The Modern Family

Prior to this assignment, I was unfamiliar with the term “nuclear family.”  Upon research, I learned that it described a family structure consisting of a married couple and their children.  This stereotypical view of what defines a family leaves out other groups such as single parents and their children, and even extended family acting as a child’s primary caregivers.  Today, these examples are much more prevalent in society.  In a “nuclear family,” it would be safe to assume that the adult male would be the primary source of income for the family.  The female is assumed to stay at home and care for the children.  In doing so, she would have to stop working, even if she had a successful career of her own.  Keeping this type of family structure in consideration, the biggest change may be the continuation of the woman’s career.  Mothers will often return to work after having children for a variety of reasons, such as the need for another source of income, or simply to continue her career.  Regardless of the reason, the trend nowadays seems to be that both parents are working.

            Modern families would typically be defined as anything that falls outside of this stereotypical family structure.  By this definition, there are a myriad of different possibilities that would establish a family structure.  Single parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and many other adults care for children today, but that does not exclude them from being a family.  Personally, I believe the only requirement to define a family is the love and care that each person has for another.  But, these modern family structures can place additional stress on the adults in terms of gender roles.  For example, a single father of young children may have to assume both roles of a mother and a father.  In this way, typical gender roles are broken, but that does not necessarily yield a negative result.

            The article “Dad-Mom Role Reversals” touches upon something interesting about adults’ self-esteem in these “role-reversed” households.  The husband felt a blow to his ego when he lost his job, even though it allowed him to spend more time with his daughter.  The stay-at-home father felt as if he was “unproductive” because he was used to being self-sufficient as a working adult.  Eventually, he had come to “run the household with pride” and brag about his hard-working wife.