Households in Costa Rica have some very striking differences from those in the United States. The family unit is viewed differently and has a much greater importance in Costa Rican culture. The family is the center of life in Costa Rica, at least in my experience. My host family in Costa Rica consists of my papa tico, mama tica, hermano and hermana. They all live in the same house but the surprising part of this equation os that my siblings are 25 and 22 respectively. After speaking with many of my classmates and CPI teachers about Costa Rican families I discovered that having many members of the family living together here is typical. Many of my classmates even have grandparents, cousins, nieces and nephews living with them. This is vastly different from the united states. In the United States the expectation for family relations are vastly different. Both the United States and Costa Rica have major differences in this area with each culture having its own benefits and challenges.
In the United States family relationships are viewed much differently than in Costa Rica. The entire
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The closeness of families allows the family to be more aware of what is happening with each other. Thus allowing for assistance to be more readily given. Through the kids living with parents until they marry they have the opportunity to save more money for when they are starting their life on their own. The drawback to the children continuing to live with parents is the strife that comes from the child being an adult but still living in their parents house. Living with their parents until marriage may also cause the children to have a steep learning curve when they marry. The children will not only have to adapt to being married but also the new experience of running their own household. They will go from having mild responsibility to heavy responsibility with little preparation for these
Junot Diaz is Dominican American, and he came from a very poor family with five other siblings. Since they were not that wealthy, they lived in a simple way. Even though his mother was basically the bread winner of the family since his father could not keep a job, she still manages to send money back home every six months or so. When they got home from their vacation, they had found out that someone has broken into their house and stole most of his mother’s money. It was easy for them to be a target because they were recent immigrant, and in their neighborhood cars and apartment were always getting jacked. His mother was very upset; she blamed her children, because she thought it was their friends who had done such a thing. “We kids knew where
Extended and compound households are prime among Dominicans in urban areas, both in Dominican Republic and in the United States. Nonetheless, it is important to realize that a family with a rural background may have lived for a significant period of time in the main city, Santo Domingo, and may have modified in some way its behavioural characteristics or traditional beliefs. An urban middle to upper class Dominican family that has been exposed to a more international world may have a different, less traditional worldview, but the clinician should always ask rather that assume absolutes.
I agree when Kingsolver says that traditional families have more stability for their children. My parents are together and we do have stability. It is still hectic because of three children going in different directions but at the end of the day, we are all together sitting at the dinner table talking about how are day went. My parents do model for me how a married relationship should be like. They show me how strong their love is and how I should be able to find someone who loves me just like my parents love each other. Their relationship had made each of their children successful.
As you can see in the graph above, family characteristics of US and Puerto Rico families differ in many ways. Families in Puerto Rico can be very large with many generations living in the same home for a great period of time. In the United States, this would seem very strange because we put such an importance on being independent and going out into the world and making something of ourselves. Our families tend to be smaller and family outings are not very common but once a few times a year. In the Puerto Rico, your family is your support system, your friends and whatever you do is for the betterment of the family. The United States puts more emphasis on our friends as our support group and what we do is to further our own personal achievement and status instead of our family. At their core, Puerto Rican families are about support and togetherness, while United States families are about stability until we have a chance to make a name for ourselves. The Puerto Rican family aspect and togetherness is something extremely lacking in the United States and something I personally believe we ...
Family is the most important social unit of Hispanic life. It is a close-knit entity that includes immediate and extended family members. Typically, the father is the head of the family and the mother rules the house (Clutter, n.d.). Vacations are usually taken to relatives’ houses to promote togetherness in celebration of birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, graduations, and communions. In times of need, the family is the first line of aid, and Hispanics typically live with their parents until marriage. While this deviates from American ideals for individuals aged 18-35, it actually provides young adults the opportunity for future success because so much money is saved from greatly reduced housing costs (Williams, 2009).
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.
Two-parent families consist of a mother and father living in a home with dependent children. The family may consist of a biological mother and father or a step-parent. In two-parent families found little or no negative effects. Researchers suggest that children from two parent families are less likely to have social issues. Children raised in two-parent homes are more likely to complete high school and attend college. Cho, Lee, and Kuchner (2007) found that students raised in two parent homes demonstrate better behavior, have less absences and tardies and have much higher grade point averages. Researchers suggest that children from two parent homes have better grades and achieve academically as well as socially because the parents have more time to devote to the upbringing of the children oppose to single parents.
The Structure of families is sometimes based on gender. Gender roles in the Dominican Republic are similar to the roles that use to be the norm in America and that is still present in some households. The men are treated as superiors while women are seen as house wives. Women are the primary caregiver, either through divorce or widowhood or if the husband is working far away from home (“Roles of Women”). Also women are expected to be dedicated in being a mother and a daughter and by their late twenties to be married (“Dominican Republic Traditions and Etiquette”). It is interesting that they are expected to be married at a certain age. The men take on the role that is traditional which is being the one who enforces rules. The role of the men and women is also based on the social class they are in. The middle and upper class families are called patriarchal and the father is the norm (“Dominican Family Structure”). In the lower classes of the Dominican Republic the women are taking on the role of the men, which is to support the family. In the lower class families the structure is sometimes matriarchal because the father does not live in the house (“Dominican Family Structure”). It is interesting that depending on the social class it determines the structure of the household. Also the family structure can also depend on the oldest married couple or within their extended family the oldest male would holds authority....
In both cultures, grandparents and elders are highly respected, the father holds most of the power and is the decision maker of the household, the mother is the caretaker of the household, and the children’s only responsibility is to go to school and receive an education. This is the case in almost every Hispanic family because they tend to keep traditional values. This hierarchy also occurs in traditional American families. It was always thought that the “absence of a father is destructive to children, particularly boys, because it means that children will lack the economic resources, role model, discipline, structure, and guidance that a father provides.” (Biblarz & Raftery, 1999) However, this is no longer the case. The differences between American family structures can be most clearly seen when separated by socioeconomic class. Now, studies have shown that “children from single-mother families do approximately as well as children from two-biological-parent families.” (Biblarz & Raftery, 1999) This encourages mothers to believe that a single-mother household is still successful. Therefore, the mother becomes the decision maker and caretaker. This concept also applies for opposite genders. In single-father households, the father is not only the decision maker but the caretaker as well. These family structural differences make way for another similarity in Hispanic and American cultures. Faith
Child rearing and family structure within the Hispanic culture is noticeably different than what is present in the mainstream Western culture of today. One apparent difference is in gender roles. There exists a vastly different expectation in Hispanic culture for males and females. The male is considered to be the independent breadwinner, and the head of the household. Accordingly, the female role is one of submission and provider of childcare. In contrast, it is more than acceptable in Western culture for a female to maintain a non-traditional role. Hispanic culture additionally differs from Western culture in the traditional makeup of the family. Within Hispanic culture the extended family plays a huge role
Latin American society places a great deal of importance on the family as a support network; it is not uncommon for several generations to reside in the same house. This emphasis is called familismo, and the mother in the family is usually the most important figure. She “is seen as the primary nurturer and caregiver in the family…[and] plays a critical role in preservation of the family as a unit, as well as in...
The family is the fundamental base to learn patterns associated with behavior in society. Mexican-Americans are the largest ethnic minority group in the United States. The Mexican-American culture is mostly based on traditions and values that are passed on for generations. This is one of the main cultures in which parents teach their children the same ideals, values, norms and social roles they were taught while growing up. For Mexican-American family is essential and fundamental to their culture. The role the family plays in the development of children will influence the way they will behave in the future. Usually, the family structure of this culture is based on the trait of familism. Familism is common in Mexican descendants because it highlights
...more from life and not truly understanding their purpose. Undoubtedly, in our conventional society, family is important for a variety of reasons. We depend on our families to teach us almost everything we know. They help us to understand social interaction and to create the things we consider to be our values. Our family starts our education and most importantly provides a sense of stability and support that can help in every kind of challenging situation. When a family fails in the raising of a child, it is clear in many aspects of the child’s behavior, which goes to show how truly important this family system is. Since the idea has never been used, it is hard to say what would actually happen if the plan was played out, but from the experience that we do have, communally raised children usually suffer negative effects in their ability to form emotional attachments
I was born into a traditional Hispanic family in Puerto Rico, a territory of the United States. This conventional family pattern follows a patriarchal hierarchy in which the father is the head of the household and responsible for all major decisions for the family.
The family unit is as diverse as the societies they each represent. This sometimes can manifest traditional roles of doting mothers and providing fathers into a home with two sets of parents (Kurrien & Dawn Vo, 2004). Therefore, the involvement and importance of the extended family: grandparents and other family members such as aunts and uncles play a significant role in both its economic and social function.