Family

How do we feel about our Families? - Discussion

I start:

Politicians today are constantly reminding us of the importance of family values and the familiy institution is often held up to be the backbone of society. What happens within the confines of the familiy unit is seen to have far-reaching consquences for events outside this relationship and the press seem eager to find evidence of the effects on society of the 'breakdown' of family life.

The family environment certainly as an impact in the emotional lives of familiy members. Families play an important role, for instance, in supporting their teenagers from the dependency of childhood to the indipendance of adulthood. This transition requires that all family members (not just the adolescent) must redefine their roles. Such 'tweaking' of relationships can affect family dynamics because parents and teenagers must come to terms with changing expectations of one another.

Despite the potential for tensions over this period of transition, families in general cope well with these adjustments and most report healthy relationships during and after these times. IT would seem that problems which do occur tend to relate to everyday events - squabbles over whose turn it is for the dishes and which T.V channel to watch. These problems will inevitably arise when people live in close proximity to one another. However, whilist teenagers can have grievances about their parents, these grievances are not seen to undermine their relationship as a whole and can usually be resolved. Throughout our questionnaire the family is frequently mentioned in positive ways - this no doubt includes the 18 per cent who choose to circle 'loved' in the Field Of Words. It is worth keeping this in mind when we reflect on some of the ' Dear Diary' accounts.

We must also be aware that notions of what constitute 'family' vary enormously and we must consider all sorts of family make-ups (including step-families, single parent families, extended families. etc). Given the high rate of divorce and family break-ups, many teenagers nowadays have to negotiate relationships with new families - step parents, stepbrothers and sisters, etc.
Such complex relationships are reflected in our teenagers' accounts.

Can anyone concur to my opinion??

You assume that a family unit can only exist when there are children within the unit. What about people who do not have children - man and wife - are they not a family? Or is 'family' just another word for children. What about people who have pets in the house and give their pets names? You hear people who say my family consists of 5 dogs and 3 cats.
Teenagers will always have a different point of view to their parents - that is how it has always been and will be till the end of time.
The family unit as once we might have understood it - man, wife and 2 children is changing. There is evidence that in the future there will be more single person households than currently, and in time we may end up referring to these sing-person-households as a family-of-one.

It's not an assumption but confirmation. What you may call family (consisting of 2 dogs, 3 cats and wife and husband) it's nothing but 'different family'.

Can't you see?! People distorted the meaning of what has been named family for ages, now is changed into 'pet-family' and which is an outrageously laughtable. Don't you think that currently even family - the basic unit is changing simply because poeple don't want to set up family and raise children. Taht's why they live in separation or live together having no wedding, etc.

Mind you, what's more - they want to feel like family unit but don't want to have children and they contradict themselves.

From one side they strive for being family but they don't call it family but pet-family from the other.

I agree with Terri's point of view.
The times are changing, and so are the people. My family can be called a "standard" one. Parents and two children.
But it's gonna be more and more so-called singles and women aren't so keen on having many children as they used to. On the contrary, if one plans to start a family, he or she usually wants to have 1 child or 2 children.
There are also many broken families, lonely mothers with their children or just many people, who wanna go through their life as a "single".

Yes. There are 'different family units'. Who are these 'people' who have distorted the meaning of what has been named family? Name the guilty ones.
Ask a dog lover - whether he prefers people to dogs - simple answer.
What is a basic unit of family? Is this compulsory? What about the people who cannot for one reason or another have children? You cannot assume that everybody wants or are even able to have children - there are many childless couples.
People live in separation or 'over the brush' or even never want to get married - not because they don't want to be part of a family unit (they are-they usually have children) - there are other reasons.
I belong to one big happy family - mankind - which family do you belong to?

Once it is the 'different family unit' why do we try to put in frames of family as a unit of typical , traditional family?

I cannot quote any of guilty who is responsible for distorting the meaning but it's in my convinction not only the society but mass media as well to be blamed.