Perspectives Paper on the Health of Institution of the Family - Essay Example

It is continuously challenged by the observed changes in its structure as the traditional set – up of having nuclear family, which consists of father and mother united by marriage and child or children, is witnessed to be declining. One of the observed transformations of the family is the increase in marriages ending up with divorce while the other is growth of young girls who untimely became pregnant out of wedlock. Raising the kids by yourself alone is one among the scariest thing for the health of the family for the absence of the other indicates the weakening of the said institution.

However, the family in the case of United States is threatened by the trends of marital disruption as well as teenage pregnancy. At a personal level, the involved parties whether in divorce or teenage pregnancy are confronting a difficult phase being trapped in the emotional whirlpool of such stressful life events. Apart from that, marital dissolution signifies that the basic institution of society is not long – standing and could be deteriorated which could then impact much more the institutions like church, education, government and others.

In the case of divorce, more often than not, the impacts of its destructive nature are overlooked especially on the children. Witnessing the sufferings of my friend in the instance when the place she once called home had suddenly fallen apart, her parents did not even care about how she feels on the situation for they were so busy nagging at each other all the time because of her father’s infidelity issues. Until one day, her father moved out of their house and left her and her mother alone.

This negative transformation in the family set – up had required her to adjust and cope up with the new situation. Nonetheless, how she interacts and behaves had been affected. She no longer wanted to stay at their house. She felt bad seeing intact and happy families as she had been remembering how her family once was a home. She could not concentrate at school. She kept herself busy on enjoying alcohol and cigarettes. Up until one time, she got pregnant but the father of the baby was not ready to face his responsibilities.

Same as divorce, the impact of having an incomplete home with no father to look up to was faced by my friend’s child. To address this taken for granted reality of the situation faced by the family is of importance for the reason that the impacts of the family dissolution threaten not only the health of the family itself but the society as a whole, most especially the individual members of the family themselves. In order to highlight this aspect of family breakdown, socio – historical perspective is used.

Based on the dictionary definition, socio – historical is described as those related to or something that involved a social history or a combination of both social and historical forces (Merriam – Webster, 2012). That is to say, the creation of knowledge, on the family as such, is shaped and grounded by the interplay of several social and historical factors. This implies that all experience is subjective in which the process of creating reality is a never – ending one. Apart from that rationale, socio – historical perspective is used for the reason that according to Hutchison (2003) and Robbins, Chatterjee and Canda (2005), all theoretical approaches are based on its specific socio –