The Structure of The American Family

Submitted by

Lisa C. Hickson

The structure of the American family has changed dramatically within the last two decades.  Webster defines family as "a basic unit in society traditionally consisting of two parents rearing their children.

As we all know, things have changed.  There are several type of families in today's society.  I will talk about some the different types of families we see today.

We have the "traditional family" which consist of a mother, father, and children.  This type of family structure is not a prevalent as it was decades ago; and the reasons vary.    

We have extended families, these are families composed of mothers, fathers, children, grandparents aunts, uncles etc.  Usually when you see these type of families, there are financial reasons, maybe someone lost their job and help is needed with mainting the household.  Another reason could be a family member lost their house and they are financially able to get another home on their own.  When situations like this happen, we see the forming of extended families under one roof.  I'm sure there are positive as well as negative issues with this type of family structure.

We also have single people raising children on their own.  We usually automatically think single mothers; but there are also single fathers raising children.  The reasons vary for this type of family structure one reason could be divorce, another could be death of a spouse, or maybe these individuals just wanted to be single parents.

We are now seeing numerous same sex families raising children.  Usually if the same sex is male adoption is usually how children come into the relationship.  But that is not always the case, a man can have his sperm artificially inseminated into a women of his choice, after the baby is born or before all of the legal work is done, and that child is placed with the fathers.  We also have females who are in a relationship and want to have children.  Basically the same thing can happen, one or both women can be artificially inseminated with a mans sperm.and children are created.  

The video that I have selected shows the different type of families that I have mentioned in my blog, and it gives statistics and percentages of these different type of families.  I think it's a very interesting clip.  We have been discussing in class the changing of the family structure over the years and what type of affect it has on society and the families. 

In conclusion I feel that the family structure had to change to adapt to today's society.  Who are we to say what family structure is right or what family structure is wrong.  We see these different type of families everywhere.  In our communities, on television, on the big screen, so suffice it to say that the American family structure as we knew years ago has changed.