American Families: The Neumann Family: Two American Families

Two families, the Stanleys and the Neumanns, are chosen to be documented and videotaped over a period of 20 years. Over this time between 1991 to 2011, these two american families go through what is supposed to be the american dream. This documentary is called “Two American Families.” In the documentary, the Neumann family is shown at the beginning showing how they got here. The Neumann family is a white american family that started after the mother, Terry Neumann, and the father, Tony Neumann, were married nearly a decade earlier. At that time Tony “he made pretty good money when we were first married, you know, for a young couple with one little one on the way” (Frontline Video, 2013.) That child was Daniel. Daniel, the oldest of the 3 children, was also the first to see the

The Neumann children even offered to sell their personal items to help their parents.Not only that but divorce became a thought in their family as things weren’t being fixed. In the video, the children in the Stanley family are shown doing yard work as a business. Although the ideal type to this is most likely that they won’t make that much but it’s still a hope. They were happy to be doing the “dirty work” (Gans, 1971) as it would help their family pull through the crisis. While the Stanley family was pulling, the Neumanns were having troubles (still around 1990s) as their children were being set with the norm of having their parents or one of their parents never home. At this time, socialization between the kids of both families and their parents decreased, dramatically affecting how they learned, thought, talked, and translating ideas to