The Social Catastrophe of the Perfect Family In the era after the Second World War, the way that life was viewed changed drastically. The men of the war were coming back to homes that were drastically different that what they had remembered before the war. In this post war country, a shift of family ideals set an example of what a family should look like and how they should act. With the invention and popularization television, messages could be sent out to mass audiences to inform or even push people into a stereotype. Such shows as The Donna Reed Show and The Danny Thomas Show set an example of how the perfect American Family should operate in the confines of their home as well as out in public. These expectations of people set a nearly unreachable goal that very few American families could reach. It also harmed social relations among family members. Along with social restraints it tacks on ethnic and racial confines of a perfect family. Therefore, the ideal of a perfect family can hurt anyone that strives for it. In those old personas of family, these traditional families usually only showed an unrealistic household of harmony with few real arguments .At the dinner table the entire family would gather for dinner and discuss …show more content…
At dinner time it was always my duty to set the table and call my dad in for supper. Sometimes he would be out splitting fire wood or out on his tractor. If he wasn’t real close we would get a cowbell to get his attention. Every dinner we talk a little bit but it was never anything like the dinner talk of modeled family of the 1950’s. Growing up I began to hang around kids that didn’t really eat dinner with family or talk with their parents at that time. This shocked me a little bit at first. The shift of dinner talk in some cases was a bit strange to see due to the perception of family. That perception however can harm a friendship if a friend cannot openly
Americans love their television, and television loves the American family. Since the 1970’s, the depiction of the American family on television has gone through many changes. In the 70s, the Brady Bunch showed an all-white nuclear family. Today, Modern Family, shows a family of blended races, ages, and sexualities. For thirty years, the sitcom family has reflected the changing society of its time and there is no exception of this for the families in The Brady Bunch and Modern Family. The lifestyle, social aspects, and economics situations of the Bradys and the Pritchett-Dunphys are similar in their attempts to portray the lives of families of their time, but differ drastically in the types of families they represent. The characters in Modern
...they needed to adopt new, indirect strategies of exerting control over their children’s lives. While parents began to grant their children greater autonomy, they still required their children to be present at family dinners and gatherings. However, they realized that coercion at meals was neither an effective means to gain control over their children nor a viable way of transmitting traditional values. As such, they began to transform meals into a convivial atmosphere as an investment in family ties. Sunday dinners and holiday feasts became some of the most important times where the close bonds of the immediate and extended family were maintained and enforced as an important aspect of life. They used family dinners and gatherings as a means to maintain group solidarity in a new world where external forces were calling for “Americanization” and collective identity.
As gender roles were enhanced, the nuclear family was birthed. This ideal family, mainly portrayed in popular culture, had a working father, homemaking mother, and children. Television shows depicting this type of household, Leave it to Beaver, and I Love Lucy, were not representative of the reality of America. Not all of Americans were white, and not all women were happy living as housewives (Boyer 101). Although most did not fit the mold
Why the family is considered the most important agent of socialization? What caused the dramatic changes to the American family? What are those changes? Describe the differences in marriage and family life that are linked to class, race, gender, and personal choice. Do you feel the trend toward diverse families is positive or negative? If the trend changed toward traditional (pre-World War II) families, how would that affect women’s rights?
In the essay “The Incredible Shrinking Family”, the author Robert B. Reich shows that because of today’s living economic conditions, families now are getting smaller and also they don’t spend enough time together. The author believes that the tradition family -a father and a mother who are happily married and spend enough time with their children- may be no longer existed. The author reports that Family members are seeing a lot less of each other. Children are left in day care, because fathers are not the only ones who work, many women work too according to the writer. Reich points out that parents are consumed by their work, and even when they are together they look preoccupied by work. Therefore -Reich says- families eat together a lot less
By leaping into the societal messages of the popular 1980s show, Full House, one is able to learn a great deal about what the cultural direction of society was like at that time. Full House was a kind of, makeshift sitcom because it expanded on the typical formula of the age-old conventional “nuclear” family and made room for the idea of a non-traditional family that revealed it’s unconventional nature. As viewership grew, so did the acceptance of such a family structure in American culture.
The ideal traditional family is no more but the non-traditional is here and becoming very much relevant, and I think it is time to say good bye to the past and embrace the present and welcome the
While watching the documentary “Two American Families” there was three aspects I noticed within the two families. The first being how there was a shift in the social class of the families due to economic problems. The second being the role reversal of the male and the female. The third being the effect of the families’ financial instability on the children and their decisions into adulthood.
The changing of American families has left many families broken and struggling. Pauline Irit Erera, an associate professor at the University of Washington School of Social Work, wrote the article “What is a Family?”. Erera has written extensively about family diversity, focusing on step-families, foster families, lesbian families, and noncustodial fathers. Rebecca M. Blank, a professor of economics at Northwestern University, where she has directed the Joint Center for Poverty Research, wrote the article “Absent Fathers: Why Don't We Ever Talk About the Unmarried Men?”. She served on the Council of Economic Advisors during the Clinton administration. Andrew J. Cherlin, a professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University wrote the article “The Origins of the Ambivalent Acceptance of Divorce”. She is also the author of several other books on the changing profiles of American family life. These three texts each talk about the relationship between the parent and the child of a single-parent household. They each discuss divorce, money/income they receive, and the worries that come with raising a child in a single-parent household.
As we have learned through Skolnick’s book, as well as Rubin’s research, the make up of the family is influenced by many factors. The economy, culture, education, ethnicity/race, and tradition all help to create the modern family. The last few decades have heavily influenced the family structure, and while some try to preserve the past, others embrace the future. Through it all, we find you can have both.
The American family model traditionally included the mother and father with two kids, a boy and girl. In this 1950’s family model the husband is seen as the breadwinner while the mother is the homemaker. This model is exemplified in the Battleship advertisement where the father is resting from a hard day’s by work playing a board game with his son. At the same time the mother is doing the days dishes with some help drying from her daughter. Today however, these rigid stereotypical roles are no longer applicable to the members of the modern family. With increases in divorce rates and teen pregnancy combined with the shift in economic roles of the majority of families, the traditional nuclear family is a minority (Wetzel, 1990). The JCPenny
The ideal American family was transformed in the 19th century in large part due to the great changes taking place in the American society. Many family groups fit this changing mold while some did not. In this essay I will show how this concept of the ideal American family changed. I will also try to explain which groups of Americans followed this concept and why.
How can a simple six letter word be so complicated to define? Family is a single word that is open to many interpretations depending on the individual. If you try to condense this ideal to a single clinical definition you end up excluding numerous members of society. What comes to mind when you think of the word family? While in the most broken down and literal sense, family means a relative with a blood or legal bond, the word family can encompass blood relations, adoptions, and even intentional relationships such as friendships. Economies, cultures, and backgrounds can further differentiate what one’s perception of a family is. For many people, including me, a family is so much more. It is the amount of commitment, cohesiveness, and importance
Families today just do not seem to spend time with each other. The mother and father both have jobs and tend to not be home for the children after school therefore causing more independence among each member of the family. Children that have more independence make mistakes on their own without being warned about them. Independent children have no guidance and get out of hand because there is not a strong boss type figure around most of the time to help distinguish the difference between right and wrong. Eating dinner as a family is a major tradition that has been forgotten as the years have gone by and caused more separation among the family. A family 50 years ago that did not eat dinner together would be a strange one but today it seems to be of the norm. Once again, the job affects this aspect of the family as well. People are just too busy at work or too tired to even participate in dinner at home anymore. Either families just do not have time for each other anymore or they just are not together due to divorce.
Everyone seems to define family differently, however, the significance of family is the same. For you, family means everything. You can always count on your parents and siblings for help and love. Family is very valuable and important to you and should never be taken for granted. No one can deny that family is the foundation of our generation. A family is where we all start our life journey and helps us grow to be successful throughout our lives.