Wednesday, November 9, 2011

All in the Family

Submitted by Yuko Nishizawa


For the most people, the family is where we belong and is where we learn values and social skills. An institutional marriage is the start of any family and has encouraged by society and almost all nations. 

Families are essential to forming the communities, societies and their cultures. not only is marriage vital to society, studies show other benefits. In general, married people live longer, have higher incomes and have greater emotional support. Children raised by both a mom and dad are less likely to live in poverty or drop of of school and are more likely to finish college. They are also at lower risk of becoming sexually active in their teen years. 


While benefits of marriage are clear, our society faces unprecedented challenges due to an increase of divorce, cohabitation, out-of-wedlock births and fatherlessness - trends which contribute to a weakened family and therefore a drop in individual and community welfare. The juvenile court judge in this video says there is a correlation in crimes committed by people who come from broken family ties. 


I do believe divorce is necessary when family is totally dysfunctional. It is sometimes better for children to be in an environment that it displays more love and care instead of being involved in hatred and violence between a mom and dad. On the same note, parents must think a great deal about children's position and work hard to minimize emotional damage when they decide to break their commitment as a family. We learned recently in the sociology class that there is a trend toward "individualized marriage" that focuses more on development of the couple's own senses of self and the expression of their feelings, as opposed to the satisfaction they gained through building a family and playing the roles of spouse and parent (Andrew Cherlin 593). I understand the point but I have mixed feeling about the individualism approach in a family. Once we become a parent, there are other responsibilities we have to take care of. 





3 comments:

  1. I agree with your point when it's about family, that it is essential to forming communities and societies. Family is important in all cultures and it will remain that way whether we're looking at an individual that chooses their chosen family or the family they've been brought up with, blood or not.

    Most people do value whomever their families are, and cherish these relationships that they have. The statistics of children in their emotional, physical, and spiritual welfare definitely does put an emphasis on the importance of family.

    But I think we should consider that not all children that come from divorced or single-parented households devalue or disregard the importance of family. It depends on how they were raised as well as how they see other individuals in their families act in sample to situations they experience. In turn, it will represent how a child feels about the situation that is occurring in their lives.

    I understand that it may seem that good children come from marriages that do not break into fatherless or motherless households. Or that they come from families that are ideal. But many children of today have come from the reality of a 'broken' household, and many of them have become very decent, successful people even with the most dreading memories of the past.

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  2. i do agree about divorce what you mentioned. However, marriage, itself is should made by two big love between a female and male to create own their family by baring babies to continue for the next generation and this is the everlasting fate for human race that i guess. However again, all people can't marry with real lover each other and some situation can interrupt their fantasy in marriage and even after marriage, money, violation, debt or other various things can occur divorce i think. But, divorce, itself is not best method to save family or escape from terrible situation i definately think.

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  3. Fred Dukes on All in the familyNovember 11, 2011 at 11:38 PM

    Two or one whats the difference

    I’m not sure I agree totally with you on this one. Yes, ideally children who are raised in a two-parent home have an advantage over their peers who are in single parent homes. Here is an article that I read that shows that that is not necessary true. If you have a chance check the article out. It was very informative, www.clasp.org/admin/site/publications_states/files/0086.pdf, and offered a different view on this subject matter. I think it is time to stop blaming the home structure on the actions of children. There has to be a time when people are help accountable for their actions. Weather a family has two parents or one what should guide the children are the values and morals that are instilled in them. Fred D

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