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True Family Values
Family has always been the basic building block of society. It is the structure where its members are born, raised, educated and developed into members of the society. Its primary role is to provide an environment where children learn skills, moral and values. Frequently when people think of family, what first comes to their minds is the traditional image of a couple (father and mother), and their children, however, this role model of the traditional family is expiring more and more each day. Now a days, families around country are challenging this stereotype. As modern society becomes more tolerant to divorce, homosexuality, and more, the structure of many families has been dramatically affected by the way society sees
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and judges them. In their essays “Stone Soup” by Barbara Kingsolver and “Family Values” by Richard Rodriguez the authors express their own view that family should be valued regardless of its differences.
Kingsolver, breaksdown what it means to be a real family, while Rodriguez emphasizes the value of family. Both essays contain a powerful message about how people should not be held back by what society considers right or wrong.
In “Stone Soup”, Kingsolver expresses her feelings about society’s negative approach towards divorced families, remarried couples, or single parents. She believes that these families are far from “broken”, and they deserve equal value in society as families that have not experienced these issues. “Lucky is the child with this many relatives on hand to hail a proud accomplishment. I’m there too, witnessing a family fortune. But in spite of myself, defensive words take shape in my head. I am thinking: I dare anybody to call this a broken home.” (Kingsolver, pars
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1) Kingsolver’s writing style is sophisticated yet easy to understand at the same time, she criticizes the way society judge that the “reshaping of families” is considered as a failure. She supports her argument by using various examples as the anecdote of her friend’s son who has a “blended”, non-nuclear family and still each one of them is supporting him at a soccer match. “He’s Andy, my best friend’s son. The cheering section includes his mother and her friends, his brothers, his father and stepmother, a stepbrother and a stepsister, and a grandparent.” (Kingsolver, pars.1) She also supplements this anecdote raising rhetorical questions and making effective references to other literature “Whenever people propose that we go back to the traditional family, I always suggest that they pick a ballpark date for the family they have in mind.” (qtd. in The way we never were). Just like Richard Rodriguez in “Family Values”, Kingsolver allows the reader to know what she thinks and how she feels using both conversational and formal language to connect with an inform the reader. She uses terms like “blended families” to introduce the reader to different family labels and uses imagery to help illustrate her ideas “Like a cancer diagnosis, a dying marriage is a thing to fight, to deny, and finally, when there’s no choice left, to dig in and survive” (Kingsolver, pars. 10). Then she goes on trying to persuade the reader that society’s view of the perfect family is not always correct. She wants the reader to realize that society cannot judge a family by what it appears to be broken from an outside perspective. “To judge a family’s value bit its tidy symmetry is to purchase a book for its cover.” (Kingsolver, pars. 19) She implies that some families’ appearance may differ from the society’s stereotype but the still are true families. Like Kingsolver, Rodriguez’s essay talks about the subject of family but from another perspective.
He relates to how the America family values can change the way families accept its members being different. He opens his essay on a personal note, describing himself as a middle-aged homosexual man who is about to explain to his parents the fact that he is gay. He outlines that the concept of family values varies, based on the country of origin. Explaining that the American idea of family values is more based on the independence that a child experiments when he or she leaves the parent’s home and manage their ways to be different from their parents. Throughout his work, Rodriguez makes some harsh realistic points as the detachment of the children from parents “The assurance of family –continuity, inevitability—is precisely what American encourages its children to overturn. Become your own man.” (Rodriguez, pars. 6) He introduces in an ironic sense the idea of the American family values referring to the way the Republican political party uses this concept to their favor “Republicans celebrate American economic freedom, but Republicans don’t seem to connect that economic freedom to the social breakdown they find appalling.” (Rodriguez, pars.
8). Rodriguez is an immigrant who was raised in America, unlike his parents. He uses American values to analyze his possible parent’s reaction towards his homosexuality, and then persuades the reader about how American values may not speak of what family values are. (acceptance, inclusion, team effort) “Isn’t willy-nilly inclusiveness the point, the only possible point to be derived from the concept of family” (Rodriguez, pars. 38) Similar to Kingsolver, Rodriguez creates personal interaction with his essay by narrating his personal anecdotes using first person. He starts and ends his essay narrating “My mother has seen me and she waves me in. Her face asks: Why am I sitting outside ?” The imagery of him waiting in the car illustrate the readers on ow he is feeling. Rodriguez, like Kingsolver uses anecdotes to support his opinions on American values “When I was broke a few years ago and trying to finish a book, I lived with my parents.” Rodriguez wants to inform and persuades the reader to understand how American values affect families and how Americans should value families in a different way. He wants the American society to understand what is the point of being a family “There are families that do not accept. There are children who are forced to leave home because of abortions or homosexuality.” (Rodriguez, pars. 39) Times have changed, little do people know about the real ideal of family values, the true identity. Society can not longer dictate what family values really are. It is something very particular to each family. Family values are about accepting one another unconditionally and doing anything for another member of the family.
Society considers divorce as a failure and a destruction to a family unit when in reality divorce should be considered normal considering that the majority of families are blended or single parent homes. Barbara Kingsolver, an american novelist and essayist states her thoughts about divorce, blended and broken families in her essay titled “Stone Soup.” She argues that no family is perfect and that all families have problems. She uses examples, statistics and metaphors to persuade her readers of what a true family is. She informs us based on her own life experiences: her values, changes, and choices which ended in her divorce.
It’s not easy to build an ideal family. In the article “The American Family” by Stephanie Coontz, she argued that during this century families succeed more when they discuss problems openly, and when social institutions are flexible in meeting families’ needs. When women have more choices to make their own decisions. She also argued that to have an ideal family women can expect a lot from men especially when it comes to his involvement in the house. Raymond Carver, the author of “Where He Was: Memories of My Father”, argued how his upbringing and lack of social institutions prevented him from building an ideal family. He showed the readers that his mother hide all the problems instead of solving them. She also didn’t have any choice but to stay with his drunk father, who was barely involved in the house. Carvers’ memoir is relevant to Coontz argument about what is needed to have an ideal family.
Richard Rodriguez was an established author of the 1980’s and 90’s. In his article titled Family Values (1992) he questioned the integrity and overall opinion of the American family system. Family Values uses the contexts of social and political ideologies to achieve its goals. His overall message with this argument is the competing types of family values and their application in real world settings. In this expository article, Rodriguez relies on his ability to weave pathos and ethos into a well-written argument that captivates his audience and encourages them to question the average American family system.
Confucius once said, “The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home.” Many people across the world deem family as the most important aspect of their life. Family is something that often teaches us moral values and helps shape the individuals we become later in our lives. The values taught by family are not only essential, but will help develop the moral character of an individual. In the short story, “Cakes,” Salvatore La Puma conveys the prominence of family values in Italian-American immigrant culture in the 1940’s industrial era.
A family is a group of people consisting of the parents and their children who live together and they are blood related. The family is always perceived as the basic social units whether they are living together in the same compound or at far distance but are closely related especially by blood. Therefore, the family unit has had a great influence on the growth and the character traits possessed by the children as they grow up and how they perceive the society they live in. the family also shapes the children to be able to relate well with other people that are not part of their family and with a good relationship it impacts to the peace achieved in country. This paper addresses the reasons as to why the family is considered the most important agent of socialization. It’s evident that families have changed over time and they have adopted different ways of living. This paper also tackles on the causes of the dramatic changes to the American family and what the changes are. Different people with different race, gender and preferences make the family unit and this makes the difference in marriages. This will also be discussed in this paper.
Traditional family in today’s society is rather a fantasy, a fairy tale without the happy ending. Everyone belongs to a family, but the ideology that the family is built around is the tell tale. Family structures have undeniably changed, moving away from the conventional family model. Nowadays more mothers work outside of the home, more fathers are asked to help with housework, and more women are choosing to have children solo. Today there are families that have a mom and a dad living in the same home, there are step-families, and families that have just a mother or just a father. Probably the most scrutinized could be families that consist of two moms or two dads. These are all examples of families and if all members are appropriately happy and healthy then these families are okay and should incontestably be accepted. So why is the fantasy of the traditional family model still so emphasized in our society? This expectation is degrading and misleading. Progressing with times one ought not be criticized or shunned for being true to their beliefs. It is those living falsely, living as society thinks they should that are the problem. Perhaps as a society, if there were more focus and concern for happiness and peace within ones family and fewer worries for the neighbor then there would be less dilemma.
Through this essay Richard Rodriguez writes about his experiences as a son, and as a student. Through his relationship with his parents the reader can see how Rodriguez was separating for his
As we have learned through Skolnick’s book, as well as Rubin’s research, the make up of the family is influenced by many factors. The economy, culture, education, ethnicity/race, and tradition all help to create the modern family. The last few decades have heavily influenced the family structure, and while some try to preserve the past, others embrace the future. Through it all, we find you can have both.
This paper will examine sociological theories and how they relate to the social institution of the family. We typically view society as a group of people, but in sociology, society is not a group of people but a social organization. People are molded by society to fit within the accepted societal bounds. Society must be understood using “the meanings that people put on their values and beliefs” (Bartle, 2010). Within sociology there are three major perspectives. These are the Functionalist, Conflict and Interactionist Perspectives. Each perspective views society in different manners, with each being correct and relevant since social institutions are too complex to be defined by any one theory. Each perspective will be used to explain the perspectives’ relevance to the family.
In this article titled "Family Values,” the writer Richard Rodriguez talks about America's ideal family. Traditional families according to the author is where the mother raises the child or children of the home just for them to abandon them, leaving them alone and lonely. Rodriguez also talks about immigrants and how their family values are different, more about staying together and taking care of each other instead of a life where every person fends for themselves. A big part of the article is about how being different for example homosexuality and feminism are changing the idealizations Americans have on families and gender roles. And one section of the article that talks about how traditional values state sex was only for procreation, but
"A family is a small social group of people related by ancestry or affection, who share common values and goals, who may live together in the same dwelling, and who may participate in the bearing and raising of children. They have a physical or emotional connection with each other that is ongoing" (Vissing, 2011) and is the foundation of all societies. They can be formed by a grouping of father-mother-children or even more complicated combination of relatives. In the primary stage of family life in the United States, everyone from every generation lived together in one house. Subsequently, the idea of traditional family evolved and a married couple with children is at present, often called the traditional family. There are many types of families; however, this paper will focus on the traditional family. It will describe how the functionalist perspective, conflict perspective, and the interactionism theory apply to the sociological institution known as a family. It will explain some of the similarities and differences between the sociological theories in regards to families and how they affect the family members.
The word ‘family’ is derived from the Roman word ‘famulus’. It means a servant. A Latin word ‘familia’, which means ‘household’, also refers to family. The oldest institution among all the institutions is the family. It is the first and foremost institution. Family is the main backbone of our social structure. Per roman laws, the word famulus denotes a group of producers and slaves and other servants. It also includes the members connected with each other by marriage and descent. The concepts of family had undergone some major changes in the recent times. Different Sociologists defined Family in their own ways. The basic primary group of people and the natural matrix of personality is known as family.
Family by its nature is a social unit wherein children grow up and it acts like the socialization agent. Children receive their earliest and most consistent socialization here in the family. In a family it is very important as to how parents cater the needs of their children and how children take care of them in return. Parents as well as the child are very important part of the developmental process, as it is the parents who will shape the children as what they will become. The parent child relationship influences each other and together they shape the relationship they engage in it. Family is a social unit where in all the members living together is related to one another. Family is regarded
Family is the first and basic unit of society, and marriage is the foundation on which this building is constructed and husband and wife are partners and represent the two pillars of family conducted by God to help each other, woman to be the bearer and
To thoroughly elaborate on the institution of family we most look at the family as it was before and how much it has changed over time. Throughout the years we are recognizing that the family is slowly being replaced by other agents of socialization. Families in the past consisted of a mother and a father and most times children. We are, as many societies a patriarchal society; men are usually the head of the households. This has always been considered the norm.