Images and Ideals
What is family?
A symbol, a visual image that speaks to us through our senses, which includes smell, taste, touch, motions and sounds from our own remembered experiences.
What do families symbolize?
Families symbolize relationships of affection and love that are based on cooperation rather than competition.
Families of the past are?
Families of the past are presented to us as a more stable and more authentic than the families today. Portrayed as simpler and less problematic.
Reductionist because these ideas focus on individuals as they perform their family roles.
What are the three distinctive features?
the family is a nuclear unit, consists of a mother, father and their children and it exhibits a gendered division of labor.
The Ideal Family is?
A stable income, two biological parents, male breadwinner, and female caretaker of the children.
Superwoman can be defined as what?
A women, a mother who balances family life and their job. Generally works about 40 hours every week, keeps the house nice and clean and has a meaningful relationship with her children and spouse.
Myth of Seperate Worlds
Two sociological principles.
The first principal is that there is a close relationship between families and the larger society that shapes them. The second principle requires a critical examination of family and society that questions the existing myths, stereotypes and official dogma.
White, middle class, heterosexual father as the breadwinner, the mother as the caretaker at home and the children living at a one family house.
What are the three distinct images that have emerged of the family?
Family as Haven, Family as Fulfillment, Family of Encumbrance
What is the ideological code that distorts family reality and glorifies the two parent family model?
Standard North American Family
What are beliefs that are held uncritically and without examination and scrutiny?
Myths
What illustrates how larger social systems shape the smaller family systems?
The macro level of analysis.
What is a set of social relationships and residence or living arrangements?
Family and household
Ideal image of intensive parenting?
large amounts of quality time spent with children is seen to be important to children and their development and also fulfilling for parents as well
Symbolic families?
Symbolic families operate as models which affect a greater range of action and response.
How are families that are not self sufficient looked at?
These familes are judged inadequate.
What are the basic assumptions that scholars have of the social worlds that they study?
Paradigm.
Family members are spread out across national boundaries with a pattern moving back and forth across countries.
Transnational Families
How do workers escape stressful family situations?
By spending more time at their workplace and less time at home.
What are Television Families?
Television families are more realistic. Today's television shows reflect diverse family structures.
How do families shape themselves?
Families shape themselves in repose to the demands of jobs, careers, schools, and other social institutions.
Family variation is?
Relational.
The vast majority of single parents households are maintained by?
Mothers