However, it is not to say that the parents did not also hold traditional views on what a family should be defined as. Both of the parents wanted to protect their children, just like how Grandma Donna would focus on her family and devote her life to taking care of them. Furthermore, Rosemary’s mother was very depressed after losing both Fern and Lowell. Rosemary reveals, “I’ll just say that Mom took Lowell’s disappearance hard, worse even than when we lost Fern, and leave it at that. I didn’t have the words for what it did to her. She’s never even managed to pretend to recover.” (Fowler 152). This ties into the “old-school” concept of Grandma Donna giving herself up to nurture her kids. When Rosemary’s mother lost her kids, she also lost a large
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From Grandma Donna and Rosemary’s parents’ perspectives, a traditional family was comprised of a working father, housekeeping mother, and several children. However, the general view on family changes as Rosemary and Lowell are growing up in the late twentieth century. Children are being raised in new types of environments within this time period, with different variations of parents redefining what it means to be a family. Single parents, homosexual couples, and interracial couples are all examples of variations in parenting that emerged in the United States around this era. Society as a whole needed to adjust to and accept the diversity in familial traditions. Rosemary sees “traditional families” around her everywhere, but she does not feel the same connection to her family as her peers feel with theirs. The structure of Rosemary’s family is considered normal on the outside, but there is something that does not hit home when Rosemary acknowledges her own kinship. The complication with Rosemary’s situation is that she truly considered Fern as a part of her family––they were considered twin sisters. Letting an unconventional member into the family was difficult for the elder generation to accept. It was easier for her parents’ generation to embrace because of their more liberal outlook, but it gave Rosemary and Lowell their own vision …show more content…
It does not mean everything is perfect and where things should be, but the diversity of culture and acceptance of it is increasing every year. One specific example of how the social norm of a family has changed in the twenty-first century would be the change in marriage equality. Conservatives typically define marriage as an institution strictly between a man and a woman. During June of 2015, the Supreme Court ruled to terminate the ban on same-sex marriage, which combats the conservative view that the elder generation of the book holds. Looking back at the dictionary definition of ‘family’, it fails to acknowledge same-sex couples as a ‘family’ because they do not have children and cannot be parents. In 2015, the concept of family changed drastically with new cultures being acknowledged. There is, and almost always has been, a heavy emphasis on tying family and marriage together. As a result of the gay rights movement in the twenty-first century, the dictionary definition of marriage has been changed. The definition now properly acknowledges same-sex couples as pairs that can get married, which in turn, challenges the “typical American family” social construct and shows that the image of a typical family is an idea is constantly being redefined and
From Grandma Donna and Rosemary’s parents’ perspectives, a traditional family was comprised of a working father, housekeeping mother, and several children. However, the general view on family changes as Rosemary and Lowell are growing up in the late twentieth century. Children are being raised in new types of environments within this time period, with different variations of parents redefining what it means to be a family. Single parents, homosexual couples, and interracial couples are all examples of variations in parenting that emerged in the United States around this era. Society as a whole needed to adjust to and accept the diversity in familial traditions. Rosemary sees “traditional families” around her everywhere, but she does not feel the same connection to her family as her peers feel with theirs. The structure of Rosemary’s family is considered normal on the outside, but there is something that does not hit home when Rosemary acknowledges her own kinship. The complication with Rosemary’s situation is that she truly considered Fern as a part of her family––they were considered twin sisters. Letting an unconventional member into the family was difficult for the elder generation to accept. It was easier for her parents’ generation to embrace because of their more liberal outlook, but it gave Rosemary and Lowell their own vision …show more content…
It does not mean everything is perfect and where things should be, but the diversity of culture and acceptance of it is increasing every year. One specific example of how the social norm of a family has changed in the twenty-first century would be the change in marriage equality. Conservatives typically define marriage as an institution strictly between a man and a woman. During June of 2015, the Supreme Court ruled to terminate the ban on same-sex marriage, which combats the conservative view that the elder generation of the book holds. Looking back at the dictionary definition of ‘family’, it fails to acknowledge same-sex couples as a ‘family’ because they do not have children and cannot be parents. In 2015, the concept of family changed drastically with new cultures being acknowledged. There is, and almost always has been, a heavy emphasis on tying family and marriage together. As a result of the gay rights movement in the twenty-first century, the dictionary definition of marriage has been changed. The definition now properly acknowledges same-sex couples as pairs that can get married, which in turn, challenges the “typical American family” social construct and shows that the image of a typical family is an idea is constantly being redefined and