Overcrowding Impacts: A Theoretical Perspective on the Baram Family

The Baram family household consists of May, a Tjapukai woman suffering from depression, her two children; Alan, who is currently unemployed and Coral who is studying at TAFE. Both Alan and Coral’s partner, Josie and Janna live in their household, as well as Alan and Josie’s daughter Sheree. The issue being presented throughout this essay is housing and over-crowding. Although there is a large number of people in this household they are all having to live together in a one-bedroom unit. By applying the role theory, multi-dimensional systems theory, and the Bowen’s family systems theory to the issue of over-crowding this will provide the positive and negative impacts on each of the family members. These impacts will be on employment, health and

The Baram family appear to have a strong relationship however, from the genogram and the ecomap it give the idea that over-crowding in their household, Alan losing his job, and having to raise a baby has put a huge amount of pressure on their bond. In some aspects, by bringing May into their home it has relieved some of the stress from Josie. Transition points builds a lot of pressure on families with the changing roles and having to adapt to fit in to this new role. For Alan, he had been the ‘breadwinning husband’ until he was fired and is now unable to provide for his family. Josie is the ‘caring mother’ and she is frustrated as it is not only to her baby but to two grown women, Coral and Janna who would leave the housework to her. Josie is at her ‘overload’ point, having too many roles to fulfil and feeling a strain on her relationship with Alan. For the reason that as the role of the mother is demanding there is very little time for her and Alan to be more intimate. Therefore, we can assume that the interactions between Josie and the other members would also be quite different, for example, with Coral and Janna as she is now taking on a larger role (McCarthy, J.R. 2011.

Employment issues influences both health and belongingness in this family and it should be taken into account that it has been reported that unemployment impacts on the way families behave and support each other (Charles, N. 2008. Pg.132). After Alan had lost his job the Baram family have been in an extremely difficult situation.
In the biological aspect, Josie could be the one feeling most stressed, perhaps experiencing weight loss, or gain, and headaches. She senses that May being brought into their household would be challenging as Alan is no longer working and cannot provide for them. With the newborn baby both Alan and Josie are sleep deprived. On top of this Coral and Janna have been making things harder by leaving the shopping, cooking, cleaning and laundry to her without any consideration that she may already have a huge