Evaluating The Institution Of The Family Analysis

Evaluating the Institution of the Family The family is the starting point for all human development, one that persists in its influence throughout an individual’s life. It is from the family that we first learn of abstract ideas such as love and pride, and it is also from family that we have our first experiences with power systems, sorted by gender, age, and other factors. Family has both positive effects, such as love, emotional support, and first social experiences, and negative effects, such enforcing strict gender roles and power structures. Family is defined by Shaw and Lee (citation) as a kinship system that determines distribution of power, distribution of labor, and which people have sexual access to one another. Shaw and Lee also …show more content…
This family is a nuclear family, consisting of white, heterosexual, middleclass parents with children, typically 1-2. This stereotype of so harmful because it enforces ideas of what families should be, when really the term family quite diverse. In fact, the most frequent types of families in the US today occur in the forms single-parent, families led by lesbian or gay partners, blended families, and cohabiting couples with children. The stereotype enforces many factors, most prominently the presence of both children and marriage. This is problematic because it implies couples who cannot or will not marry or have kids are not legitimate families, even if they consider themselves so. This leads us to explore the institution of marriage in family …show more content…
In thinking of children, the first social experiences they have are within the family. It is typically with the parents (or other familial caregivers) that babies have their first verbal and physical interactions. They learn language, how to walk, and about their environment from their parents, siblings, and other members of the family. Later on, they are taught societal norms, morals, ethics, and general skills to survive and thrive in their surroundings. It has been observed that feral children, children raised without significant levels of human interaction ,have difficulties in acquiring language and socializing in general. This has been recorded in studies of feral children such as Victor of Aveyron and more recently Genie. Both experienced difficulties in acquiring verbal language after years of neglect, and isolation from human contact. On a very functional level, family fulfills the purpose of teaching basic skills that are integral for a child to become a functional member of