Kolby Blaine Williams Ellafaye Jones Family and Marriage June 8, 2014 Family Life of Today vs. Family Life of the 50’s The average family of the 50’s is now considered the model family. Typically the father provided the income while the mother stayed home with the many children. Family life of today has greatly changed in almost every aspect over the last 64 years. The sanity of marriage and family has greatly decreased since the fifties. The role of the mother in the family household has been immensely altered.
U.S. divorce rates have been rising since the beginning of the 20th century. More than a quarter of people age 18-44 come from a divorced family. Psychologists have known little about the long term effect this has on kids and are just now coming out with useful information. (“BreakupBacklash”) Researcher Sara Hara Estroff Marano(www.psychology.com) found that effects of divorce depend on what happened in the marriage before the divorce occurred. For example, kids that have lots of high conflict in their family are happier after the divorce occurs.
This was introduced by the Labour party, who Lewis argues have taken on the idea of ‘social investment in children’ seriously and have realised family forms are changing. The Labour party have introduced a number of laws, attempting to strengthen the family unit. They were mainly concerned on helping the social and economic position of women, for example, marital rape was made illegal in 1991 by the Labour party. The rights of children have also been improved by the labour party due to the children’s act of 1989. New right thinkers however; believe that these laws undermine the traditional male dominance in families, but many believe these new policies for women and children strengthen the family rather than weaken it.
Remarriages are 50% more likely to divorce in the first five years compared to first marriages. There are a numbers of factors that contribute to this trend and cause the home to be unstable. The children feel at fault for their parents break-up, the stepchildren are constantly trying to figure out their position in the family structure, some children show hostility towards the stepparent and both stepparents tend to show favoritism towards their own children. Unfortunately, the women and children are the ones that suffer the most economically and academically because according to the AACC, Only Mise 3 half of the divorced men in America pay their full child support responsibility, one- quarter make partial inconsistent payment, and one-quarter pays nothing at all. Also, children of divorced parents drop out of school at twice the rate of children from
Without a change, all women would still be living life as a housewife like Lucy from “I Love Lucy” (Lamb) Divorce rates have increased since the 1950’s and the couples are getting divorced under different circumstances. Parenting styles and household structures have also changes since the 1950’s (Elliot). During the 1950s, divorce was not widely accepted, so marriages we stronger during this time. Marriage rates in the 1950’s were at their highest in this time period compared to the years prior (Elliot). In the 1950’s, interracial marriages were not accepted or legal in some states.
1 Major trends affecting families in the new millennium – Western Europe and North America - Robert Cliquet∗ Introduction The 20th Century has witnessed remarkable changes in family structures and dynamics in Western Europe and North America: smaller household sizes, a further shift from extended to nuclear families, a decrease in nuptiality and an increase in separation or divorce, the appearance of new forms of unions such as unmarried cohabitation and living-apart-together, changing gender and intergenerational relations, and, last but not least, a substantial decrease in fertility, often to below-replacement levels. Beginning in the 1960s a number of interrelated and mutually reinforcing economic, technological and cultural factors combined to accelerate and extend those changes in existing family features. These changes, and their demographic and social consequences, have raised considerable concern, if not panic, among some researchers and policy makers. Doom mongering about the dying Occident and the disintegration or even the end of the family have been advanced or discussed (e.g. Cooper, 1986; Kaufmann, 1991).
Extended consisting grandparents who are living with the family, lone parents consisting of one single parent with children, re constituted and same sex parenting. Rapport (1982) had argued that there are five different types of family diversity. First one being Organisational diversity which refers to the different types of family structure such as, the single parent, re constituted etc. Second one being cultural which refers to south Asian families in which there is a likelihood for the families to be extended which would involve grandparents living with the family. Third one being class, inequalities in lifestyle have increased since the 1980’s.
UNIVERSITY OF SANTO TOMAS CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Background of the Study Parental separation is the ending of a marriage before the death of either spouse. In many developed countries, separation rates have increased markedly during the previous century. It is reported that more than 1 million children each year experience their parents’ separation. Divorce or separation is a critical event happening to about 54% of young families; however nobody really is prepared for the difficulties that follow. Parental separation has been reported in the literature as being associated with a wide range of adverse effects on children’s wellbeing, both as a short-term consequence of the transition and in the form of more enduring effects that persist into adulthood.
In the last four decades, the fundamental structure of a family has made a spectacular change in the United States. There has been a significant increase in the number of children growing up in a single-parent family since 1960 (Jeynes 1). These children mainly belong to the group who are born outside of marriage or from the divorce of the parents. Many problems concerning the effects of theses changes towards the well-being of the children is evident. In the last 20 years, there have been many studies that were developed to analyze the changes in the patterns of family structure as well as how it affects the child/children.
More couples are choosing either to not get married, get divorced or even homosexual couples are raising children and are considered to be a family. The trend is now more non-traditional than what would have been the norm fifty years ago. This essay will attempt to look at how the changes in family structure impact our children and the different family structures that now do exist and their consequences to mankind. The most important issue at hand is how this is all affecting our children. The children are the ones that will carry on our society and it is our jobs to teach them morals and values.