Family life

There are many different views on family life. Some people could not do without the support and love of their families. Others say it is the source of most of our problems and anxieties. Whatever the truth is, the family is definitely a powerful symbol. There is no definition of a “normal” family. Broadly speaking, the family is a group of people related by blood or law, living together or associating with one another for a common purpose. That purpose is usually to provide shelter and food, and to bring up children. The nature of the family keeps changing: there are a number of types of family that exist in a society at any one time. Sociologists divide families into two general types: the nuclear family and the extended family, which may include three or more generations living together. In industrialized countries, and increasingly in the large cities of developing countries, the nuclear family is regarded as normal. Most people think of it as consisting of two parents and two children.

The first thing most Western people notice in the Far, Middle and Near East is the respect everyone has for old people. Elderly men and women live with their married children and are important members of the family. They look after the children, help with cooking, give advice and often rule family life. Living in an extended family has advantages for everyone. A small child, for example, knows many people from the very beginning, not just his mother and father. When his mother goes out, it doesn’t matter. He’ll stay with someone who loves him - an aunt, sister or grandmother.

For a young mother and father there are also advantages. They can go out to work, and grandmother will look after the house and children. This is especially important in farming communities, where both men and women work in the fields.

And the older woman, for example, has something important to do. She sees how her children and grandchildren grow up. She is needed and loved.

The nuclear family is a product of the West. If the mother goes out to work, she must leave her children with a stranger – someone who looks after them as a job, for money. If there is a divorce, the child’s life will change completely.

And as for the elder people, too many of them live alone – in special flats or homes. They hardly ever see their children and grandchildren. They have nothing important to do. They are often poor and lonely. In the winter many older people die of cold or from falls in the house, because there is no one to look after them.

Years ago in Great Britain it was also important to have large families. The best Victorian mother was the mother who had the most children. The proudest Victorian father was the father who had the most sons. It was important, to have many children so that the family remained strong. If you were rich, you needed sons to inherit your property. If you were poor, you needed sons to help with your work and take it over when you were old. Rich or poor, you needed daughters to help with the running of a large household and to make good marriages with other families.

Not only children were important. Everybody in the family was important: grandmother, aunts, uncle, cousins, and cousins of cousins. Even when branches of (he family quarreled (and they often did) at least they were still there, and that gave people a sense of stability and order.

Nowadays, things are quite different. Young people move away from where they were born, and young couples often leave their hometown to work, and take their immediate family (wife and children) with them, so the family becomes scattered. Slowly, people lose touch with their distant cousins and their great-aunts. Their family unit becomes more and more important, as they see less of their other relatives than they used to.

In general each generation is keen on becoming independent of parents in establishing its own family unit. However, Christmas is a traditional, though probably the only season for family reunion, and trying to keep in touch with distant relatives, people often travel many miles in order to spend the holiday together.

There is one more reason why families in Britain have been getting smaller and smaller. People have fewer children because children are expensive and they take up room. Who can afford a large house? Who can afford food for more than three children when the cost of living is so high? And now, there is the problem of overpopulation, too. We are always being told in Britain that a family should have no more than two children. Britain is a small island (93,026 sq. miles) and it has a population of more than 58 million. Nearly 8 million of those live in London. People can’t have big families when they are living in a small space. Their homes are not big enough to take in such extra members as grandparents. So they live in tiny houses or flats and they get more and more isolated. Sometimes they live very close to other people but they don’t get to know each other. They have hundreds of neighbors but they are lonely. They only have each other to talk to, so they get bored and cross with each other. What is to be done?

In recent years there have been many other changes in family life. Some of these have been caused by new laws, and others are the result of changes in society. The nuclear family, a manned couple with perhaps two children, is still considered the ideal social unit, and most young people still aspire to this idea of their own future. Yet, as a picture of the way most British people live, it is increasingly unrealistic.

The traditional idea of the man going out to work while the wife stays at home is true of less than 10 per cent of households. More and more frequently men are not the only breadwinners. Women’s role in the family has changed as they go out to work to support financially the family budget.

Since 1971, when the law made it easier to get a divorce, the divorce rate has increased greatly and now Britain has the largest rate of divorce in Europe except Denmark. In fact one marriage in every three now ends in divorce, and only 40 per cent of the population live in nuclear family households, and even within this group a large proportion of parents are in their second marriage with children from a previous marriage. On the whole society is now more tolerant than it used to be of unmarried people, unmarried couples and single parents. There are a lot of one-headed families (with mostly the mother as the single parent) as well as men and women living together before marriage or without any marriage. More and more children are born outside marriage, either to cohabiting couples or to single mothers. In addition Britain has the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in Europe, and teenage families are not unusual.

Relationships within the family are different now. Parents treat their children more as equals than they used to and children have more freedom to make their own decisions. Parents are less strict with children, they talk to, listen to them and explain house rules instead of imposing them on the child, and children are more involved in family decisions. The father is also more involved in bringing up children because the mother goes out to work. Increased leisure facilities and more money mean that there are greater opportunities for the individual to take part in activities outside the home. Although the family holiday is still an important part of family life (usually taken in August and often abroad) many children have holidays away from their parents, often with a school party or other organized group.

There are people who think that the family unit in Britain is in crisis and that traditional family life is a thing of the past. They see many indications that the family is in decline. Some politicians blame social problems, such as drug taking and juvenile crime, on a disintegrating family life. There are also economical reasons for the changes in family patterns, and all this is a great concern to those who think a healthy society is dependent upon a stable family life.

However, although people are marrying later (the average woman gets married at 26 to a man who is just over two years older), marriage and the family haven’t gone out of fashion.

Family life in Britain is changing - for better or worse?

Exercise 1

Complete these sentences. Not only one variant is possible.

1. The nuclear family consists of...

2. The extended family includes ...

3. In the extended family older men and women ...

4. In the nuclear family older people ...

5. In the extended family a young mother and father …

6. In the nuclear family the children …

7. In Victorian times it was important...

8. Changes in family life are caused by ...

9. Nowadays families are getting …

10. According to the traditional idea, the man .,.

11. The woman’s role in the family has ...

12. In modern families the breadwinners are ...

13. Britain has the largest...

14. The majority of divorced people ..., and they take responsibility for ...

15. Society is now more tolerant of…

16. Besides the traditional nuclear family, there also exist other patterns, such as

17. The decline of the family can be proved by …

18. People in Great Britain can’t afford …

19. Young people are keen on ...

20. Many older people live ...

Exercise 2

Answer the questions:

1) What group of people do we call “a family”? What is the role of the family in the life of a person?

2) What are the general types of families?

3) Which part of the world is every type of family characteristic of?

4) What are the advantages of living in an extended family?

5) How is family life organized in a nuclear family?

6) What was the ideal for a family in Victorian times?

7) Why do young people nowadays lose touch with their relations?

8) What are the consequences of the fact that Britain is a small island?

9) What new patterns of family life have appeared in recent years?

10) How have the relationships between parents and children changed?

11) What are some reasons for the changes in family life nowadays?

12) Is the family life in Britain in crisis now?

Exercise 3

Speak about family life in Great Britain in the past and nowadays.

Use the expression “used to”.

Model: In Victorian times families used to ...

Before the World War II people used to ...

In the past there used to be less ...

Some time ago parents used to ...

Now ...

Exercise 4

a) Carry out a sociological survey. Ask your fellow students:

1. what type of family unit they live in;

2. how many children there are in their families;

3. if their parents lived in nuclear or extended or any other kind of family;

4. who makes money in the family, and if their mothers go out to work;

5. who runs the house, and how they share the household chores;

6. the place where grandparents live;

7. if they have any distant relatives and if they keep in touch with them;

8. how often they have family reunions;

9. if their parents are very strict with them;

Add more questions which might interest you.

b) Make notes and analyse the results of the investigation. Write a short report giving the results of your survey. Use words and expressions like these:

None of the ... A great many of...

Hardly any of... Some of...

Very few of... A large number of...

Not many of... A lot of,..

The majority of...

Use the following phrases for summarizing or generalizing:

On the whole,..

Apparently,..

Generally,..

At first glance,..

It seems / appears that...

c) Discuss your reports with your fellow students.

• How can you describe the family life in Russia?

• Do we have extended or nuclear families?

• What patterns of family life exist in Russia?

• Are working mothers unusual in modern Russia?

• Do men and women have equal roles in the family?

• Who looks after the children?

• Are elderly people in Russia happy or miserable?

• Are children free to make their own decisions?

• Is family life in Russia changing for better or for worse?