Monday 20 January 2014

Entry 3: Understanding on the Family Structure

Take out a piece of paper and color pencils, and draw about “my family” as the topic.






Done?

I think your drawing is mostly turn up something like this, consisting of daddy, mummy, brother and sister. 

Actually, this family structure can be called as traditional nuclear family, known as conjugal or elementary family. Usually, nuclear family is a two-generation-family which a married man and woman and their biological children.

In my essay, it will cover about the role of family values in advertising, what and how are these values and attitudes being portrayed and is it reflects reality? So in this blog entry, it will focus and understanding on the type of family structure.


Apart from the nuclear family, there are vary of modern family structure are emerged.

Adoptive Family
Consisting of one or more of the adopted, not biologically related children. This family comprised of two of the adoption triad members, adoptees and adoptive parents.

Bi-racial or Multi-racial Family
Consisting of different racial identity groups of parents. The children will be called as half-breed.

Blended Family
Consisting of members from two or more previous families and have varying connections with extended family members.

Childless Family
Consisting of a husband and wife living and working together without any child. It considers as ‘forgotten family’ as it does not meet the traditional standards set by society. Many childless families take on a substitute of own children by adoption of pet or have extensive contact with their relative’s children.

Co-custody Family
An arrangement where divorced parents both have legal responsibility for their children.

Cohabiting Family
Consisting of unmarried man and woman but living together. If there are children, at least one of the adults is a biological or adoptive parent.

Commuter / Conditionally separated Family
Consisting a parent is separated from the rest of the family. This may be due to live and work in different towns or states, military service, incarceration or hospitalization. One parent provides the primary residence and the other parent comes home for short periods of time such as weekends and holidays.

Extended Family
Consisting of two or more adults who are related, either by blood or marriage, living in the same house. These family members may be in addition to the child’s parents or instead of the child’s parents.

Foster Family
A family where one or more of the children is legally a temporary member of the household. Kinship care families are foster families where there is a legal arrangement for the child to be cared for by relatives of one of the parents.

Gay or Lesbian Family
Raising and rearing by a gay or lesbian single or two parent(s). Children can bring from either a heterosexual relationship or reproductive technologies (intrauterine insemination or in vitro fertilization)

Grandparent-led Family
Raising and rearing by grandparents when their biological parents have died or can no longer take care of them.

Single parent family
Consisting of one parent either a father or a mother who is singly responsible for the raising one or more children. The children can be by birth or adoption.

Stepfamily
Consisting two separate families remarriage and merging into one new unit. Usually, these families are generally created by divorce and remarriage.




Although there has a lot of family structures are emerged due to growing of individualization and industrialization, nuclear family still remain the predominant family arrangement especially in Asia and the Middle East, which compared with other regions of the world. Most the information which I found, I can summarize them as extend family also appears to be common in Asia, the Middle East and South America, whereas marriage rates and childbearing rate are gradually declining worldwide which boosters the growing of the childless family, cohabiting family as well as individual. In Asian countries, the number of individuals is around upwards of 30%.


The reasons that I assumed are because of the high-income and high-standard world which lead to encourage everyone neither men nor women focus on seeking for and earning money. Poverty also changes the family patterns interact with changes in childbearing. This is because larger families need more income to foot the bill. Due to high-standard and competitive social, it creates a social whom pickier especially women about marriage as result. And they end up with unmarried status. Thus, family structure, social and living lifestyle are correlate each other that create nowadays scenario.  (This topic I will bring out in-depth in another entry)






Reference
Edwards, J. O. (2009) The many kinds of family structures in our communities. [Online] Available at: http://www.scoe.org/files/ccpc-family-structures.pdf [Accessed at: 19th January, 2014] 

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