Dynamics and Diversity of Families

1
Dynamics and Diversity of Families
2
American Families across Time

• In order to understand how Americans have evolved
  as a family we are going to look at the
  progression of the family over the centuries and
  then at the similarities and differences between
  American Families.

3
Native American Families

• Over 240 groups of Native Americans, with
  distinct family and kinships, patterns,
  inhabited what is now the U.S. and Canada.

4

• Families were small with high mortality rate, the
  mothers breastfed infants, and abstained from
  sexual intercourse during breast-feeding.
• Children were rarely disciplined. They were
  taught by example. Families praised them when
  they were good and publicly shamed them when they
  were bad.
• Children played at hunting games and with dolls
  to model adult behavior.
• Ceremonies marked the transition into adulthood.
• Girls underwent puberty ceremonies at first
  menstruation. Boys celebrated killing their first
  animal.
• Girls usually married between the ages of 12 15
  Boys married between 15 20
• Tribes were generally monogamous although
  sometimes they had two wives.

5
Colonial Families

• The family was basically an economic and social
  institution, the primary unit for producing most
  goods and caring for the needs of its members.
• Romantic love was not a factor in choosing a
  partner, love came only after marriage and was
  considered a duty.
• The colonial family was strictly patriarchal.
• The authority of the husband/father rested in his
  control of land and
• property.
• Children were believed to be evil by nature.
• were regarded as a small adult and childhood
  ended at six or seven.
• Children were often bound out, to live with a
  relative or stranger to be an apprentice or
  domestic servant. They were taught a skill,
  educated, and disciplined correctly.

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• Bundling-the New England custom is which a young
  man and woman spent the night in bed together.
• Patrilineal-Rights and property flowed from the
  father.
• Matrilineal-Rights and property descended from
  the mother.
• Adolescence-The social and psychological state
  occurring during puberty.

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Nineteenth-Century Marriages and Families

• A wife was not equal, but a helpmate who was
  economically dependent upon her husband.
• For women, marriage marked the beginning of a
  constant cycle of childbearing and child rearing.
• Love, as a basis for marriage, came to the
  foreground.
• Women now had a new degree of power in the
  ability to choose whom they would marry.

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• The nineteenth century witnessed the most
  dramatic decline in fertility in American
  history
• Women began to control the frequency of
  intercourse.
• This allowed women to have fewer children
  concentrate on mothering it opened up
  opportunities to participate in the world outside
  the family.
• A new sentimentality surrounded childhood and
  protecting children from the evils of the world
  became a major part of childrearing.
• In contrast to the colonial period,
  nineteenth-century adolescents were kept
  economically dependent and separate from adult
  activities.
• School became important children formed peer
  groups which became very important.
• During the eighteenth century and later, West
  African family systems were severely repressed
  throughout the New World.

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• Though legally prohibited, slaves created their
  own marriages.
• In the harsh slave system, the family provided
  strong support against the daily indignities of
  servitude.
• Slave marriages were not seen a legal.
• The separation of slave families was common,
  creating grief and
• despair among thousands of slaves.
• Men who were held in slavery could not support a
  family and they were not autonomous.
• When the formerly enslaved became free, the
  African-American family had strong emotional ties
  and traditions forged from slavery and their West
  African heritage.

10
Immigration The Great Transformation

• History breaks the waves of immigration into two
  spheres. The old immigrants arrived in the new
  world between 1820 1920 they were mosltly from
  northern and western Europe. Many Chinese
  immigrated to the West Coast during this time.
• The New immigrants arrived between 1890 1914
  the majority of these immigrants came from
  eastern and southern Europe. Japanese also
  immigrated to the West Coast and Hawaii during
  this period.
• In the nineteenth century, industrialization
  transformed American families from
  self-sufficient farm families to wage-earning
  urban families.

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The rise of Companionate Marriages 1900-1960

• Without its central importance as a work unit,
  the family became the focus and abode of
  feelings.
• The companionate Marriage has four major features
• Men and women were to share household decision
  making and tasks
• Marriages were expected to provide romance,
  sexual fulfillment, and emotional growth.
• Wives were no longer expected to be guardians of
  virtue and sexual restraint
• Children were no longer protected from the world
  but were to be given greater freedom to explore
  and experience the world, they were encouraged to
  express their feelings.

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• During war time women stepped into the employment
  positions previously occupied by men.
• The change during WWII came form middle-class
  women stepping into the work force.

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Factors that promote change in American families.

• 1. Economics the family has shifted from being
  an economically productive unit to a consuming,
  service-oriented unit.
• 2. Technological innovations major technological
  developments and innovations have altered the way
  families work, live, play and socialize.
• 3. Demographics the most significant changes
  have been the increased life span, increased
  divorce rate, and decreased fertility rate.
• 4. Gender roles/Opportunities for Women the
  past decades have brought about major gender role
  shifts contributing to a third force of change in
  American marriages and families.
• 5. Values There has also been a major shift in
  American values from an emphasis on obligation
  and self-sacrifice to individualism and
  self-gratification.

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• Social classes are categories of people who share
  a common economic position in the stratified
  society in which they life.
• Social classes in the United States can be based
  upon the four class model of Upper Class, Middle
  Class Working Class, and Lower Class.
• Marriage and family relationships are affected by
  the economic stratification

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• Socioeconomic status-A term used to refer to the
  combined effects of income, occupational
  prestige, wealth, education, and income on a
  persons lifestyle and opportunities.
• Fictive kin ties-refers to the extension of
  kinship status to neighbors and friends, thus
  symbolizing both an intensity of commitment and a
  willingness to help each other meet needs on a
  daily life.
• Social mobility-movement up or down the social
  class ladder.

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Racial and Ethnic Diversity

• Racial group-a group of people such as whites,
  blacks, and Asians, classified according to their
  phenotype. Racial groups share common phenotype
  characteristics, such as skin color and facial
  structure.
• Phenotype characteristics-anatomical and physical
  characteristics.
• Ethnic group-a group of people distinct from
  other groups because of cultural characteristics.
  These characteristics included as language,
  religion, and customs are shared within and
  differentiate between ethnic groups.
• A minority group- a group of people whose status
  places them at an economic, social, or political
  disadvantage.

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• In African American families or Black families,
  Culture of poverty-African-American families are
  immersed in illegitimacy, poverty, and welfare as
  result of their slave heritage.
• Hispanic can be described in two ways devoted to
  the family and Machismo-is the amount of male
  dominance.

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• 1. African-American families have a strong sense
  of familialis..
• 2. Understanding socioeconomic status.
• 3. Striking features of African-American
  families include a long history of dual-earner
  families as a result of economic need (creating
  more egalitarian family roles than white
  families) the importance of kinship bonds a
  strong tradition of familialism the fact that
  children are highly valued and the likelihood of
  living in extended households.

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• Latinos are the fastest growing and second
  largest ethnic group in America.
• 1. There is considerable diversity among
  Latinos in terms of ethnic heritage and
  socioeconomic status.
• 2. Important factors in Latino family life
  include close kin cooperation and mutual
  assistance, the importance of children,
  Catholicism, and a tradition of male dominance
  (although day-to-day living patterns suggest that
  women have considerable power and influence in
  the family).

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• Asian-Americans are a particularly diverse group.
• 1. The largest Asian-American groups are
  Chinese-Americans, followed by Filipino-Americans
  and then Japanese-Americans.
• 2. More recent arrivals (Vietnamese,
  Cambodians, Laotians, and Hmong) first immigrated
  to the United States in the 1970s as refugees of
  the Vietnam War.
• 3. Values that continue to be important to
  Asian-Americans include the importance of family
  over the individual, self-control to achieve
  societal goals, and appreciation of one's
  cultural heritage.

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• Contemporary American-born Chinese families
  emphasize familialism tend to be better
  educated, have higher incomes and lower rates of
  unemployment than the general population have
  conservative sexual values and attitudes toward
  gender roles have a strong sense of family and
  expect women to be employed and contribute to
  household income.
• There has been a considerable migration of
  Native-Americans to urban areas since World War
  II because of poverty on reservations and
  pressures toward acculturation.
• Generally, acculturation brings about
  considerable diffusion of cultural traits in one
  or more directions.
• Because of the importance of tribal identities
  and practices, there is no single type of
  Native-American family.

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• Although considerable variation exists among
  different tribal groups, extended families are
  significant to Native-Americans and large numbers
  of Native-Americans are married to
  non-Native-Americans.
• White ethnicity is strongest in the East and
  Midwest.
• Symbolic ethnicity is an ethnic identity used
  only when the individual chooses.