Family

Family makes up a huge institution in many different societies and like everything else they have changed and adapted. Divorces used to be unheard of, kids rarely had to go between two parents and divide their time, unlike in today's society where divorces are commonplace. The perfect American family from the fifty's is no longer the image when people think of families. The image of a family has drastically changed, there are single parent families, blended families, families with adopted kids, and even families who aren't necessarily related by blood but still live together. Webster's dictionary gives a few definitions of the word family, 1."A group of individuals living under one roof and usually under one head" 2. "A group of persons of common ancestry" and 3. "A group of people who are related to each other". All of these definitions can conjure up an image of different types of families, but no one would question the fact that each of these three definitions adequately describes a family.



This photo is a great example of an atypical family, you have the married parents and their three kids, and then you have the two kids that were adopted into their family.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1018513

The link above is a very interesting journal article. It was written in the thirties and talks about what the typical family looked like back then, it gives definitions of different types of families such as the social and economic families. The article also includes charts that compare different types of families and various geographical locations to show what on average the typical family looked like.


http://www.jstor.org/stable/40929637

I chose the article above because it is the write up from a survey done to investigate the well-being of stepchildren who have been adopted by a stepparent. This study compares these children with those who have two biological parents, two adoptive, or one biological and one step parent. The study found that the characteristics were dependent on the age of the child, younger adopted stepchildren are most similar to children with two biological parents, but older adopted stepchildren were most similar to non-adopted stepchildren. The study also found that adopted stepchildren of all ages have significantly more behavioral and emotional problems than children with two biological parents, although when it comes to school and education there weren't many differences.

This short video is kind of interesting, it is a depiction of what life was like in the fifties, it focuses on family life and the social life for high school age students.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/05/divorce-rate_n_3869624.html#slide=2111

I included the article above because it shows the divorce rates for most of the states, it also has the top ten countries with the highest divorce rates; the US ranks number 6.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-me-in-we/201104/changes-in-the-american-family

This last article is from Psychology Today, it is about the changes in family dynamics since 1960. The main focus of the article is placed on the kids and the marriages themselves and the many changes these family dynamics have undergone.