The Family Effect

By Charles Marren

We’ve all learned in various history courses that society has changed drastically with each generation and in each new generation new norms and values are presented. A common norm found in society’s past is called the nuclear family; a family consisting of a mother, father and child. This type of household structure played on the stereotypical gender roles and enforced a blueprint for doing gender in the family with men being the main provider of the family with money, and the mother being the main nurturer. However in present society these roles for men and woman are not as nearly black and white as they were before, with the so called guidelines for each gender becoming blurred together. So the question is what could be one of the contributing factors of this new wave of thinking? The man being the provider and the woman being the nurturer were two ways of thinking that were birthed in the home, so why should we not expect that any new type of thinking didn’t come from the same place? It starts in the home is a commonly used phrase after all.

Although considered a stereotype for the family structure, the nuclear family was once a prominent example of the average household. According to census data found in Sociology Matters, in 1940 84% of married couples made up households in U.S, while female-headed households made up only 4% and male-head households only 1%. During that time it’s not hard to see why society viewed the gender roles in such a black and white fashion because both genders were present to fulfill those roles in the average household at the time. However as explained previously, times have changed and one of the major things that have changed are norms, and one major norm that has become frequently present in current society is divorce. Divorce in present society has changed the average family household dramatically as seen in the census data found in Sociology Matters, as it reveals the average married couple household has dropped to only being 50% of the majority, with female-headed households rising to 13% and male-headed households rising to 4%. So how could the rise of single headed households change the view gender role guidelines?

In a household with only one man, the man has to break away from just being a provider through his job, but also a provider of nurture through one on one contact with his kids. This same type of situation applies for a single woman of a household who now has to get a job in order to provider for her children instead of just being the nurturer at home. With a single parent home, no matter what gender the household is helmed by, the roles become blurred into one single gender role. So now the children of the present, unlike the children of the past, are seeing a woman, their mother, working and making money just like men and being a provider. Along with that change, fathers are someone a crying child will wake up to in the middle of the night for comfort. With the rise of these new family structures, the roles of genders will most likely diminish slowly over the course of the years and a new role will be introduced simply known as The Parent; a nurturer and provider.