About The Changing Family

How Roles Are Changing

At their most basic, the terms mother and father describe a range of biological facts. A mother produces eggs and gives birth to children, A father's sperm fertilize the eggs and contribute half his child's genes. But these are obviously not the only differences. Human beings belong to a species with clear distinctions between male and female. Traditionally, the physical differences between men and women meant that men (being bigger and stronger) were seen as protectors of women. No need for brute strength

For thousands of years, men used their biological role to claim authority over women, but today, the traditional roles of mother and father are no longer relevant. Modern technology has done away with the need for brute strength, and nowadays women and children generally don't need men to protect them.

Involving men in parenting

Having a baby creates a whole new social unit. Instead of being two people, you become a family. Families give babies constant care and protection, and though family groupings may vary, babies know only the quality of care, interest, and love that they receive. How It Used To Be

Until two or three generations ago, the family was usually based on the extended model. People were part of a large grouping of three or four generations, extending out ward to include cousins. When people's lives were less mobile, and they lived and worked in one small area, face-to-face contact was possible on a daily basis. This larger family unit could act as a support group for its members, particularly in the case of child-rearing.

The Family Today

In the past 50 years, the extended family has largely broken down. Rapid technological change produced a labor market that demanded mobility. people wanted to go where the jobs were, or were forced to do so out of economic necessity. Leaving home meant leaving the extended family network and possibly settling where there were no relations at all to lean on for financial and emotional support. At the same time, increased prosperity allowed people to set up their own homes, whereas in the past they might have remained in the family home, even when married. This broad social movement saw the rapid spread of the isolated nuclear family just mother, father, and children. Even when embedded with in an extended family, this unit can be a hothouse of troubled emotions; on its own, its long term survival is more likely to be precarious.

New Family Groupings

Since the 1960s, women have increasingly developed a degree of financial independence that made them less likely to hang on to the last remnant of a marriage just because they didn't think they could provide for them selves and their children on their own. Liberal attitudes to welfare have also played their part in the transformation of the traditional family; as the nuclear family detached from its older members or more tenuous branches became the norm rather than the exception, so the divorce rate increased, giving rise to less orthodox family structures.

Divorce And Remarriage

Many divorced or separated people haven't turned their backs on marriage or partnership as such, but only on one they found intolerable. A good proportion of them are prepared to give it another try, thus often creating a step family. As with the nuclear family, the step family has been around for a long time (and hasn't always had a very good image), but its recent growth has been quite dramatic.

Single Parents

The one parent family is a much maligned institution. It's true that it has often grown out of unhappy situations, and the pressures, not least financial, on the lone parent are great. But many single parent families are thriving and vigorous units that are bound by particularly close ties, and offer the children involved continuity, stability, and happiness.

A New Kind Of Parenting

Not only has the composition of the traditional family changed in recent times, but also how it functions. Fathers used to be seen as protectors, having little direct involvement in day to day childcare, but their importance as equal partners is now being recognized side by side with women's increasing role as equal or even primary financial provider. And in some families the father cares for home and family by choice, while his partner earns the daily bread. One reason why such families are often strong and successful units is that they take account of both partners talents and, generally, arc a result of careful discussion and planning. But what ever the practicalities of any individual family unit, providing a stable, loving, and open environment in which to bring up children is probably the only important constant.

What Is A Father

No one has a problem defining a mother's role. A mother's role is to care for children: mothers feed, comfort, and dress; they encourage, teach, carry, undress, and put to bed. We know this because it's what we experienced as children. Defining the father's role can be more difficult.

Finding a role model

Much as you may love your father, you may want your relationship with your own children to be different from the one that you had with your father. Men are constantly encouraged to become fully involved in nurturing their children, but few have any role model to demonstrate what this actually means. What we really need is for fathers to be more like mothers.

Babies don't mind

Babies and young children don't mind whether they are cared for by their mother or father. They experience comfort, warmth, and security from their parents and, though they soon learn to tell them apart, they don't make value judgments based on what mothers and fathers ought to do. Apart from breastfeeding, there's nothing a man can't do for his baby.

The need for parenting

Babies don't need mothering and fathering, they need parenting. They need the most important adults in their lives to be models of what parents do for their children. A child will only form separate expectations of each parent if this is what she learns from her experiences.