1. Chapter 12
Family Life

2. What is a Family?
Family – social institution that unites individuals in cooperative groups that:
Care for members, regulate sexual relations, & oversee the bearing and raising of children
Nuclear Family – one or two parents and their children
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3. What is a Family?
Extended Family – parents and children, plus grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins
Who often live close to one another and operate as a family unit
Marriage - a lawful relationship-expected to be long term
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4. What is a Family?
Involving economic cooperation, sexual activity, and is usually childbearing
Most societies link marriage with children
Kinship - A social bond, based on common ancestry, marriage, or adoption
Joins people into families
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5. Debate over Definitions
A lot of variability in the definition and meaning of a “family”
Traditional view - married couple and their children
Families of affinity - people with or without legal or blood ties;
Feel that they belong together & wish to define themselves as a family
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6. Living Together: Do we Need to Marry?
Cohabitation
The sharing of a household by an unmarried couple
From 500,000 in 1970 to 6.8 million today
600,000 same sex couples
6.2 million heterosexual couples
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7. Living Together: Do we Need to Marry?
Critics of cohabitation
Marriage provides more stability
Puts woman and children at risk
Discourages marriage
Supporters of cohabitation
Living together a private matter
Meets the needs of a diverse society
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8. Postponing Marriage Delaying marriage is a function of:
Changing definition of marriage
Cohabitation
Spending more time in education
Economic factors
Birth control
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9. Parenting: Is One Enough?
In 2011, 1 in 3 families with children under age of 18 had 1 parent in the household
Not all children are affected the same
Children with one parent are often disadvantaged
Economically
Socially and emotionally
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10. Families, Race and Poverty
The Moynihan Report (1965)
African American families in a crisis
So many children growing up without the presence of a father
Single mothers struggling against the tide of poverty while raising children
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11. Families, Race and Poverty
Today, among some, the view is:
African-American families often not as much a family problem
As an economic and racial prejudice problem
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12. African American Families: A Closer Look
5 stereotypes of African-American families:
1. African Americans do not form strong families
2. African American men do not make good husbands or fathers
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13. African American Families: A Closer Look
3. The African American family is a matriarchy
4. African American women have children for more welfare money
5. African Americans have the same opportunities as everyone else
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14. Parenting: Race and Poverty
Strengths of African American Families
Strong kinship bonds
Traditional religious beliefs
Resources of grandparents
Networks of mutual assistance
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15. Conflict Between Work and Family Life
Industrial Revolution and the shift of work from family to factory
Shuffling between work roles and family roles
Informational technology and the shift of work back into the home
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16. Child Care
Increase in the number of women (and men) with children that work
Child care
48% cared for by relative
24% go to day care facility or preschool
Latchkey children
The option one chooses- related to income
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18. Divorce Today’s divorce rate is four times what it was a century ago.
No-Fault Divorce
Divorce based on irreconcilable differences
Made divorces easier to obtain
Reduced the cases of alimony
Effects family (women’s) income
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20. Too Much Divorce?
Conservatives are more critical of the high rate of divorce than liberals
Divorce suggests a “me” first attitude
Liberals see divorce as a way out of troubled marriages (abusive marriages)
The emergence of covenant marriage laws
An attempt to discourage divorce
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22. Child Support The problem of nonsupport after separation or divorce
Not all children are awarded support by the courts
Courts award support to 51% of children
59% of children receive only partial payment or no payment
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23. Child Support
In comparing only non-custodial parents, women are less likely to make support
Function that women earn less than men
In 1998, Congress passed the Deadbeat Parents Punishment Act
Felony to refuse to provide support payments to a child living in another state
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24. Remarriage: Problems of Blended Families
Blended families - families in which children live with some combination of:
Biological parents and stepparents
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25. Remarriage: Problems of Blended Families
Blended family problems
Children learn a new social environment
Parenting and sibling relationships
Managing relationship with ex-spouse
High rate of physical and sexual abuse
Greater likelihood for divorce
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27. Gay and Lesbian Families
In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to allow same sex marriage
Connecticut, Vermont, Iowa, Maine, and New Hampshire now also allow same sex marriage
A few other states allow civil unions which grant most of all of the rights of marriage
Most states ban same sex marriage
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29. What about Gay Parenting?
More than 200,000 gay couples in the United States are raising children
Public opinion is divided on gays raising children
Research shows gay and lesbian parents just as effective at parenting
Stigma and problems of gay couples
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30. Brave New Families: High-Tech Reproduction
In Vitro Fertilization - uniting eggs and sperm in a laboratory
Expensive and beyond the cost of many infertile couples
Ethical and moral questions
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31. Brave New Families: High-Tech Reproduction
Surrogate Motherhood
An arrangement by which one woman carries and bears a child for another
Legal questions over child support
Cultural Lag
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32. Structural-Functional Analysis: Family as Foundation
Family is the most important social unit in society
Regulate reproduction
Secure setting for socialization
Unit of economic cooperation
Provide emotional support to its members
The foundation of a healthy society
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33. Symbolic-Interaction Analysis: Family and Learning
Family is based on and evolves out of the ongoing interaction among its members
Family plays a role in how we think about ourselves and society
Family life and experience varies from one group and individual to the next
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34. Social-Conflict Analysis: Family and Inequality
Family is structured to benefit some and disadvantage others
Perpetuates capitalism and class inequality
Perpetuates gender inequality
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35. Conservatives: Traditional “Family Values”
The family as the core of a society
Source of problems stem from a break with traditional families
Rising divorce and cohabitation
“Me” Generation
Solution would be to go back to traditional family and values
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36. Liberals: Many Kinds of Families
Support variability in family form
Poverty and domestic abuse are the biggest problems
Increase support to families
Child care
Higher minimum wage
Pay women as much as men
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37. Radicals: Replace the Family
Family is related to inequality
Family is how property is passed on from one generation to the next
Family is related to perpetuating gender inequality
Perpetuates inequality based on sexual orientation
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