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White Oleander a 1999 Janet Fitch novel, is the self-narrated story of a young girl, Astrid Magnussen, who in the beginning of the book, lives with her very beautiful and narcissistic mother in Los Angeles. Astrid is an only child and never knew her father. She worships her self-absorbed mother, who takes very little interest in the girls’ personal life and is anything but a good role model. Astrid’s biggest fear is abandonment. When her mother is arrested and sentenced to life in prison for killing her cheating boyfriend, Astrid is placed in a series of foster homes by child services, none of which provide a stable role model or put Astrid’s needs first. The story graphically details Astrid’s time in each foster home, each of which …show more content…
Originally, the nuclear family consisted of a married man and woman along with their biological children living under the same roof. Today, the structure of a family involves a variety of models with great diversity. “Over the past three decades, the number of children born out of wedlock…tripled from 10% to 33%...10% live in patchwork families and 15% live with only one parent. Every fifteenth child…raised by grandparents” (Stanglin, 2017). By 2030, forecasters predict 40 percent of families will consist of only one parent (Stanglin, 2017). Other factors effecting members of a family unit are incarceration and foster care. According to The Annie E. Casey Foundation (2016) policy report, “5 million children have had a parent incarcerated at some point in their lives” (p. 1). When the mother is incarcerated, most children end up in the foster care system. The foster care system has a total of nearly 428,000 children on any given day. The traditional nuclear family has transformed to include other definitions of membership, what a family unit looks like, and numerous factors influencing group changes along life’s
White Oleander is an exciting novel written by Janet Fitch. It is a novel that describes the life of Astrid, a teen girl that had to experience abuse, sexual awakening, grief and occasionally a glimmer of love. Ingrid Magnussen was Astrid's mother, she would play an important role in Astrid life. It is a novel that describes how Astrid's own life experiences and her own intellectual knowledge influences her mind to become a better person in society. This novel created has a double meaning for me because it helps me to realize that I am able to apply what I have learned from other human beings to better myself. This novel also describes the role of women in a "men's world."
Times have changed; the nuclear family is no longer the American ideal because family needs have changed since the 1950's. This American convention of a mother and father and their two children, were a template of films and early television as a depiction of the American family life. Now seen as archaic and cliché by today’s standards, but the idea is common throughout many of the first world nations in the world. This ideal was a vast departure from the past agrarian and pre industrial families, and was modeled and structured as the ‘American dream’ father working, mother maintaining the household and children molded to be simulacra of the parents. This portrayal was not the standard; many communities throughout America had a different structure due to social and racial values or economic constraints. The 1950’s also brought about a change in technology that brought the world to everyone’s homes and gave people plenty to think about.
In school social circles, I always find myself "The Token Black Guy." I thought of this term for my role after viewing an episode of Scrubs on TV. I started thinking about the small number of black students at my school. It is something I have always turned a blind eye to.
Role models come in all shapes and sizes. In the epic poem The Odyssey, written by Homer, Odysseus faces many challenges in which he has to use certain traits of his to overcome his problems. Odysseus is a good role model because he is brave, intelligent, and unwavering.
As a result of her mother’s incarceration, Astrid is thrusted into a myriad of unmerited situations- the foster homes. One evil stepmother leads to another in this tale of adversity and just when Astrid’s prospects brighten under a shining sun, the clouds roll in and it begins to rain. “White Oleander” is a Cinderella story with all the ingredients of misery and misfortune but the wrong ending.
For example, the number of working mothers outside the home has increased since 1970’s, but the mother working is not a new phenomenon. “Mothers sold things from the home such as dairy products and woven goods during colonial times, took in boarders around the turn of the twentieth century, and held industrial jobs during WWII” (Benokraitis 16). Social scientists state that familial issues such as desertion, out-of-wedlock birth, and child abuse have sadly always existed. Similarly, children growing up in single parent households are not a novel occurrence. Even with the rate of single parents doubling in the past three decades, it tripled between the years 1900 and 1950. Divorce is also not a recent trend. The micro and macro level manifestations that tend to split the family structure apart have always existed; nonetheless, they were just not as prevalent or popularized by the media. Families are changing, but despite the obstacles, they are resilient. Families manage to cope with everyday stresses and protect their most vulnerable members- the young, old, ill, or disabled. The American family is synonymous with change, but is resilient regardless of gender roles, divorce rates, and alternatives to
Do you know what the American Family is? I don’t. American families have changed dramatically over time. The “Nuclear Family”, which is defined as containing a man, woman and their children,was and is regarded as a basic social unit; the seed of ‘The American Family Tree”. But over time this has evolved and modernized into different meanings concerning how people view the traditional American family. The ways the traditional family has modernized include, Stepfamily, Single Parent Family, Same Gender Family, Childless Family, Divorced Family, and many more. These few different types of family systems show how peoples definition of a family in the past and current years in America have changed. The origins of the continuous branching family
A person grows up in the shadow of her parents or guardians, and eventually she comes to a point in her life where she wants to break free of their influence and explore her own identity. The path of finding one 's self-identity is to find descriptive characteristics, qualities and abilities that enable one to define oneself. In the novel, White Oleander, by Janet Fitch, the main character, Astrid, was separated from her mother, who has been convicted of murder, is put in to the foster care system. As various guardians take her under their wings and teach Astrid their ways, Astrid attempts to find her identity. One can say self-identity always arises from a reaction to the prominent cultural and social influences in one 's life. In the following paragraphs, we support our argument by considering Astrid 's mothers chains on her
The myth of a nuclear family can be discouraging to modern society. For example, Gary Soto essay talks about a nine year old mexican boy wanting his family to be like the “perfect families” on television. He wants his family to sit at the dinner table eating turtle soup while they all get dressed up. His family laughs in his face because the ideals that are portrayed on
The term “nuclear family” refers to “the part of a family that includes only the father, mother, and children” (Miriam-Webster, n.d.). In comparison, William Bennett, author of “Reversing The Moral Collapse of the American Family, The Broken Hearth” defined the nuclear family as “a monogamous married couple with their children” (2001, p. 12). I agree with both definitions, but choosing Bennett’s definition as the key to rebuilding a troubled society.
Families are becoming more diverse and they come in all shapes and sizes. Some people consider families to be strictly biological, while others consider people they love to be their family. Although two-parent families, also known as a nuclear family are the majority, one-parent families are becoming more common in today’s society. A sole-parent is considered to be a parent without a partner or spouse who is the primary care giver of one or more children in a household (Ministry of Social Development, 2010). From the age of 14 onward I was raised by m...
During the 1950’s the misconception that the nuclear family, which presumes that a self-supporting unit composed of two heterosexual parents legally married and engaging in separate masculine and feminine family roles was predominant and ideal (Palczewski & DeFrancisco, 2014). Understandably, looking at what a family looks like and means now from this perspective could lead one to believe that the American family is deteriorating, however, this is a result of the golden age view about the nuclear family and was never a reality (Afifi, lecture). The American family is not deteriorating, the common understanding of what a family looks like is changing due to the increase of diversity, dependency on discourse based communication, and an emphasis
Over time, the modern family model has changed in a variety of ways; when it comes to families, the social norms are greatly different than they were only a couple decades back. With these changing times, it makes it harder for there to be a definite definition as to what a modern family truly entails. The following subtopics are all responsible for this changing modern family model:
Not even 100 years ago the ‘normal’ family was a nuclear family. This consists of a married couple with children. Now, because of declining marriage rates, increasing divorce rates, singletons, single parent families and many other factors, what is considered to be the ‘normal’ family structure has changed. Whereas before, a nuclear family was virtually the only family structure that existed, now there are several different structures that are becoming increasingly common. Some of these include a blended family, extended family or same sex parent families.
In the last few decades, family structures and patterns have drastically evolved. Previously, there was little diversity in the way families were structured and in family dynamics. For example, the majority of families consisted of a married father and mother, as well as children. The father was the economic provider for the family, while the mother cared for the children. Recently, family structures have evolved. For example, families now consist of same-sex couples, unmarried couples, couples with no children, single-parent families, divorced families, families with adopted children, etc. Sociological theories such as structural functionalism and feminism can help to answer the question of whether or not changing family structures are negatively