The American family

This blog entry covers the topic American families and wants also to provide a little insight into the change of the family structure over the last century as well as the opinions of Americans.
Introducing, I just want to present the survey I used to find out more about American families by questioning 10 Americans. Additionally, I read the chapter The American Family in the book American Ways, 3rd edition, published by Longman in 2005 and I informed myself about this topic reading different online articles.

My survey questions are following:
1. Who are the members of your family? Name them and indicate their relationship to you (mother, sister, …).
2. Who lives in your household?
3. How often to you see your parents? Your grandparents? Your sisters and brothers? Do you write, e-mail, or telephone any of them regularly?
4. What occasions bring your relatives together (birthdays, holidays, …)? Have you ever been to a family reunion?
5. Do you feel you have a close family? Why? Why not?
6. Who would take care of you if you became ill?
7. On a scale of 1 – 10, with 10 as most important, how important are the opinions of the members of your immediate family concerning the following decisions? Who you marry; where you live; what job you take.
8. Unhappy couple should stay married for the sake of the children – Yes/No.

The first two questions give a good overview about what’s the typical American family like.
All of my panelists, except one girl who has no siblings, mentioned their parents, their siblings and some of them also mentioned their pets.

It’s typical that married American adults name their husband or wife and their children, if they have any, as their immediate family. If they mention their father, mother, sisters or brothers, they will define them as separate units, usually living in separate households. Aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents are considered extended family. Traditionally, the American family has been a nuclear family consisting of a husband, wife, and their children, living in a house or apartment.

The third and the forth question help to provide a better understanding of how close American people are with their family. Mentioning family, I always talk about the nuclear family from now on. All my interviewees have a regular contact with their family and with the exception of one person all of them have a nearly weekly contact with their grandparents, what surprised me.
It seems like that all of these people have an intact family.

Actual data about America shows that only one in four households consists of a traditional family, approximately. Many children live in so called stepfamilies or blended families or with a single parent. Today, there are many single people, divorced people, families where both parents work and couples without children. This could also be seen as a ramification of the higher standard of education as well as the changing lifestyle in the American society.

All the interviewed people have already been to at least on family reunion and the most mentioned holidays where family members come together are Easter, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and birthdays.

The sixth question was really interesting for me, because all respondents’ answered that their parents, especially their mom would take care if they became ill. This still represents the mother as the “homekeeper”, even though America is seen as the country of equal opportunities and I know that there are still a lot of women in Austria who stay at home and take care of the children and everything, but even this is becoming more and more rare.

In the 1950s, typically the father was the “breadwinner” and the mother was the “homemaker”. The typical American family consists of two parents and two children. This traditional picture that probably comes into mind thinking of family has been changing drastically over the last decades.
Beginning in the late 1960s, husband and wife are seen as equal partners in most American families nowadays.
The belief in equality has had a strong effect on the family. The father was always accepted to be the ruler and master even though this has been changing in the last decades. Democracy is really important in most American homes compared to aristocratic societies where there is more formal respect towards parents.

The seventh question gives information about how much people concern about their family’s opinion towards special topics, like marriage, work and location of living. Marriage was highest ranked, followed by the location of living and the influence on which job they should choose was ranked lowest. This shows that those Americans I interviewed concern a lot about what their family thinks, but usually this isn’t the rule in American society anymore.

Freedom is really important for Americans and they don’t want to be told what to do. Each individual decides what’s best for him or her. What would be best for the family is not usually considered to be as important as what would be best for the individual. This also means that parents usually have little control, and generally not much influence, over whom their children marry. Traditionally, American children have been experienced to leave the nest at about age eighteen, after they graduate from high school. At that time they are expected to go on to college or to get a job and support themselves
Some parents seem to have little control over the behavior of their teenage children, particularly after they turned sixteen and get their driver’s licenses. On the other hand, many Americans give their young people a lot of freedom because they want to teach their children to be independent and self-reliant.
Working parents constantly struggle to find enough time to spend with their children.

The last question was most interesting to me since all of them had a personal conflict answering this question. I just wanted to have a simple yes or no answer, but most of them were talking about “ifs”. In general, it seems that Americans see divorce as the last chance if nothing else helps anymore. In reality, divorce rates show other facts.

Concluding, I want to state that the family life and how it has changed in the last years is nearly the same in the US and my home country, Austria. I have the feeling that people in more rural areas, like Wisconsin care more about family life than people in more urban areas which would explain some of the answers of my panelists. Having that said, I just want to mention that the topic American family includes much more than I mentioned previously in this post, but talking about all aspects would go beyond the scope of this assignment.