The Illusion of the Perfect American Family

1161 Words3 Pages

The Social Catastrophe of the Perfect Family In the era after the Second World War, the way that life was viewed changed drastically. The men of the war were coming back to homes that were drastically different that what they had remembered before the war. In this post war country, a shift of family ideals set an example of what a family should look like and how they should act. With the invention and popularization television, messages could be sent out to mass audiences to inform or even push people into a stereotype. Such shows as The Donna Reed Show and The Danny Thomas Show set an example of how the perfect American Family should operate in the confines of their home as well as out in public. These expectations of people set a nearly unreachable goal that very few American families could reach. It also harmed social relations among family members. Along with social restraints it tacks on ethnic and racial confines of a perfect family. Therefore, the ideal of a perfect family can hurt anyone that strives for it. In those old personas of family, these traditional families usually only showed an unrealistic household of harmony with few real arguments .At the dinner table the entire family would gather for dinner and discuss …show more content…

At dinner time it was always my duty to set the table and call my dad in for supper. Sometimes he would be out splitting fire wood or out on his tractor. If he wasn’t real close we would get a cowbell to get his attention. Every dinner we talk a little bit but it was never anything like the dinner talk of modeled family of the 1950’s. Growing up I began to hang around kids that didn’t really eat dinner with family or talk with their parents at that time. This shocked me a little bit at first. The shift of dinner talk in some cases was a bit strange to see due to the perception of family. That perception however can harm a friendship if a friend cannot openly

Open Document