1. Chapter 13
Family Life

2. What is a Family?
Family – social institution that unites individuals in cooperative groups that care for members, regulate sexual relations, and oversee the bearing and raising of children
Nuclear Family- one or two parents and their children
Extended Family- parents and children, plus grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, who often live close to one another and operate as a family unit

3. What is a Family?
Marriage- a lawful relationship-expected to be lasting-involving economic cooperation,sexual activity, usually childbearing
Most societies link marriage with children

4. 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, who feel that they belong together and wish to define themselves as a family

5. Living Together: Do we Need to Marry?
Cohabitation
The sharing of a household by an unmarried couple
From 500,000 in 1970 to over five million today
600,000 same sex couples
Five million heterosexual couples

6. 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

7. Postponing Marriage Delaying marriage is a function of
Changing definition of marriage
Cohabitation
Spending more time in education
Economic factors
Birth control

8. Parenting: Is One Enough?
In 2005, one in three families with children under the age of eighteen had just one parent in the household
Not all children are affected the same
Children with one parent are often disadvantaged
Economically
Socially and emotionally

9. Families, Race and Poverty
Single parent households cut across racial boundaries
Reasons behind single parent households
Divorce
Death of a parent
Out of wedlock births
Rate of single parent households are higher among African-Americans

10. Families, Race and Poverty
The Moynihan Report (1965)
African American families were in a state of crisis because of the number of children growing up without the presence of a father
Single mothers struggling against the tide of poverty while raising children
Today among some the view is:
African-American families often not as much a family problem as an economic problem.

11. African American Families: A Closer Look
Five stereotypes of African-American families
1. African Americans do not form strong families
2. African American men do not make good
husbands or fathers
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

12. Parenting: Race and Poverty
Strengths of African American Families
Strong Kinship Bonds
Traditional Religious Beliefs
Resources of Grandparents
Networks of Mutual Assistance

13. 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

14. Child Care
Increase in the number of women (and men) with children that work
Child care
54% cared for by relative
18% from non-relative in a home
setting
28% go to day care facility
Latchkey children
The option one chooses is related to income

15. Divorce
The rate of divorce increased throughout the twentieth century and has now leveled off
No-Fault Divorce
Divorce based on irreconcilable differences
Made divorces easier to obtain
Reduced the cases of alimony
Effects family (women’s) income
More so for women because of less cultural capital

16. 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 away out of troubled marriages
Abusive marriages
The emergence of covenant marriage laws
An attempt to discourage divorce

17. Child Support The problem of nonsupport after separation or divorce
Not all children are awarded support by the courts
Courts award support to 59% of children
Fifty five percent of children receive only partial payment or no payment

18. Child Support
In comparing only non custodial parents, women are less likely to make support
Function that women have less income 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

19. Remarriage: Problems of Blended Families
Blended families-families in which children live with some combination of biological parents and stepparents
Blended families offer the advantage of higher income
Blended family problems
Children learn a new social environment
Parenting and sibling relationships
Managing relationship with ex-spouse

20. Gay and Lesbian Families
Gay couples face legal obstacles to marriage and marital rights
Some states have passed domestic partnership laws conferring some legal rights on gay couples
“Full Faith and Credit” clause of the U.S. Constitution and gay marriages
One state=all states
Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (1996)
One man one woman

21. What about Gay Parenting?
About 250,000 gay couples in the United States are raising children
Public opinion is divided on gays raising children
Research shows gay and lesbian parents are just as effective at parenting as heterosexual couples
Stigma and problems of gay couples

22. 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

23. Brave New Families: High-Tech Reproduction
Surrogate Motherhood
an arrangement by which one woman carries and bears a child for another
Question about class exploitation
Legal questions over child support
Moral and ethical issues

24. Structural-Functional Analysis: Family as Foundation
The 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
Family is the backbone of society

25. 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 ourself and society
Family life and experience varies from one group and individual to the next

26. Social-Conflict Analysis: Family and Inequality
Family is structured to benefit some and disadvantage others
Perpetuates capitalism and class inequality
Perpetuates gender inequality

27. Conservatives: Traditional “Family Values”
The family as the core of a society
Source of problems stem from a break with traditional families
Me generation
Rising divorce and cohabitation
Solution would be to go back to traditional family and values

28. Liberals: Many Kinds of Families
Support variability in family form
Increase support to families
Child care
Economic
Social

29. 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