born and raised within a set of connections of kin that sustains them to differing extents; an assemblage of biological relatives whose dearly distinguished roles do not necessitate a closer evaluation. There are people who still adhere to the belief that the family is a natural and timeless structure; a harbor of security, nurturance and compassion. Its attribute as the most significant social institution appears so indisputably apparent to numerous people that many refer to the family with absolute certainty that added explanation or requirement regarding its limitations and functions is uncalled for (McCarthy 1998). Nevertheless, in a world where technological advancement sweeps even the deepest recesses of humanity’s domains, where economy, the workplace, the transportation and communication, and the pieces of land where people reside are consistently transformed, people have gripped to the soothing illusion that the most essential bonds of human affection and obligations are not merely untouched, but unalterable (Anderson 1997). The branching out of family’s social organizations in North America and in majority of European nations during the recent years has played a significant role to the sense of insecurity about the prospect of the family and has stimulated an ever more controversial argument about the actual definition of the family and its concrete functions (McCarthy 1998). However, the majority of the contributors in the debate over the future of the family in the United States preserve the traditional nuclear family as a worldwide family structure. The proof provided by historians such as Michael Anderson (1980) who examine the diversity of family forms and functions throughout a period of centuries slightly than decades is a noteworthy response to this rather narrowed debate: “Firstly, there is the problem of diversity—indeed, the one unambiguous fact which has emerged in the last twenty years is that there can be no simple history of the Western family since the sixteenth century because there is not, nor ever has them been, a single family system. The West has always been characterized by diversity of family forms, by diversity of family functions and by diversity in attitudes to family relationships not only over time but at any one point in time. There is, except at the most trivial level, no Western family type” (3). The contemporary collapse of one family structure, the traditional nuclear family, must not, in that case, be considered as a catastrophic crisis that menaces the future security of western societies. To a certain extent, a number of the recent patterns recorded in the conducted demographic assessments in America can be viewed as a natural progression away from a structure that was positioned in and further appropriate for a premature historical episode and ideologically embedded in particular outlooks toward the role of women, the character of the marital bond, and proper childrearing practices and environments (ibid). Much of the arguments on the transition of the American family from the traditional nuclear family to various alternative family lifestyles are unavoidably intertwined in the changes in social norms and policies in the current period. While majority of the liberals appreciate the importance of the believed social gains such as better way in to civil divorce, birth control and abortion and broader reception of premarital sexual activity, homosexual and heterosexual cohabitation or live-in arrangements, career women, and day care that perhaps have contributed to or led to the collapse of the traditional nuclear family, several of them share with their more conventional fellow citizens a disturbing thought that something of beyond measure and probably irreparable importance has disappeared (Cheal 1991). Conformists have used this pervasive feeling of loss and the widespread impression of crisis to criticize a range of programs, policies and civil rights they judge as damaging to the long-established nuclear family: “The New Rights has played upon fears of family breakdown by using the term ‘pro-family’ to draw together opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, abortion and gay rights” (Thorne 1999: 1). They maintain that the nuclear family is greater in historical stability and any attempt to restructure it will only result in negative repercussions or loosening of its established elements, hierarchies or connections. Their devotion to a male-dominated family organization in which the males are ‘providers’ and women are plain housewives is entrenched in culturally persistent and socially all-encompassing attitudes such as confidence in male dominance and a licensing of natural mothering over all other styles of childrearing (ibid). However, the insight that families function best in an autonomous separation from the state is an insistent and persistent cultural falsehood. The family is safeguarded by numerous as the very last citadel of fundamental values in the modern period; the notion of the ‘home’ has been overwhelmed by a rapidly increasing group of specialists whose directives for intervention serve to bolster their personal motives and interests through discouraging the solidity, hierarchy and function of the traditional family. While majority of social historians concur that the long-established nuclear family is being superseded by an assortment of other familial types and structures, there is an expansive array of perspectives on the origin of this exceptional transformation of the family, on the causes and repercussions this change might bring, and on the strategies or movements that could be performed in order to reverse this current trend (McCarthy 1998). The opposition is intensified by modification in the discipline of sociology; as David Cheal (1991), a sociologist, identified, “The nostalgic feelings for family life as it existed in the 1950s that are found today among some sociologists are strengthened by an image of unity and certainty in sociological theory, which also existed at that time” (83). To put it plainly, a propagation of family structures has transpired simultaneously that sociological theory and approaches have become more diverse. Sociologists may be as perplexed about the contemporary alteration in family structures and functions. However, many of them are still dedicated to the traditional nuclear family as an area of study (ibid). III. The Reconstructed Family and Social Change In the American novels, widely held assumptions and treasured collective mythologies about the family were challenged. In these novels, parenting is not the solitary obligation of biological mothers; families are not only determined or limited to natural kin alone. American writers also de-established traditional views of masculinity and take in hand societal immoralities such as sexual violence, rape and racial discrimination, which, their novels appear to put forth, derived from male-dominated families (McCarthy 1998). Social change should be initiated at home since the family is the basic unit of society. Restructuring the family in America, as seen in their novels, offers a clear vision of the motivations to seek out for new lifestyles, the restrictions and competing forces in relations between genders and generations, and predictions of future family life. However, the prevailing concern that should be addressed is the outcome of the lost of traditional certainties without essentially vanishing and at the same time the redrawing of areas of personal preference by the new alternatives. Another concern is the effect of greater individualization to the family, marital bonds and parenthood. Some scholars use the term ‘post-familial family’ which implies the multiplicity of relationship arrangements, such as live-in or cohabitation, single-parent families, remaining single, marriage without children, and stepfamilies (Beck-Gernsheim 2002). Unlike the 1950s, adults in contemporary America are confronted with the necessity to come up with more conscious decisions such as whether or not to enter in a live-in relationship, to marry, have children or to remain together or divorce. Beck-Gernsheim (2002) recognizes that previous generations inhabit in various family structures, with out-of-wedlock births, premature spousal demise and stepfamilies, yet rules, customs, obligations and economic requirement ruled over more of private or personal lives. Nowadays, substantial effort must be exerted to deal with everyday realities. She remarks that the traditional family is not actually disappearing but is losing the control that it has taken advantage for so long. A lot of people now feel the necessity to build up self-protective mechanisms to lessen the hazards linked to relationships, yet there mechanisms actually weaken marital strength and hamper childbearing (ibid). The cherished traditional nuclear family in 1950s America gradually lost its vitality and dominance due to the rapid development of individualization, which also aside from purported positive consequences creates inadvertent outcomes. The nurturance of children and the aged has been the responsibility of the women, yet growing pressure on women to get a job for pay, sustain themselves and pursue their interests imply that less will be on hand or eager to perform this caring work in the future. However, bigger social requirement for caring job is mounting as populations mature and women-mothers enter the workplace (ibid). People will then need to depend on professional care if not men perform more family responsibilities. Couples will depend more on medical specializations and technology to bear a child who suits their hopes and aspirations. Contemporary parenthood has turned out to be the point of private preparation and decision, but also integrates more public care programs and obligations (Baker 2003). IV. Conclusion The traditional nuclear family has achieved its glamour and prestige during the 1950s in America. However, because of rapid advancement in technology and people’s attitudes toward the importance of the family, this microcosm of society began to decline. Nevertheless, debate regarding the nature of this familial structure transformation has ensued over the years. Some claim that the transition from a traditional form to more liberal family arrangements is an evolution which cannot be hampered; hence, this familial shift should not be considered as a cataclysmic event. However, there are others who still cling to the comforting existence of a family that is ready to provide compassion and nurturance to its members as a defense mechanism against the perplexity and difficulties that the technological world brings. Therefore, a comparative analysis of the American family in the 1950s and the contemporary American family will be quite futile since it is largely agreed upon by different scholars that the American family is really undergoing a drastic shift in its familial social organizations. Hence, it will be glaringly difficult nowadays the continuity between the American family in the 1950s and the modern one. Works Cited Anderson, Gordon L. The Family in Global Transition. St. Paul, MN: Pofessors World Peace Academy, 1997. Anderson, Michael. Approaches to the History of Western Family, 1500-1914. London: Macmillan, 1980. Baker, Maureen. "Reinventing the Family: In Search of New Lifestyles." Journal of Sociology 39.2 (2003): 178+. BIBLIOGRAPHY \l 1033 Beck-Gernsheim, Elisabeth. Reinventing the Family: In Search of New Lifestyles. Polity Pr, 2003. Cheal, David. Family and the State of Theory. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1991. McCarthy, Desmond. Reconstructing the Family in Contemporary American Fiction. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1998. Thorne, Barrie. "Feminist Rethinking of the Family: An Overview." Thorne and Yalom (1999): 1. Read More