All Together as One Essay

Thesis:   A Family is a social structure that consists of a group of people who are important to one another and offer each other love, support and respect, especially in a time of need.

Audience:   Young adults

All Together As One

What is a family?   Are all families the same?   Everyone has been part of a family structure, but the definition of an average family in today’s society consists of immediate and/or extended, nuclear, and homosexual groups combined.   What do all these groups have in common?   Each one shares the importance of each member including love, support and respect, especially in a time of need.  
An immediate family consists of parent, spouse, and child including step-children, foster children, step-parents, and foster parents. But to most people growing up in today’s society, an immediate family or an extended family is considered two or more people who live under the same roof, and support one another with love and respect.   Within an immediate and extended family, parents may be the most influential, but the non-parental adults(siblings, aunt, uncles, and grandparents) may play an important role in the healthy development of their offspring or of the surrounding people within the family.   A study asked youths between the ages of 12-17 where they get their support.   The majority of the group reported that 75% of their support came from their mother, while their father came in second at 50%, siblings at 25%, aunt 14%, grandmother 13%, and uncle 8% (Benson).   Teachers, neighbors, clergy, and youth workers, may be a small percentage of the people young adolescents identify as being helpful, the previous categories of influenced groups identify as being helpful and are also seen more frequently than those in the extended family as well as hold more of an importance for communication (Scales and Gibbons).
To be considered a nuclear family there must at some time be a father, mother and at least one child.   This may also be considered a...