The Nuclear Family is No Longer the Norm in Modern Britain

In this essay, I am going to be talking about nuclear families not

being the norm anymore. A nuclear family is a family that consists of

the mother, father and the child/children. A heterosexual relationship

between the mother and father, which would be based on love and

compassion. The mother’s role includes cooking for the family and

looking after the children. The father’s role includes providing

for the family and acting as a role model towards the children. The

children are offspring of both the mother and the father.

Years ago, nuclear families were the norm in Britain. It was required

that the relationship between a couple should be armoured by marriage.

Although this point isn’t really believed anymore, some people still

follow it-e.g. -Christians believe that couples should get married

before they have any sort of sexually relationship, or even children.

If your family wasn’t nuclear, you were considered as different to the

society. You would even be treated differently. Not having a nuclear

family would be a single mother with children, or a single father with

children (though in some cases the adult could be a widow/widower).

Another way of not being a nuclear family would even be being

single/not married! In those days they used the word spinster for

single women. (The word is not really used today, as it can be

offensive to single women, although some cultures still choose to use

it.)

Nowadays, nuclear families are NOT the norm AT ALL. In fact, there are

so many different types of families. There are single parent families,

adopted families (where the child/children has been adopted), foster

families (where the child/children has been fostered), gay and lesbian

families, reconstituted (otherwise known as stepfamilies) and many

many more. Personally, I think that the reason why nuclear families

are no longer the norm in modern Britain is because of the different

ways of life people have and the different views to life that people

have. For example, single people could decide to have a child and not