There is no such thing as a universal family as there is no such thing as an ideal family. Discuss

Name: Rashmi Barad PI: Y7657750 TMA: 03

‘There is no such thing as a universal family as there is no such thing as an ideal family.’ Discuss

A family is defined in the dictionary as "a social unit consisting of people who are related by blood or law." There are many different definitions of family, some more specific than others; sociologists tend to use a more specific definition, which can vary according to the sociologist. According to Anthony Giddens family is; ‘A group of persons directly linked by kin connections the adult members of which assume responsibility for caring for children.’ Kinship is the most basic principle of organizing individuals into social groups, roles, and categories. Kin terms constitute a culture's kinship vocabulary, a catalogue of the names that are assigned to relatives, e.g., father, mother, uncle, grandson. Different societies of course use different labels to designate their kin; "uncle" is "oncle" in French and "tio" in Spanish. However, there are more important differences in classification, as cultures frequently go beyond mere labelling differences to group relatives into completely different categories.

Family is defined as a social unit made up of people related to each other by blood, birth, adoption or marriage. It is also made up of people who support each other in one or several ways (e.g. socially, economically, and psychologically) or whose members identify with each other in a supportive unit. There are different types of family; there are the more commonly-known ones, such as nuclear and extended, but there are also names for a mother-and-child family (matrifocal) and a father-and-child family (consanguineal). The conjugal family refers to a heterosexual pair and their offspring, while the extended family refers to at least two related conjugal families, and for instance may consist of a woman and man, their children, and the spouse and children of at least one of these, or two or more siblings, their spouses and children. Other labels have also been devised to refer to specific types of situation. In most of these definitions the family overlaps with the household or domestic group: that is to say, the family is identified as those kin and affine who live together in the same dwelling, share a common hearth, and jointly participate in production and consumption.

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Families of Moni, Sophie and Sean are good examples of the type of families. Moni includes her aunts, uncles, grandmother and cousins in the family. She feels close to all her relatives and would miss them if they go away. Moni also says that having her family living close to other relatives makes her feel safe. And they help each other in times of need. Moni emphasises more on biology. Sean and his friends work on streets and they feel that they are a family. Sean was adopted (not legally) by a lady. But as seen in video 2 band 2 he refers his friends as his family. In Sophie’s case she has two mothers. One who is her biological mother whom she calls mummy and the other mother is one who adopted Sophie whom she calls mumma. Sophie’s mothers were partners and had separated. Sophie says that her family includes her mums, her animals and also her best friend. For Sophie family are the people who are close to you and people you love. Sophie doesn’t feel that being biologically related only means a family. For her family can be socially constructed.

Increasingly, single-parents families, same-sex unions, cohabitation without marriage, serial monogamy, and households based on friendship rather than sexual partnerships are becoming both more numerous and more visible to the public eye in societies. Since the Industrial revolution, technology has been changing at a fast pace. People are always wanting a better lifestyle therefore there is always something new arising so humans can cope with their physical environment. There are two particular ways of family formation which has affected the biological and social ties of the family; reproductive technologies like IVF (in vitro fertilization) which allows infertile couples to conceive and adoption of children. Adoption has been well accepted in the UK as a means of creating family but assisted conception is more problematic.

Reproductive technologies have profound effect in the formation of the families. In UK as adoption of infants is more difficult people often rely on medical interventions. Attention towards biological ties has been refocused as the assisted conception has re emphasised on the true makers of kinship. ‘Unscrambling parenthood: the Warnock Report’ (Reading B, Pg. 73) explains how identity of mother and father has changed from its historical position due to new technologies such as artificial insemination (AID), in vitro fertilization (IVF) and surrogacy. IVF is now widely accepted. Assisted conceptions ahs helped to have a family which was not possible earlier. But these scientific and technological developments have outstripped moral discourses and made ethical reasoning difficult. In the UK there are very limited recourses that support for the treatment and not all people who want to have a child with the help of assisted conception can afford to go privately. So only the people with enough money will be able to afford the assisted conception. This leads to the question about the nature of families and if potential parents ever have the right to a child.

Earlier the adoption was one of the few ways that a childless couple could have to create a family. Adoption had some problem like assisted conception of who and what makes a parent. The issue of adoption is a sensitive one because it touches the subject of who are the real parents. Adoption was recognised by the law until 1926 because by definition, children were only related to their blood parents. Children were bought up by other people sometimes but the law didn’t accept it as adoption. After 1926 adoption was allowed by the parents to raise the children to whom they are not biologically related and to preserve this unity the contact between the biological parents and the children was not allowed. Later in 1967 availability of contraceptives, introduction of legal abortion and increasing support for single mothers reduced the adoption of the children. As the children grew older many of them demanded to track their biological parents and due to the liberal atmosphere in the families of the 1960s emphasis on the secrecy was less ideologically accepted. The 1976 Adoption Act allowed the children to trace their biological parents. But the same rights for the biological mothers were not allowed.

Adoption raises not only the issues of biological inheritance but also social and cultural inheritance. Adoption has also been used for social engineering. For example, Between 1940s and 1970s the Australian took thousands of Aboriginal children away from their biological parents and placed them in the white families. The government hoped that these children could rise to the levels of whites rather than sinking to the levels of their Aboriginal community.

But instead of becoming whites as hoped by the government these children feel adrift between the two worlds. As one of them said;

‘They changed our names, they changed our religion, they changed our date of birth, they did all that. That’s why today, a lot of them don’t know who they are, where they’re from.’ (Anonymous Aborigine, New South Wales, Book 2, Chapter 2, Pg. 60)

The definition of parenthood and family varies greatly depending on cultural practices and local circumstances. In Xhosa family in South Africa, it is often the maternal grandmother who takes care of the child and raises the child. Asanda’s family is a good example of the Xhosa family. Her family included her grandmother and grandmother’s sister, her mother, her aunt, her father and her cousins. Fatima Dike, a Xhosa playwright explains;

‘In my case, when you have your first child, you are considered to be immature, and inexperienced. So (your) mother will bring up the child for you, and you will be there to see how the child is brought up. By the time you have your second child; you actually know what goes into bringing a child up.’ (Book 2, Chapter 2, Section 5.1)

It is assumed that it is parents who should provide primary care for the children but this shows that parents are not the only carers for children. There are many informal and formal ways in which children are raised even if parents provide the main forms of socialisation. Family life has never been static; the forms it takes have always been influenced by the socioeconomic structures within which it develops. The family will doubtlessly continue to be a major focus of analysis in social science in the foreseeable future.

The Family is one of society's main and arguably most important, social institutions as it serves to socialise individuals to be productive members of society. In sociology, the term is not only seen as an institution, but also a social system and social group. The idea of the family being 'universal' means that the traditional view of family is the same for every society. "Universal" means that it is found in all societies around the world; the "universal family" means a certain type of family that is found all over the world. Many sociologists now consider the whole question of whether the family is universal as a non-issue. What is more important is to explore the diversity of families. From this perspective the family is socially created, it is not simply a natural unit created by biological necessities. Family ties are fluid and flexible concepts which differ across cultures.

Families come in variety of forms. There is no such thing as a universal family.

Word count: 1550 approx.

References:

1. Book 2, Chapter 2, Rachel Burr and Heather Montgomery’s ‘Family, Kinship and Beyond’ in Janet Maybin and Martin Woodhead’s ‘Child in Context’, The Open University, Milton Keynes.

2. Video 2, Band 2

3. Audio 3, Band 2

4. Wikipedia – www.wikipedia.com

Excellent.

Good reference.

Well articulated.

This is an interesting erm that highlights the way in which family is very much a construct of ou making.

Good reference to the case studies.

Excellent contrast but you could draw more explicit links between them

Good point.

This is in itself, a highly contentious area which you could explore. The state makes assumptions about the nature of family by insisting on same race adoption thereby asserting the importance of physical connections other than emotional. The removal of the stigma of illegitimacy has meant that not so many babies are offered for adoption.

Excellent reference.

Well articulated. You need to explore this further. What or how do these changing technologies affect the way we perceive family?

Good.

Expand this further. You need to evaluate. What does this say about the state’s view of the function of family?

Good

Good.

Excellent,.