essay on types of family

11 Types of Family in Sociology (Family Structure Examples)

A family is a group of people related to one another by kinship. More precisely, kinship is a set of socially recognized ties between persons that exist because of their connection by birth or marriage (Firth et al., 1970/2006, p. 3).

Sociologists generally identify the following types of families:

• Nuclear or conjugal (a wife, a husband, and their children),
• matrifocal (a mother and her children),
• patrifocal (a father and his children), and
• extended families (parents, grandparents, children, aunts, uncles, and so on).

In addition to these, there are also:

• patriarchal (male-led),
• matriarchal (female-led),
• blended (mixed parent),
• egalitarian (equal),
• compound (three or more spouses and their children),
• joint families.

This article will focus on the eight most common types of families. These are the nuclear, extended, blended compound, patriarchal, matriarchal, egalitarian , and single-parent families.

Family Structures in Sociology

Historically, most human societies are built around family structures, which are believed to be the building blocks of a society.

One of the most important studies of the sociology of the family, Family: Socialization, and Interaction Process (Bales & Parsons, 1955/2014), claims that a sociological approach to families should construe them not simply as natural entities but as social systems.

In sociology and anthropology , it is common to classify family organizations into different categories.

8 Types of Family in Sociology

1. nuclear family.

A conjugal or nuclear family is one of the most common in society. It comprises a married heterosexual couple and their young children living by themselves.

Some sociologists, such as George P. Murdock, consider this type of structure a universal one (Murdock, 1949). He attributes this to the efficiency of the nuclear family. According to Murdock, such families are very good at regulating sexual relationships, reproducing, and socializing children.

The advantages of a nuclear family structure might be mobility and economic independence. Some have even claimed that nuclear families are becoming more and more egalitarian.

This thesis is often rejected by feminist authors who claim that the main disadvantage of such a structure is its oppressive nature (Barthel, 1994, p. 174).

A famous example of a nuclear family would be the pastor’s family from Michael Haneke’s 2009 movie The White Ribbon . The family consists of a father, a mother, and their children.

2. Extended Family

Extended families consist of parents, children, and other relatives such as grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, and so on.

This was the most widespread family structure in preindustrial societies and continues to be as common in contemporary ones (Murdock & White, 1969). Particular forms of an extended family include stem and joint families.

A greater sense of security and belonging might be the main advantage of an extended family. Extended family members tend to gather for family events and provide support for each other. The main disadvantage of such a structure is that membership entails greater responsibilities toward a larger number of people.

A famous example of an extended family would be the fictional Compson family from William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury . The family consists of grandparents, parents, children, and their children.

3. Reconstituted (Blended) Family

A reconstructed or blended family, also known as a stepfamily, is a family where at least one parent has children that are not biologically related to the other parent.

Both parents can also have children from previous relationships. These types of families, therefore, can be further divided into two types:

• Simple reconstituted families and
• Complex reconstituted families.

Families in which only one parent has a prior child or children belong to the former category, while those in which both parents have prior children belong to the latter category.

Such families involve some serious challenges. Parents who constantly fight their ex-spouse tend to put mental and emotional stress on their children, while parents who do not tend to make their current spouse insecure and anxious (DeAngelis, 2005).

A famous example of a blended or reconstructed family would be the family from Wes Anderson’s 2001 movie The Royal Tenenbaums .

4. Compound Family

A compound family is a type of structure that consists of three or more spouses and their children. It is, of course, characteristic of polygamous societies, but it can also arise in monogamous ones through a second marriage.

In the latter case, a compound family is a form of a reconstituted or a blended family and can be either simple or complex.

A famous example of a compound family is the one from the 2009 movie A Serious Man by the Cohen brothers. The family consists of a husband, a wife, their children, and the wife’s soon-to-be new husband.

5. Patriarchal Family

A patriarchal family is one in which the father or a male has absolute authority over the family.

Patriarchal societies and families have historically been very common, but contemporary anthropologists and sociologists believe that it is not the cultural universal as it was once thought to be (Britannica, 2022).

Shulamith Firestone, for example, believed that the family contained within itself all the antagonisms that later develop on a wider scale in society, which is why she believed that patriarchal family structures should be uprooted (Firestone, 1970).

A famous example of a patriarchal family in a contemporary setting is the family from Terrence Malick’s 2011 movie The Tree of Life .

6. Matriarchal Family

A matriarchal family is one in which the mother or a female has absolute authority over the family.

These kinds of structures are rarer than patriarchal ones, but they have existed across history and continue to exist today. Others classify some egalitarian families as matriarchal (Lepowsky, 1993).

A famous example of a matriarchal family is the family from Federico García Lorca’s 1936 play The House of Bernarda Alba . The family consists of a matriarchal widow and her five children.

7. Egalitarian Family

Although it is debatable whether or not strictly egalitarian families exist, they are defined as those families in which fathers and mothers share authority equally.

They are more typical of post-industrial Western societies, but relatively egalitarian families exist outside of those countries as well. This type of family structure is becoming more and more common across the globe.

An example of a relatively egalitarian family might be the family from the 2021 TV series Scenes from a Marriage .

8. Single Parent Family

Single-parent or one-parent families differ from nuclear families in that they consist only of one parent and their child or children.

Rising divorce rates contribute to the growth of this type of family structure, but single-parent families have been quite common throughout most of human history (Murdock & White, 1969).

A famous example of a single-parent family is the one from the 2001 movie I Am Sam. In the movie, a man has to raise his daughter alone.

The Role of Families in Society

The role that family structures play in society can hardly be overstated. Émile Durkheim, one of the most important theorists concerning the sociology of the family and sociology in general, thought that family structures served several vital functions in societies (Durkheim, 1888/2002).

Functionalists stress how the family as a social institution sustains societies (Turner, 2006, pp. 189-195). These functions include the socialization of children, regulation of sexual activity, provision of social identities, provision of support, and intergenerational reproduction of cultural values .

A family is one of the most fundamental structures in society. Some form of the family has existed in virtually every society we know about (Starbuck, 2010).

Nevertheless, not all families are alike. Many different types of families have existed and continue to exist today. All types of families can more or less successfully fulfill their functions. In this article, we began with a general definition and then discussed the eight most common types of family structures.

Bales, R. F., & Parsons, T. (2014). Family: Socialization and Interaction Process . Routledge. (Original work published 1955)

Barthel, D. L. (1994). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Sociology . Oxford University Press.

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2022, September 7). patriarchy. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/patriarchy

DeAngelis, T. (2005, December 1). Stepfamily success depends on ingredients. Monitor on Psychology , 36 (11). https://www.apa.org/monitor/dec05/stepfamily

Durkheim, É. (2002). Introduction à la sociologie de la famille: Fonctions sociales et institutions . J.-M. Tremblay. (Original work published 1888)

Firestone, S. (1970). The Dialectic of Sex . Quill.

Firth, H., Forge, A., & Hubert, J. (2006). Families and their Relatives . Routledge. (Original work published 1970)

Lepowsky, M. A. (1993). Fruit of the Motherland: Gender in an Egalitarian Society . Columbia University Press.

Murdock, G. P. (1949). Social Structure . Macmillan Company.

Murdock, G. P., & White, D. R. (1969). Standard cross-cultural sample. Ethnology, 8 , 329–369.

Starbuck, G. H. (2010). Families in context (2nd ed.). Paradigm.

Turner, B. S. (2006). The Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology . Cambridge University Press.

Chris Drew (PhD)

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3 thoughts on “11 Types of Family in Sociology (Family Structure Examples)”

Hey Chris! Don’t forget adoption in your family definition. Sociologists define family as people related by biology, marriage, or adoption.

Agreed. Thanks for the contribution Laura.

This information was helpful to me, and not only that, it is well analized and detailed in a way that anyone can easily understand the content of the work.

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Essay about Family: What It Is and How to Nail It

Humans naturally seek belonging within families, finding comfort in knowing someone always cares. Yet, families can also stir up insecurities and mental health struggles.

Family dynamics continue to intrigue researchers across different fields. Every year, new studies explore how these relationships shape our minds and emotions.

In this article, our dissertation service will guide you through writing a family essay. You can also dive into our list of topics for inspiration and explore some standout examples to spark your creativity.

What is Family Essay

A family essay takes a close look at the bonds and experiences within families. It's a common academic assignment, especially in subjects like sociology, psychology, and literature.

So, what's involved exactly? Simply put, it's an exploration of what family signifies to you. You might reflect on cherished family memories or contemplate the portrayal of families in various media.

What sets a family essay apart is its personal touch. It allows you to express your own thoughts and experiences. Moreover, it's versatile – you can analyze family dynamics, reminisce about family customs, or explore other facets of familial life.

If you're feeling uncertain about how to write an essay about family, don't worry; you can explore different perspectives and select topics that resonate with various aspects of family life.

Tips For Writing An Essay On Family Topics

A family essay typically follows a free-form style, unless specified otherwise, and adheres to the classic 5-paragraph structure. As you jot down your thoughts, aim to infuse your essay with inspiration and the essence of creative writing, unless your family essay topics lean towards complexity or science.

Here are some easy-to-follow tips from our essay service experts:

• Focus on a Specific Aspect: Instead of a broad overview, delve into a specific angle that piques your interest, such as exploring how birth order influences sibling dynamics or examining the evolving role of grandparents in modern families.
• Share Personal Anecdotes: Start your family essay introduction with a personal touch by sharing stories from your own experiences. Whether it's about a favorite tradition, a special trip, or a tough time, these stories make your writing more interesting.
• Use Real-life Examples: Illustrate your points with concrete examples or anecdotes. Draw from sources like movies, books, historical events, or personal interviews to bring your ideas to life.
• Explore Cultural Diversity: Consider the diverse array of family structures across different cultures. Compare traditional values, extended family systems, or the unique hurdles faced by multicultural families.
• Take a Stance: Engage with contentious topics such as homeschooling, reproductive technologies, or governmental policies impacting families. Ensure your arguments are supported by solid evidence.
• Delve into Psychology: Explore the psychological underpinnings of family dynamics, touching on concepts like attachment theory, childhood trauma, or patterns of dysfunction within families.
• Emphasize Positivity: Share uplifting stories of families overcoming adversity or discuss strategies for nurturing strong, supportive family bonds.
• Offer Practical Solutions: Wrap up your essay by proposing actionable solutions to common family challenges, such as fostering better communication, achieving work-life balance, or advocating for family-friendly policies.

Family Essay Topics

When it comes to writing, essay topics about family are often considered easier because we're intimately familiar with our own families. The more you understand about your family dynamics, traditions, and experiences, the clearer your ideas become.

If you're feeling uninspired or unsure of where to start, don't worry! Below, we have compiled a list of good family essay topics to help get your creative juices flowing. Whether you're assigned this type of essay or simply want to explore the topic, these suggestions from our history essay writer are tailored to spark your imagination and prompt meaningful reflection on different aspects of family life.

So, take a moment to peruse the list. Choose the essay topics about family that resonate most with you. Then, dive in and start exploring your family's stories, traditions, and connections through your writing.

• Supporting Family Through Tough Times
• Staying Connected with Relatives
• Empathy and Compassion in Family Life
• Strengthening Bonds Through Family Gatherings
• Quality Time with Family: How Vital Is It?
• Navigating Family Relationships Across Generations
• Learning Kindness and Generosity in a Large Family
• Communication in Healthy Family Dynamics
• Forgiveness in Family Conflict Resolution
• Building Trust Among Extended Family
• Defining Family in Today's World
• Understanding Nuclear Family: Various Views and Cultural Differences
• Understanding Family Dynamics: Relationships Within the Family Unit
• What Defines a Family Member?
• Modernizing the Nuclear Family Concept
• Exploring Shared Beliefs Among Family Members
• Evolution of the Concept of Family Love Over Time
• Examining Family Expectations
• Modern Standards and the Idea of an Ideal Family
• Life Experiences and Perceptions of Family Life
• Genetics and Extended Family Connections
• Utilizing Family Trees for Ancestral Links
• The Role of Younger Siblings in Family Dynamics
• Tracing Family History Through Oral Tradition and Genealogy
• Tracing Family Values Through Your Family Tree
• Exploring Your Elder Sister's Legacy in the Family Tree
• Connecting Daily Habits to Family History
• Documenting and Preserving Your Family's Legacy
• Navigating Online Records and DNA Testing for Family History
• Tradition as a Tool for Family Resilience
• Involving Family in Daily Life to Maintain Traditions
• Creating New Traditions for a Small Family
• The Role of Traditions in Family Happiness
• Family Recipes and Bonding at House Parties
• Quality Time: The Secret Tradition for Family Happiness
• The Joy of Cousins Visiting for Christmas
• Including Family in Birthday Celebrations
• Balancing Traditions and Unconditional Love
• Building Family Bonds Through Traditions

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Family Essay Example

For a better grasp of the essay on family, our team of skilled writers has crafted a great example. It looks into the subject matter, allowing you to explore and understand the intricacies involved in creating compelling family essays. So, check out our meticulously crafted sample to discover how to craft essays that are not only well-written but also thought-provoking and impactful.

Final Outlook

In wrapping up, let's remember: a family essay gives students a chance to showcase their academic skills and creativity by sharing personal stories. However, it's important to stick to academic standards when writing about these topics. We hope our list of topics sparked your creativity and got you on your way to a reflective journey. And if you hit a rough patch, you can just ask us to ' do my essay for me ' for top-notch results!

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FAQs on Writing an Essay about Family

Family essays seem like something school children could be assigned at elementary schools, but family is no less important than climate change for our society today, and therefore it is one of the most central research themes.

Below you will find a list of frequently asked questions on family-related topics. Before you conduct research, scroll through them and find out how to write an essay about your family.

How to Write an Essay About Your Family History?

How to write an essay about a family member, how to write an essay about family and roots, how to write an essay about the importance of family, related articles.

Six Family Types and Their Unique Dynamics

Different family types are not only common but also much more accepted than they were in the past. It's not uncommon to be raised by a single mother or be part of a mixed family. Each family type (there are six main ones that people agree on) has a unique family dynamic. 

Learning about your family type and thinking about how it affects your family dynamic can help bring you clarity about your family challenges or give you insight into the process of going through a big shift in your family structure. Looking at family type and dynamics can also give you a better idea of the strengths and weaknesses that your family is likely working with. 

Some people may also choose to begin  parenting classes  or  online therapy  to deepen their understanding of family dynamics.

Six different family types and their unique family dynamics

Though the exact definition of a family depends largely on individual interpretations and cultural norms, there are some sources that define at least six unique family types that follow their own set of dynamics and structures.

1. Nuclear family

Nuclear families, also known as  elementary  or traditional families, consist of two parents (usually married or common law) and their children. Nuclear families typically have one or more children; they may be biological or adopted, but the main idea is that the parents are raising their kids together in the family home.

Nuclear families can be strong and successful, with both parents being great examples for their kids. These kids often have many advantages over other families with less, which can help them get ahead in life. However, like any family, nuclear families have their struggles to face. For example, if parents shut out grandparents and other extended family, chances are their support system will not be strong and getting through hard times can be challenging.

Strengths of nuclear families

• Financially stable, both parents usually work now
• Children raised in a stable parenting situation
• Consistency
• Emphasis on health and education
• Focus on communication

Weaknesses of nuclear families

• Exclusion of extended family can lead to isolation and stress
• Can struggle with conflict resolution
• Nuclear families can become too child-focused, resulting in self-centered children and families neglecting other important things

2. Single parent

Single-parent families consist of one parent with one or more kids. In these cases, the parent either never married, widowed, or divorced. A paper by Ellwood, D.T., and Jencks, C. (2004) talks about how single-parent families have been on the rise since the 1960s when divorce rates started going up (and so did births happening out of wedlock). They suggest that these changes could be due to many different factors, from leaving behind outdated gender roles to feeling comfortable being independent and achieving the goal of raising a child, regardless of the presence of a spouse or not.

Someone who is  single parenting and raising kids alone is not that uncommon anymore, and like any other family type, single-parent homes have their pros and cons. Being a single parent raising kids can be hard. It can also be hard being a kid when your parents are split up or if you grew up only knowing one parent. In this situation, families need to make the best of what they have and rely on each other for love and support. 

Strengths of single-parent families

• Family can become very close
• Learn to household duties
• Children and parents can become very resilient

Weaknesses of single-parent families

• Families may have difficulty getting by on one income
• It can be difficult for single parents to work full-time and still afford quality childcare

3. Extended family

While most people in the U.S. would identify nuclear families as being the "traditional" family type, in different cultures, extended families are much more common and have been around for hundreds of years. Extended families are families with two or more adults who are related through blood or marriage, usually along with children. This often includes aunts, uncles, cousins, or other relatives living under the same roof.

Typically, extended families live together for social support and to achieve common goals. For example, parents may live with their children and their children's grandparents. This gives the family the ability to provide care for their elderly, and in turn, the grandparents may be able to help with childcare while the parents are at work.

In North America, extended families living together isn't that common, but it does happen occasionally. What's nice about extended families is how close they can be and how they give each other a lot of support. That doesn't mean that so much family living together is always easy, though. There can be differences in opinion in extended families, and some people might live this way because they are obligated, not because they want to.

Strengths of extended families

• Things like respect and care for the elderly are important
• More family around to help with chores, child care, in case of emergencies, etc.
• Social support

Weaknesses of extended families

• Financial issues can occur if parents are supporting several other adults and children without any extra income
• Lack of secludedness depending on the living environment

4. Childless family

Childless families are families with two partners who cannot have or don't want kids. In the world of family types and dynamics, these families are often forgotten or left out (even though you can still have a family without children). In the past, growing up, getting married, and having children was the norm, but in today's world, more people are choosing to postpone having children or deciding not to have any.

These unique families include working couples who may have pets or enjoy taking on other people's kids (like nieces and nephews) for the day occasionally rather than having their own. They could also be adventurous couples who don't feel like kids would be a good fit for their lifestyle. These relationships can be between wife and husband, husband and husband, wife and wife, or partner and partner.

The decision of whether to have kids is a difficult and highly personal one. Having kids isn't for everyone, and some families do great without them. Still, it's important to remember that some childless families are not childless because they want to be. Be kind before you assume about someone's family unit, as a number of people may be in a childless family due to infertility, or have sensitivity regarding the topic of children in general.

Strengths of childless families

• Typically have more disposable income
• No dependents to take care of
• Have more freedom to travel, go on adventures, pursue different careers or education
• Couples get to spend more time together

Weaknesses of childless families

Couples can feel isolated or left out when all their friends/family start having kids

If you like kids, you can feel like something is missing

Infertility can force a family to be childless, which can be hard for couples

5. Stepfamily

A stepfamily is when two separate families merge into one. This can go several different ways, like two divorced parents with one or more children blending families, or one divorced parent with kids marrying someone who has never been married and has no kids.

Like single-parent families, step-families have become more common over the years. Like all these different family types, stepfamilies also have a unique set of strengths and weaknesses that they need to deal with.

Going from a nuclear or single-parent family to a stepfamily can be a tough transition. It can be hard letting new people into your family dynamic, especially welcoming in a whole other family. Over time though, some children will come to accept their stepparents and step-siblings as part of the family and form strong bonds. This often also requires co-parenting of adoptive kids and can increase the number of people each partner has to look after or care for in the family unit. 

Co-parenting is somewhat different from  parallel parenting . Even if both procedures allow both parents to be in charge of custody and parental obligations, co-parenting entails cooperation, plenty of communication, and a collaborative approach to parenting, compared to parallel parenting wherein there's limited direct contact with each other. Step-grand-parents might also be involved in this dynamic, as there are many variations and a wide spread of how far a stepfamily can go.

Strengths of stepfamilies

• Children get the benefit of having two parents around
• Children and their new siblings or step-parents can form strong bonds
• The benefit of having two incomes compared to single-parent families

Weaknesses of stepfamilies

• Adjustment can be difficult for parents and children
• Parents can run into problems trying to discipline each other's kids
• May lack discipline or be inconsistent

6. Grandparent family

The final family type is the grandparent family. A grandparent family is when one or more grandparent is raising their grandchild or grandchildren. While uncommon, according to the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy , grandparent-headed families are on the rise. They that, "Census study indicate that in the United States approximately 2.4 million grandparents are raising 4.5 million children."

This situation happens when the parents aren't around to take care of their kids or are incapable of properly taking care of their kids. For example, the parents might be incarcerated, too young to provide, may have a substance use disorder, or possibly due to the parent’s death. Thankfully, in these situations, the grandparents step up and act as parents to their grandchildren. This family unit can happen regardless of being wealthy, poor, or middle-class. 

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It can be hard for grandparents to raise their grandchildren. In most cases, they probably thought they were done raising kids and might not have the health and energy to do so. Still, when needed, many grandparents step up and do what's needed. 

Strengths of grandparent families

• Grandparents and grandchildren form a close bond
• Keeps children from ending up in foster homes or other situations

Weaknesses of grandparent families

• Grandparents may not work or have full-time jobs, may struggle with income
• Depending on their health, it may be difficult for them to keep up with young children or discipline them as they get older

Online therapy can be an especially good option for families for whom travel is difficult or who would rather meet in the comfort of their home to discuss their concerns and work together to improve their family dynamics. Research suggests that online therapy is just as effective as its in-person counterpart for a range of concerns and treatments, meaning that you don’t have to compromise on the quality of your care for its convenience.

Whether you are in a same-sex family, have  interracial relationship history , a binuclear family, a multigenerational family unit, or have parents who are polyamorous, have a large family, or have a small one, each family is unique in its own way.

What are the ten family structures?

There are various types of family structures. Examples of ten family structures include nuclear, single-parent, extended, childless, stepfamily, grandparent, same-sex, polyamorous, binuclear, and multigenerational families. Each structure has different dynamics and characteristics that are generally determined by the relationships or roles within the family. 

What is the most common family type?

The most common family type is the nuclear family, which consists of two parents (married or common law) and their children. This family structure is traditionally seen as the standard and is still the default family type in many societies. However, cultural and societal changes are leading to other types of families that are becoming more common.

What is the rarest family structure?

The rarest family structure could be considered the polyamorous family, in which adults have consensual romantic relationships with multiple partners. This structure is less common due to legal, cultural, and social norms that typically promote monogamous relationships. Its rarity may also come from how complex and challenging it can be to have multiple romantic partnerships at the same time.

What is the ideal family type?

There is no universally ideal family type, as each family structure has strengths and challenges. The ideal family type can also differ on a cultural, societal, and personal level. However, one of the key aspects of a functional family is a loving, supportive environment where family members feel valued and connected.

Are bigger families more dysfunctional?

Bigger families are not inherently more dysfunctional. Problems can occur in families of any size and can arise due to unhealthy communication and a lack of support. For this reason, healthy family dynamics depend more on the quality of relationships and effective communication than on the size of the family.

What is a chaotic family?

A chaotic family might be characterized by a lack of structure, inconsistent routines, and unpredictable behavior. In a chaotic environment, family members may experience more stress and confusion. Chaos in the family may also lead to emotional and psychological problems.

Are poorer families happier?

A family’s financial status is not the sole predictor of their happiness. While poorer families may experience financial challenges, they may also have strong bonds and high levels of emotional support, which may bring some level of happiness. However, limited family income may directly affect emotional well-being . 

What is the happiest family structure?

The happiest family structure varies based on preferences, relationship dynamics, and culture. In general, family members that feel loved, respected, and supported report higher levels of happiness. This can occur in any family structure, as long as there are positive relationships and effective communication .

How many siblings make kids happiest?

There is no set number of siblings that guarantees happiness for kids. Happiness in sibling relationships depends more on the quality of the relationships rather than the quantity of siblings. For example, a child with one supportive sibling may be happier than a child with several siblings but poor relationships.

What is the best age gap between siblings?

The best sibling age gap can differ based on family circumstances and personal preferences. Some reports suggest that a two-to-four-year gap may be beneficial, allowing parents to devote individual attention to each child while maintaining a relatively close age for siblings to bond. However, every family is different, and the ideal age gap depends on various factors, including individual preferences and family dynamics.

• Birth Order Theory: Insights Into Your Personality Medically reviewed by Karen Foster , LPC
• How Domestic Violence Impacts Society Medically reviewed by Melissa Guarnaccia , LCSW
• Relationships and Relations

Types of Family Structure

This essay about the various types of family structures explores the evolution and diversity of family forms beyond the traditional nuclear model. It details the nuclear family, known for its direct blood relations, and the extended family, which includes multiple generations living together or in close contact. The essay also discusses single-parent families, which have increased due to various societal changes, and childless families, where couples choose not to have children. Additionally, it covers blended families, formed by merging two families from previous relationships, and same-sex families, highlighting their challenges and societal contributions. Each family type is presented with its unique dynamics and challenges, emphasizing that all configurations offer support and stability, which are crucial for societal well-being.

How it works

Family configurations have undergone substantial metamorphosis across epochs, adapting to broader societal metamorphoses, economic exigencies, and cultural vicissitudes. The traditional nuclear family, delineated by two progenitors and their biological progeny cohabiting under one domicile, has been augmented by an array of paradigms that defy the conventional family archetype. Profoundly comprehending these divergent familial structures is paramount in apprehending the myriad arrangements prevalent in contemporary society.

Among the most renowned forms is the nuclear family, traditionally perceived as a bastion of social equilibrium in myriad cultures.

This archetype commonly entails progenitors and offspring, emphasizing consanguinity and legal adoptions. Esteemed for its equilibrium and capacity to foster a nurturing milieu for childrearing, the nuclear family is emblematic of familial stability.

In stark contrast, the extended family construct encompasses kin beyond the immediate nuclear unit, incorporating grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, either cohabiting or maintaining intimate bonds. Ubiquitous in numerous regions worldwide, particularly in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, communal dwelling and collective familial obligations are culturally underscored. Extended families frequently pool resources, furnishing an intergenerational support nexus.

The rise of single-parent families constitutes another conspicuous trend. This configuration entails a sole progenitor nurturing one or more offspring autonomously. The upsurge in single-parent households can be attributed to diverse factors, including escalating divorce rates, a surge in extramarital births, and the decision of solitary individuals to embrace parenthood via adoption or assisted reproductive technologies. Despite the hurdles associated with single parenthood, such households persevere, providing affectionate and supportive environments for progeny.

Childless households, comprising couples who opt against progeny, also warrant acknowledgment. These families may prioritize dual-professional trajectories, personal autonomy, or expansive networks of comrades and community. The choice to eschew childbearing garners mounting societal acceptance, acknowledging that familial contentment can stem from varied relational dynamics sans offspring.

Another discernible family paradigm is the blended family, precipitated by the amalgamation of two antecedently disjointed individuals embarking on a communal existence, either bringing progeny from former unions or conceiving new offspring jointly. Negotiating intricate relationships involving step-siblings and step-parents typifies this arrangement. Blended families proffer enriching familial encounters through extended relationships and amalgamated lifestyles.

Same-sex families, wherein offspring are nurtured by homosexual partners, are gaining increasing acknowledgment and legal sanction globally. Despite contending with distinctive societal hurdles, these families provide nurturing environs akin to their heterosexual counterparts. The burgeoning visibility and embrace of same-sex parenting have expanded conventional family paradigms, challenging traditional mores and enriching societal fabric.

Each familial archetype entails its unique dynamics and impediments. Whether navigating the labyrinthine interrelations within blended families, confronting societal stigmatization occasionally encountered by single progenitors and same-sex families, or fostering intimate bonds in extended kin, these diverse configurations exemplify the adaptability and intricacy intrinsic to familial dynamics. The evolving definition of family is indelibly shaped by societal transformations and the exigencies and principles of individuals, underscoring the pivotal role of families, irrespective of structure, in furnishing succor, constancy, and affection, indispensable for the well-being of their constituents and society at large.

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The Families We Choose

Reviewed by Psychology Today Staff

Family is what you make it to be. You don’t need flesh and blood to make close kinships. A family can be formed in many ways: partners with no children, close platonic roommates, a man and his dog, good neighbors, grandparents or aunts or uncles raising children. Fifty years ago, 88 percent of kids under age 18 lived in a nuclear two-parent family, that figure is currently about 69 percent. The best family for you is the family that you choose.

Today, you do not need marriage or kids to make a family . In fact, in more recent decades, the holiday dinner table holds more than just blood relatives; and sometimes, there are no blood relatives in attendance, whatsoever. The face of the modern family has changed dramatically.

On This Page

• When Friends Are Family
• The Childfree Family
• When Pets Are Family

Who doesn’t consider close friends to be family? Friends are a cornerstone of healthy relationships and the bedrock of our social support systems. When you have a friend, you are both offering to be a part of each other’s support network. Close friends are the people who are there for you during times of need; they drop everything to come to your aid. We often prefer friends over family, they are less judgmental and less likely to bombard you with their morals and values. Some people will even argue that their friends know them better than their family.

Sometimes family relationships are tainted by seriousness, negativity, and a sense of obligation. But with friendship, blame and shame don’t rear their ugly heads as much. If you have negative feelings about a friend, then why would you bother with that person? With friendship, there should be more lightness and positivity. We pick our friends and they pick us, that complement brings an affection that makes us feel secure and valued.

Flesh and blood family members aren’t always willing to be up front with us about certain things. Why would they be? We’re not always willing to hear what a family member has to say; we bristle and are defensive with their feedback. Having close friends may offset this dynamic. We’re often more willing to take a friend’s commentary, which can impact and help how we relate to our family relationships.

Close friendships are based on reciprocity. If you repeatedly fail to show up when you’re needed, and depending on how great your friend’s need may be, your value within this network will decline. Don’t be surprised if she fails to show up for you, either. Friendships are built on mutuality and reciprocity , if you are there for her, she will be there for you. Like family.

According to research from Michigan State University, older people are healthier and live longer when they have a close network of friends . Essentially, when it comes to longevity, friends can matter more than family. And if that friend lived nearby, one’s health and happiness increased by 25 percent.

Increasingly, people consider a childless household to be a family unit. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of adults living without children has increased by 19 percent between 1967 and 2017 and they define family as a “group of two people or more, related by birth, marriage, or adoption and residing together." And research from Indiana University supports this perception: Researchers found that 92 percent of people surveyed viewed a husband and wife without kids as family.

Research from Indiana University found that respondents perceive childfree men and women as less fulfilled, and even immoral when compared with people who have children. Childfree women who have chosen not to have children  are often unfairly labeled self-centered and shallow.  SImilarly, people misjudge and marginalize men without children, labeling them as commitment phobes. The reality is in fact very different.

There is no clear answer here, but people who have children are more likely to suffer depression than people who do not have children, according to research from Florida State University. While there is a bump in marital quality when kids leave for college, parents tend to carry their anxieties through the empty nest stage, and they continue to worry about their adult children ’s health and well-being in later life.

A Danish study found that infertile couples were more than three times as likely to get divorced as couples who have children. However, many couples who cannot have children do stay together. A UK study found that a huge contributor to the happiness of childfree couples is simple relationship maintenance—making the time to talk and share experiences and common interests.

Whether partners are childfree by choice or childless involuntarily, researchers are starting to pay attention to this category. One study that appeared in the Wiley journal  Sociology Compass, " Doing Family Without Having Kids," found that these adults can create bonds that mirror the fulfilling aspects of having children.

What is a pet’s place within a family? In one study, dog owners were asked to complete what is called the family life space diagram, in which symbols representing family members and dogs are placed within a drawn circle representing one’s life space. In 38 percent of the diagrams, the family dog was placed closer to the self than other family members. Other studies of a pet’s place within a family constellation have similar results: pets are often found close to the center—again, closer even than human family members.

If the animal’s presence is inconvenient, the animal is often ejected from the family system . As anthropologist Dafna Shir-Vertesh notes, animals are “flexible persons” or “emotional commodities.” They are persons when we want them to be, and when we tire of them or they create tension in a family or we are moving house, they are demoted to being “just a pet.”

In some parts of the world, Wuhan China for one, pets have been abandoned because families had to leave their homes. In other places, such as in the U.S., people lost jobs and people were asked to work from home and quarantine. The adoption of dogs and cats has increased at a record pace in 2020. In fact, animal shelters around the country have been reporting difficulties in keeping up with the demand for animals. Animal enthusiasts, however, worry about post-pandemic treatment of pets.

Participants in a study on pets and the people who care for them found that more women than men considered themselves parents to their pets . This may change after the birth of children. Here, again, we see a flexible sense of personhood, in which the treatment and regard of a pet shifts as a result of changes in circumstances and the overall family dynamic.

Your pet cannot legally be a beneficiary of your assets. However, you can create a trust for your pet. This will ensure that your pet is cared for after you die. Between 100,000 to 500,000 animals end up in shelters after the death of their owner-pet parent, according to the Humane Society of the U.S.

A Personal Perspective: So many childhood recollections began and ended with my father’s coffee and his teaching me to love this beverage.

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These "scapegoats" are often the most resilient, courageous, and admirable members of their families.

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Minimize children's stress by considering their age, the relationship and level of conflict between the parents, and the distance between the two homes.

The DBT House Rules offer guidelines for creating a loving, supportive home. Use validation strategies to build a home culture of kindness, understanding, and respect.

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Article contents

Family, culture, and communication.

• V. Santiago Arias V. Santiago Arias College of Media and Communication, Texas Tech University
•  and  Narissra Maria Punyanunt-Carter Narissra Maria Punyanunt-Carter College of Media and Communication, Texas Tech University
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.504
• Published online: 22 August 2017

Through the years, the concept of family has been studied by family therapists, psychology scholars, and sociologists with a diverse theoretical framework, such as family communication patterns (FCP) theory, dyadic power theory, conflict, and family systems theory. Among these theories, there are two main commonalities throughout its findings: the interparental relationship is the core interaction in the familial system because the quality of their communication or coparenting significantly affects the enactment of the caregiver role while managing conflicts, which are not the exception in the familial setting. Coparenting is understood in its broader sense to avoid an extensive discussion of all type of families in our society. Second, while including the main goal of parenting, which is the socialization of values, this process intrinsically suggests cultural assimilation as the main cultural approach rather than intergroup theory, because intercultural marriages need to decide which values are considered the best to be socialized. In order to do so, examples from the Thai culture and Hispanic and Latino cultures served to show cultural assimilation as an important mediator of coparenting communication patterns, which subsequently affect other subsystems that influence individuals’ identity and self-esteem development in the long run. Finally, future directions suggest that the need for incorporating a nonhegemonic one-way definition of cultural assimilation allows immigration status to be brought into the discussion of family communication issues in the context of one of the most diverse countries in the world.

• parental communication
• dyadic power
• family communication systems
• cultural assimilation

Introduction

Family is the fundamental structure of every society because, among other functions, this social institution provides individuals, from birth until adulthood, membership and sense of belonging, economic support, nurturance, education, and socialization (Canary & Canary, 2013 ). As a consequence, the strut of its social role consists of operating as a system in a manner that would benefit all members of a family while achieving what is considered best, where decisions tend to be coherent, at least according to the norms and roles assumed by family members within the system (Galvin, Bylund, & Brommel, 2004 ). Notwithstanding, the concept of family can be interpreted differently by individual perceptions to an array of cultural backgrounds, and cultures vary in their values, behaviors, and ideas.

The difficulty of conceptualizing this social institution suggests that family is a culture-bound phenomenon (Bales & Parsons, 2014 ). In essence, culture represents how people view themselves as part of a unique social collective and the ensuing communication interactions (Olaniran & Roach, 1994 ); subsequently, culture provides norms for behavior having a tremendous impact on those family members’ roles and power dynamics mirrored in its communication interactions (Johnson, Radesky, & Zuckerman, 2013 ). Thus, culture serves as one of the main macroframeworks for individuals to interpret and enact those prescriptions, such as inheritance; descent rules (e.g., bilateral, as in the United States, or patrilineal); marriage customs, such as ideal monogamy and divorce; and beliefs about sexuality, gender, and patterns of household formation, such as structure of authority and power (Weisner, 2014 ). For these reasons, “every family is both a unique microcosm and a product of a larger cultural context” (Johnson et al., 2013 , p. 632), and the analysis of family communication must include culture in order to elucidate effective communication strategies to solve familial conflicts.

In addition, to analyze familial communication patterns, it is important to address the most influential interaction with regard to power dynamics that determine the overall quality of family functioning. In this sense, within the range of family theories, parenting function is the core relationship in terms of power dynamics. Parenting refers to all efforts and decisions made by parents individually to guide their children’s behavior. This is a pivotal function, but the quality of communication among people who perform parenting is fundamental because their internal communication patterns will either support or undermine each caregiver’s parenting attempts, individually having a substantial influence on all members’ psychological and physical well-being (Schrodt & Shimkowski, 2013 ). Subsequently, parenting goes along with communication because to execute all parenting efforts, there must be a mutual agreement among at least two individuals to conjointly take care of the child’s fostering (Van Egeren & Hawkins, 2004 ). Consequently, coparenting serves as a crucial predictor of the overall family atmosphere and interactions, and it deserves special attention while analyzing family communication issues.

Through the years, family has been studied by family therapists, psychology scholars, and sociologists, but interaction behaviors define the interpersonal relationship, roles, and power within the family as a system (Rogers, 2006 ). Consequently, family scholarship relies on a wide range of theories developed within the communication field and in areas of the social sciences (Galvin, Braithwaite, & Bylund, 2015 ) because analysis of communication patterns in the familial context offers more ecological validity that individuals’ self-report measures. As many types of interactions may happen within a family, there are many relevant venues (i.e., theories) for scholarly analysis on this subject, which will be discussed later in this article in the “ Family: Theoretical Perspectives ” section. To avoid the risk of cultural relativeness while defining family, this article characterizes family as “a long-term group of two or more people related through biological, legal, or equivalent ties and who enact those ties through ongoing interactions providing instrumental and/or emotional support” (Canary & Canary, 2013 , p. 5).

Therefore, the purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the most relevant theories in family communication to identify frustrations and limitations with internal communication. Second, as a case in point, the United States welcomes more than 50 million noncitizens as temporary visitors and admits approximately 1 million immigrants to live as lawful residents yearly (Fullerton, 2014 ), this demographic pattern means that nearly one-third of the population (102 million) comes from different cultural backgrounds, and therefore, the present review will incorporate culture as an important mediator for coparenting, so that future research can be performed to find specific techniques and training practices that are more suitable for cross-cultural contexts.

Family: Theoretical Perspectives

Even though the concept of family can be interpreted individually and differently in different cultures, there are also some commonalities, along with communication processes, specific roles within families, and acceptable habits of interactions with specific family members disregarding cultural differences. This section will provide a brief overview of the conceptualization of family through the family communication patterns (FCP) theory, dyadic power theory, conflict, and family systems theory, with a special focus on the interparental relationship.

Family Communication Patterns Theory

One of the most relevant approaches to address the myriad of communication issues within families is the family communication patterns (FCP) theory. Originally developed by McLeod and Chaffee ( 1973 ), this theory aims to understand families’ tendencies to create stable and predictable communication patterns in terms of both relational cognition and interpersonal behavior (Braithwaite & Baxter, 2005 ). Specifically, this theory focuses on the unique and amalgamated associations derived from interparental communication and its impact on parenting quality to determine FCPs and the remaining interactions (Young & Schrodt, 2016 ).

To illustrate FCP’s focus on parental communication, Schrodt, Witt, and Shimkowski ( 2014 ) conducted a meta-analysis of 74 studies (N = 14,255) to examine the associations between the demand/withdraw family communication patterns of interaction, and the subsequent individual, relational, and communicative outcomes. The cumulative evidence suggests that wife demand/husband withdraw and husband demand/wife withdraw show similar moderate correlations with communicative and psychological well-being outcomes, and even higher when both patterns are taken together (at the relational level). This is important because one of the main tenets of FCP is that familial relationships are drawn on the pursuit of coorientation among members. Coorientation refers to the cognitive process of two or more individuals focusing on and assessing the same object in the same material and social context, which leads to a number of cognitions as the number of people involved, which results in different levels of agreement, accuracy, and congruence (for a review, see Fitzpatrick & Koerner, 2005 ); for example, in dyads that are aware of their shared focus, two different cognitions of the same issue will result.

Hereafter, the way in which these cognitions are socialized through power dynamics determined socially and culturally by roles constitutes specific interdependent communication patterns among family members. For example, Koerner and Fitzpatrick ( 2006 ) provide a taxonomy of family types on the basis of coorientation and its impact on communication pattern in terms of the degree of conformity in those conversational tendencies. To wit, consensual families mostly agree for the sake of the hierarchy within a given family and to explore new points of view; pluralistic families allow members to participate equally in conversations and there is no pressure to control or make children’s decisions; protective families maintain the hierarchy by making decisions for the sake of achieving common family goals; and laissez-faire families, which are low in conversation and conformity orientation, allow family members to not get deeply involved in the family.

The analysis of family communication patterns is quintessential for family communication scholarly work because it influences forming an individual’s self concept in the long run. As a case in point, Young and Schrodt ( 2016 ) surveyed 181 young adults from intact families, where conditional and interaction effects between communication patterns and conformity orientation were observed as the main predictors of future romantic partners. Moreover, this study concluded that FCPs and interparental confirmation are substantial indicators of self-to-partner confirmation, after controlling for reciprocity of confirmation within the romantic relationship. As a consequence, FCP influences children’s and young adults’ perceptions of romantic behavior (e.g., Fowler, Pearson, & Beck, 2010 ); the quality of communication behavior, such as the degree of acceptation of verbal aggression in romantic dyads (e.g., Aloia & Solomon, 2013 ); gender roles; and conflict styles (e.g., Taylor & Segrin, 2010 ), and parental modeling (e.g., Young & Schrodt, 2016 ).

This suggests three important observations. First, family is a very complex interpersonal context, in which communication processes, specific roles within families, and acceptable habits of interactions with specific family members interact as subsystems (see Galvin et al., 2004 ; Schrodt & Shimkowski, 2013 ). Second, among those subsystems, the core interaction is the individuals who hold parenting roles (i.e., intact and post divorced families); the couple (disregarding particular sexual orientations), and, parenting roles have a reciprocal relationship over time (Le, McDaniel, Leavitt, & Feinberg, 2016 ). Communication between parenting partners is crucial for the development of their entire family; for example, Schrodt and Shimkowski ( 2013 ) conducted a survey with 493 young adult children from intact (N = 364) and divorced families (N = 129) about perceptions of interparental conflict that involves triangulation (the impression of being in the “middle” and feeling forced to display loyalty to one of the parents). Results suggest that supportive coparental communication positively predicts relational satisfaction with mothers and fathers, as well as mental health; on the other hand, antagonist and hostile coparental communication predicted negative marital satisfaction.

Consequently, “partners’ communication with one another will have a positive effect on their overall view of their marriage, . . . and directly result[ing in] their views of marital satisfaction” (Knapp & Daly, 2002 , p. 643). Le et al. ( 2016 ) conducted a longitudinal study to evaluate the reciprocal relationship between marital interaction and coparenting from the perspective of both parents in terms of support or undermining across the transition to parenthood from a dyadic perspective; 164 cohabiting heterosexual couples expecting their first child were analyzed from pregnancy until 36 months after birth. Both parents’ interdependence was examined in terms of three variables: gender difference analysis, stability over time in marriage and coparenting, and reciprocal associations between relationship quality and coparenting support or undermining. The findings suggest a long-term reciprocal association between relationship quality and coparenting support or undermining in heterosexual families; the quality of marriage relationship during prenatal stage is highly influential in coparenting after birth for both men and women; but, coparenting is connected to romantic relationship quality only for women.

Moreover, the positive association between coparenting and the parents’ relationship relates to the spillover hypothesis, which posits that the positive or negative factors in the parental subsystem are significantly associated with higher or lower marital satisfaction in the spousal subsystem, respectively. Ergo, overall parenting performance is substantially affected by the quality of marital communication patterns.

Dyadic Power

In addition, after analyzing the impact of marital interaction quality in families on marital satisfaction and future parental modeling, it is worth noting that marital satisfaction and coparenting are importantly mediated by power dynamics within the couple (Halstead, De Santis, & Williams, 2016 ), and even mediates marital commitment (e.g., Lennon, Stewart, & Ledermann, 2013 ). If the quality of interpersonal relationship between those individuals who hold parenting roles determines coparenting quality as well, then the reason for this association lies on the fact that virtually all intimate relationships are substantially characterized by power dynamics; when partners perceive more rewards than costs in the relationship, they will be more satisfied and significantly more committed to the relationship (Lennon et al., 2013 ). As a result, the inclusion of power dynamics in the analysis of family issues becomes quintessential.

For the theory of dyadic power, power in its basic sense includes dominance, control, and influence over others, as well as a means to meet survival needs. When power is integrated into dyadic intimate relationships, it generates asymmetries in terms of interdependence between partners due to the quality of alternatives provided by individual characteristics such as socioeconomic status and cultural characteristics such as gender roles. This virtually gives more power to men than women. Power refers to “the feeling derived from the ability to dominate, or control, the behavior, affect, and cognitions of another person[;] in consequence, this concept within the interparental relationship is enacted when one partner who controls resources and limiting the behavioral options of the other partner” (Lennon et al., 2013 , p. 97). Ergo, this theory examines power in terms of interdependence between members of the relationship: the partner who is more dependent on the other has less power in the relationship, which, of course, directly impact parenting decisions.

As a case in point, Worley and Samp ( 2016 ) examined the balance of decision-making power in the relationship, complaint avoidance, and complaint-related appraisals in 175 heterosexual couples. Findings suggest that decision-making power has a curvilinear association, in which individuals engaged in the least complaint avoidance when they were relatively equal to their partners in terms of power. In other words, perceptions of one another’s power potentially encourage communication efficacy in the interparental couple.

The analysis of power in intimate relationships, and, to be specific, between parents is crucial because it not only relates to marital satisfaction and commitment, but it also it affects parents’ dyadic coping for children. In fact, Zemp, Bodenmann, Backes, Sutter-Stickel, and Revenson ( 2016 ) investigated parents’ dyadic coping as a predictor of children’s internalizing symptoms, externalizing symptoms, and prosocial behavior in three independent studies. When there is a positive relationship among all three factors, the results indicated that the strongest correlation was the first one. Again, the quality of the marital and parental relationships has the strongest influence on children’s coping skills and future well-being.

From the overview of the two previous theories on family, it is worth addressing two important aspects. First, parenting requires an intensive great deal of hands-on physical care, attention to safety (Mooney-Doyle, Deatrick, & Horowitz, 2014 ), and interpretation of cues, and this is why parenting, from conception to when children enter adulthood, is a tremendous social, cultural, and legally prescribed role directed toward caregiving and endlessly attending to individuals’ social, physical, psychological, emotional, and cognitive development (Johnson et al., 2013 ). And while parents are making decisions about what they consider is best for all family members, power dynamics play a crucial role in marital satisfaction, commitment, parental modeling, and overall interparental communication efficacy in the case of postdivorce families. Therefore, the likelihood of conflict is latent within familial interactions while making decisions; indeed, situations in which family members agree on norms as a consensus is rare (Ritchie & Fitzpatrick, 1990 ).

In addition to the interparental and marital power dynamics that delineates family communication patterns, the familial interaction is distinctive from other types of social relationships in the unequaled role of emotions and communication of affection while family members interact and make decisions for the sake of all members. For example, Ritchie and Fitzpatrick ( 1990 ) provided evidence that fathers tended to perceive that all other family members agree with his decisions or ideas. Even when mothers confronted and disagreed with the fathers about the fathers’ decisions or ideas, the men were more likely to believe that their children agreed with him. When the children were interviewed without their parents, however, the majority of children agreed with the mothers rather than the fathers (Ritchie & Fitzpatrick, 1990 ). Subsequently, conflict is highly present in families; however, in general, the presence of conflict is not problematic per se. Rather, it is the ability to manage and recover from it and that could be problematic (Floyd, 2014 ).

One of the reasons for the role of emotions in interpersonal conflicts is explained by the Emotion-in-Relationships Model (ERM). This model states that feelings of bliss, satisfaction, and relaxation often go unnoticed due to the nature of the emotions, whereas “hot” emotions, such as anger and contempt, come to the forefront when directed at a member of an interpersonal relationship (Fletcher & Clark, 2002 ). This type of psychophysical response usually happens perhaps due to the different biophysical reactive response of the body compared to its reaction to positive ones (Floyd, 2014 ). There are two dimensions that define conflict. Conflict leads to the elicitation of emotions, but sometimes the opposite occurs: emotions lead to conflict. The misunderstanding or misinterpretation of emotions among members of a family can be a source of conflict, as well as a number of other issues, including personality differences, past history, substance abuse, mental or physical health problems, monetary issues, children, intimate partner violence, domestic rape, or maybe just general frustration due to recent events (Sabourin, Infante, & Rudd, 1990 ). In order to have a common understanding of this concept for the familial context in particular, conflict refers to as “any incompatibility that can be expressed by people related through biological, legal, or equivalent ties” (Canary & Canary, 2013 , p. 6). Thus, the concept of conflict goes hand in hand with coparenting.

There is a myriad of everyday family activities in which parents need to decide the best way to do them: sometimes they are minor, such as eating, watching TV, or sleeping schedules; others are more complicated, such as schooling. Certainly, while socializing and making these decisions, parents may agree or not, and these everyday situations may lead to conflict. Whether or not parents live together, it has been shown that “the extent to which children experience their parents as partners or opponents in parenting is related to children’s adjustment and well-being” (Gable & Sharp, 2016 , p. 1), because the ontology of parenting is materialized through socialization of values about every aspect and duty among all family members, especially children, to perpetuate a given society.

As the findings provided in this article show, the study of family communication issues is pivotal because the way in which those issues are solved within families will be copied by children as their values. Values are abstract ideas that delineate behavior toward the evaluation of people and events and vary in terms of importance across individuals, but also among cultures. In other words, their future parenting (i.e., parenting modeling) of children will replicate those same strategies for conflict solving for good or bad, depending on whether parents were supportive between each other. Thus, socialization defines the size and scope of coparenting.

The familial socialization of values encompasses the distinction between parents’ personal execution of those social appraisals and the values that parents want their children to adopt, and both are different things; nonetheless, familial socialization does not take place in only one direction, from parents to children. Benish-Weisman, Levy, and Knafo ( 2013 ) investigated the differentiation process—or, in other words, the distinction between parents’ own personal values and their socialization values and the contribution of children’s values to their parents’ socialization values. In this study, in which 603 Israeli adolescents and their parents participated, the findings suggest that parents differentiate between their personal values and their socialization values, and adolescents’ values have a specific contribution to their parents’ socialization values. As a result, socialization is not a unidirectional process affected by parents alone, it is an outcome of the reciprocal interaction between parents and their adolescent children, and the given importance of a given value is mediated by parents and their culture individually (Johnson et al., 2013 ). However, taking power dynamics into account does not mean that adolescents share the same level of decision-making power in the family; thus, socialization take place in both directions, but mostly from parents to children. Finally, it is worth noticing that the socialization of values in coparenting falls under the cultural umbrella. The next section pays a special attention to the role of culture in family communication.

The Role of Culture in Parenting Socialization of Values

There are many individual perceived realities and behaviors in the familial setting that may lead to conflict among members, but all of them achieve a common interpretation through culture; indeed, “all family conflict processes by broad cultural factors” (Canary & Canary, 2013 , p. 46). Subsequently, the goal of this section is to provide an overview of the perceived realities and behaviors that exist in family relationships with different cultural backgrounds. How should one approach the array of cultural values influencing parental communication patterns?

An interesting way of immersing on the role of culture in family communication patterns and its further socialization of values is explored by Schwartz ( 1992 ). The author developed a value system composed of 10 values operationalized as motivational goals for modern society: (a) self-direction (independence of thought and action); (b) stimulation (excitement, challenge, and novelty); (c) hedonism (pleasure or sensuous gratification); (d) achievement (personal success according to social standards); (e) power (social status, dominance over people and resources); (f) conformity (restraint of actions that may harm others or violate social expectations); (g) tradition (respect and commitment to cultural or religious customs and ideas); (h) benevolence (preserving and enhancing the welfare of people to whom one is close); (i) universalism (understanding, tolerance, and concern for the welfare of all people and nature); and (j) security (safety and stability of society, relationships, and self).

Later, Schwartz and Rubel ( 2005 ) applied this value structure, finding it to be commonly shared among over 65 countries. Nevertheless, these values are enacted in different ways by societies and genders about the extent to which men attribute more relevance to values of power, stimulation, hedonism, achievement, and self-direction, and the opposite was found for benevolence and universalism and less consistently for security. Also, it was found that all sex differences were culturally moderated, suggesting that cultural background needs to be considered in the analysis of coparental communication when socializing those values.

Even though Schwartz’s work was more focused on individuals and societies, it is a powerful model for the analysis of the role of culture on family communication and parenting scholarships. Indeed, Schwartz et al. ( 2013 ) conducted a longitudinal study with a sample of 266 Hispanic adolescents (14 years old) and their parents that looked at measures of acculturation, family functioning, and adolescent conduct problems, substance use, and sexual behavior at five time points. Results suggest that higher levels of acculturation in adolescents were linked to poorer family functioning; however, overall assimilation negatively predicted adolescent cigarette smoking, sexual activity, and unprotected sex. The authors emphasize the role of culture, and acculturation patterns in particular, in understanding the mediating role of family functioning and culture.

Ergo, it is crucial to address the ways in which culture affects family functioning. On top of this idea, Johnson et al. ( 2013 ) observed that Western cultures such as in the United States and European countries are oriented toward autonomy, favoring individual achievement, self-reliance, and self-assertiveness. Thus, coparenting in more autonomous countries will socialize to children the idea that achievement in life is an outcome of independence, resulting in coparenting communication behaviors that favor verbal praise and feedback over physical contact. As opposed to autonomy-oriented cultures, other societies, such as Asian, African, and Latin American countries, emphasize interdependence over autonomy; thus, parenting in these cultures promotes collective achievement, sharing, and collaboration as the core values.

These cultural orientations can be observed in parents’ definitions of school readiness and educational success; for Western parents, examples include skills such as counting, recognizing letters, or independently completing tasks such as coloring pictures, whereas for more interdependent cultures, the development of obedience, respect for authority, and appropriate social skills are the skills that parents are expecting their children to develop to evaluate school readiness. As a matter of fact, Callaghan et al. ( 2011 ) conducted a series of eight studies to evaluate the impact of culture on the social-cognitive skills of one- to three-year-old children in three diverse cultural settings such as Canada, Peru, and India. The results showed that children’s acquisition of specific cognitive skills is moderated by specific learning experiences in a specific context: while Canadian children were understanding the performance of both pretense and pictorial symbols skillfully between 2.5 and 3.0 years of age, on average, Peruvian and Indian children mastered those skills more than a year later. Notwithstanding, this finding does not suggest any kind of cultural superiority; language barriers and limitations derived from translation itself may influence meanings, affecting the results (Sotomayor-Peterson, De Baca, Figueredo, & Smith-Castro, 2013 ). Therefore, in line with the findings of Schutz ( 1970 ), Geertz ( 1973 ), Grusec ( 2002 ), Sotomayor-Peterson et al. ( 2013 ), and Johnson et al. ( 2013 ), cultural values provide important leverage for understanding family functioning in terms of parental decision-making and conflict, which also has a substantial impact on children’s cognitive development.

Subsequently, cultural sensitivity to the analysis of the familial system in this country needs to be specially included because cultural differences are part of the array of familial conflicts that may arise, and children experience real consequences from the quality of these interactions. Therefore, parenting, which is already arduous in itself, and overall family functioning significantly become troublesome when parents with different cultural backgrounds aim to socialize values and perform parenting tasks. The following section provides an account of these cross-cultural families.

Intercultural Families: Adding Cultural Differences to Interparental Communication

For a country such as the United States, with 102 million people from many different cultural backgrounds, the presence of cross-cultural families is on the rise, as is the likelihood of intermarriage between immigrants and natives. With this cultural diversity, the two most prominent groups are Hispanics and Asians, particular cases of which will be discussed next. Besides the fact that parenting itself is a very complex and difficult task, certainly the biggest conflict consists of making decisions about the best way to raise children in terms of their values with regard to which ethnic identity better enacts the values that parents believe their children should embrace. As a result, interracial couples might confront many conflicts and challenges due to cultural differences affecting marital satisfaction and coparenting.

Assimilation , the degree to which a person from a different cultural background has adapted to the culture of the hostage society, is an important phenomenon in intermarriage. Assimilationists observe that children from families in which one of the parents is from the majority group and the other one from the minority do not automatically follow the parent from the majority group (Cohen, 1988 ). Indeed, they follow their mothers more, whichever group she belongs to, because of mothers are more prevalent among people with higher socioeconomic status (Gordon, 1964 ; Portes, 1984 ; Schwartz et al., 2013 ).

In an interracial marriage, the structural and interpersonal barriers inhibiting the interaction between two parents will be reduced significantly if parents develop a noncompeting way to communicate and solve conflicts, which means that both of them might give up part of their culture or ethnic identity to reach consensus. Otherwise, the ethnic identity of children who come from interracial marriages will become more and more obscure (Saenz, Hwang, Aguirre, & Anderson, 1995 ). Surely, parents’ noncompeting cultural communication patterns are fundamental for children’s development of ethnic identity. Biracial children develop feelings of being outsiders, and then parenting becomes crucial to developing their strong self-esteem (Ward, 2006 ). Indeed, Gordon ( 1964 ) found that children from cross-racial or cross-ethnic marriages are at risk of developing psychological problems. In another example, Jognson and Nagoshi ( 1986 ) studied children who come from mixed marriages in Hawaii and found that the problems of cultural identification, conflicting demands in the family, and of being marginal in either culture still exist (Mann & Waldron, 1977 ). It is hard for those mixed-racial children to completely develop the ethnic identity of either the majority group or the minority group.

The question of how children could maintain their minority ethnic identity is essential to the development of ethnic identity as a whole. For children from interracial marriage, the challenge to maintain their minority ethnic identity will be greater than for the majority ethnic identity (Waters, 1990 ; Schwartz et al., 2013 ) because the minority-group spouse is more likely to have greater ethnic consciousness than the majority-group spouse (Ellman, 1987 ). Usually, the majority group is more influential than the minority group on a child’s ethnic identity, but if the minority parent’s ethnicity does not significantly decline, the child’s ethnic identity could still reflect some characteristics of the minority parent. If parents want their children to maintain the minority group’s identity, letting the children learn the language of the minority group might be a good way to achieve this. By learning the language, children form a better understanding of that culture and perhaps are more likely to accept the ethnic identity that the language represents (Xin & Sandel, 2015 ).

In addition to language socialization as a way to contribute to children’s identity in biracial families, Jane and Bochner ( 2009 ) indicated that family rituals and stories could be important in performing and transforming identity. Families create and re-create their identities through various kinds of narrative, in which family stories and rituals are significant. Festivals and rituals are different from culture to culture, and each culture has its own. Therefore, exposing children to the language, rituals, and festivals of another culture also could be helpful to form their ethnic identity, in order to counter problems of self-esteem derived from the feeling of being an outsider.

To conclude this section, the parenting dilemma in intercultural marriages consists of deciding which culture they want their children to be exposed to and what kind of heritage they want to pass to children. The following section will provide two examples of intercultural marriages in the context of American society without implying that there are no other insightful cultures that deserve analysis, but the focus on Asian-American and Hispanics families reflects the available literature (Canary & Canary, 2013 ) and its demographic representativeness in this particular context. In addition, in order to acknowledge that minorities within this larger cultural background deserve more attention due to overemphasis on larger cultures in scholarship, such as Chinese or Japanese cultures, the Thai family will provide insights into understanding the role of culture in parenting and its impact on the remaining familial interaction, putting all theories already discussed in context. Moreover, the Hispanic family will also be taken in account because of its internal pan-ethnicity variety.

An Example of Intercultural Parenting: The Thai Family

The Thai family, also known as Krob Krua, may consist of parents, children, paternal and maternal grandparents, aunts, uncles, grandchildren, in-laws, and any others who share the same home. Thai marriages usually are traditional, in which the male is the authority figure and breadwinner and the wife is in charge of domestic items and the homemaker. It has been noted that Thai mothers tend to be the major caregivers and caretakers in the family rather than fathers (Tulananda, Young, & Roopnarine, 1994 ). On the other hand, it has been shown that Thai mothers also tend to spoil their children with such things as food and comfort; Tulananda et al. ( 1994 ) studied the differences between American and Thai fathers’ involvement with their preschool children and found that American fathers reported being significantly more involved with their children than Thai fathers. Specifically, the fathers differed in the amount of socialization and childcare; Thai fathers reported that they obtained more external support from other family members than American fathers; also, Thai fathers were more likely to obtain support for assisting with daughters than sons.

Furthermore, with regard to the family context, Tulananda and Roopnarine ( 2001 ) noted that over the years, some attention has been focused on the cultural differences among parent-child behaviors and interactions; hereafter, the authors believed that it is important to look at cultural parent-child interactions because that can help others understand children’s capacity to socialize and deal with life’s challenges. As a matter of fact, the authors also noted that Thai families tend to raise their children in accordance with Buddhist beliefs. It is customary for young Thai married couples to live with either the wife’s parents (uxorilocal) or the husband’s parents (virilocal) before living on their own (Tulananda & Roopnarine, 2001 ). The process of developing ethnicity could be complicated. Many factors might influence the process, such as which parent is from the minority culture and the cultural community, as explained in the previous section of this article.

This suggests that there is a difference in the way that Thai and American fathers communicate with their daughters. As a case in point, Punyanunt-Carter ( 2016 ) examined the relationship maintenance behaviors within father-daughter relationships in Thailand and the United States. Participants included 134 American father-daughter dyads and 154 Thai father-daughter dyads. The findings suggest that when quality of communication was included in this relationship, both types of families benefit from this family communication pattern, resulting in better conflict management and advice relationship maintenance behaviors. However, differences were found: American fathers are more likely than American daughters to employ relationship maintenance behaviors; in addition, American fathers are more likely than Thai fathers to use relationship maintenance strategies.

As a consequence, knowing the process of ethnic identity development could provide parents with different ways to form children’s ethnic identity. More specifically, McCann, Ota, Giles, and Caraker ( 2003 ), and Canary and Canary ( 2013 ) noted that Southeast Asian cultures have been overlooked in communication studies research; these countries differ in their religious, political, and philosophical thoughts, with a variety of collectivistic views and religious ideals (e.g., Buddhism, Taoism, Islam), whereas the United States is mainly Christian and consists of individualistic values.

The Case of Hispanic/Latino Families in the United States

There is a need for including Hispanic/Latino families in the United States because of the demographic representativeness and trends of the ethnicity: in 2016 , Hispanics represent nearly 17% of the total U.S. population, becoming the largest minority group. There are more than 53 million Hispanics and Latinos in the United States; in addition, over 93% of young Hispanics and Latinos under the age of 18 hold U.S. citizenship, and more than 73,000 of these people turn 18 every month (Barreto & Segura, 2014 ). Furthermore, the current Hispanic and Latino population is spread evenly between foreign-born and U.S.-born individuals, but the foreign-born population is now growing faster than the number of Hispanic children born in the country (Arias & Hellmueller, 2016 ). This demographic trend is projected to reach one-third of the U.S. total population by 2060 ; therefore, with the growth of other minority populations in the country, the phenomenon of multiracial marriage and biracial children is increasing as well.

Therefore, family communication scholarship has an increasing necessity to include cultural particularities in the analysis of the familial system; in addition to the cultural aspects already explained in this article, this section addresses the influence of familism in Hispanic and Latino familial interactions, as well as how immigration status moderates the internal interactions, reflected in levels of acculturation, that affect these families negatively.

With the higher marriage and birth rates among Hispanics and Latinos living in the United States compared to non-Latino Whites and African American populations, the Hispanic familial system is perhaps the most stereotyped as being familistic (Glick & Van Hook, 2008 ). This family trait consists of the fact that Hispanics place a very high value on marriage and childbearing, on the basis of a profound commitment to give support to members of the extended family as well. This can be evinced in the prevalence of extended-kind shared households in Hispanic and Latino families, and Hispanic children are more likely to live in extended-family households than non-Latino Whites or blacks (Glick & Van Hook, 2008 ). Living in extended-family households, most likely with grandparents, may have positive influences on Hispanic and Latino children, such as greater attention and interaction with loving through consistent caregiving; grandparents may help by engaging with children in academic-oriented activities, which then affects positively cognitive educational outcomes.

However, familism is not the panacea for all familial issues for several reasons. First, living in an extended-family household requires living arrangements that consider adults’ needs more than children’s. Second, the configuration of Hispanic and Latino households is moderated by any immigration issues with all members of the extended family, and this may cause problems for children (Menjívar, 2000 ). The immigration status of each individual member may produce a constant state of flux, whereas circumstances change to adjust to economic opportunities, which in turn are limited by immigration laws, and it gets even worse when one of the parents isn’t even present in the children’s home, but rather live in their home country (Van Hook & Glick, 2006 ). Although Hispanic and Latino children are more likely to live with married parents and extended relatives, familism is highly affected by the immigration status of each member.

On the other hand, there has been research to address the paramount role of communication disregarding the mediating factor of cultural diversity. For example, Sotomayor-Peterson et al. ( 2013 ) performed a cross-cultural comparison of the association between coparenting or shared parental effort and family climate among families from Mexico, the United States, and Costa Rica. The overall findings suggest what was explained earlier in this article: more shared parenting predicts better marital interaction and family climate overall.

In addition, parenting quality has been found to have a positive relationship with children’s developmental outcomes. In fact, Sotomayor-Peterson, Figueredo, Christensen, and Taylor ( 2012 ) conducted a study with 61 low-income Mexican American couples, with at least one child between three and four years of age, recruited from a home-based Head Start program. The main goal of this study was to observe the extent that shared parenting incorporates cultural values and income predicts family climate. The findings suggest that the role of cultural values such as familism, in which family solidarity and avoidance of confrontation are paramount, delineate shared parenting by Mexican American couples.

Cultural adaptation also has a substantial impact on marital satisfaction and children’s cognitive stimulation. Indeed, Sotomayor-Peterson, Wilhelm, and Card ( 2011 ) investigated the relationship between marital relationship quality and subsequent cognitive stimulation practices toward their infants in terms of the actor and partner effects of White and Hispanic parents. The results indicate an interesting relationship between the level of acculturation and marital relationship quality and a positive cognitive stimulation of infants; specifically, marital happiness is associated with increased cognitive stimulation by White and high-acculturated Hispanic fathers. Nevertheless, a major limitation of Hispanic acculturation literature has been seen, reflecting a reliance on cross-sectional studies where acculturation was scholarly operationalized more as an individual difference variable than as a longitudinal adaptation over time (Schwartz et al., 2013 ).

Culture and Family Communication: the “so what?” Question

This article has presented an entangled overview of family communication patterns, dyadic power, family systems, and conflict theories to establish that coparenting quality plays a paramount role. The main commonality among those theories pays special attention to interparental interaction quality, regardless of the type of family (i.e., intact, postdivorce, same-sex, etc.) and cultural background. After reviewing these theories, it was observed that the interparental relationship is the core interaction in the familial context because it affects children from their earlier cognitive development to subsequent parental modeling in terms of gender roles. Thus, in keeping with Canary and Canary ( 2013 ), no matter what approach may be taken to the analysis of family communication issues, the hypothesis that a positive emotional climate within the family is fostered only when couples practice a sufficient level of shared parenting and quality of communication is supported.

Nevertheless, this argument does not suggest that the role of culture in the familial interactions should be undersold. While including the main goal of parenting, which is the socialization of values, in the second section of this article, the text also provides specific values of different countries that are enacted and socialized differently across cultural contexts to address the role of acculturation in the familial atmosphere, the quality of interactions, and individual outcomes. As a case in point, Johnson et al. ( 2013 ) provided an interesting way of seeing how cultures differ in their ways of enacting parenting, clarifying that the role of culture in parenting is not a superficial or relativistic element.

In addition, by acknowledging the perhaps excessive attention to larger Asian cultural backgrounds (such as Chinese or Japanese cultures) by other scholars (i.e., Canary & Canary, 2013 ), an insightful analysis of the Thai American family within the father-daughter relationship was provided to exemplify, through the work of Punyanunt-Carter ( 2016 ), how specific family communication patterns, such as maintenance relationship communication behaviors, affect the quality of familial relationships. Moreover, a second, special focus was put on Hispanic families because of the demographic trends of the United States, and it was found that familism constitutes a distinctive aspect of these families.

In other words, the third section of this article provided these two examples of intercultural families to observe specific ways that culture mediates the familial system. Because one of the main goals of the present article was to demonstrate the mediating role of culture as an important consideration for family communication issues in the United States, the assimilationist approach was taken into account; thus, the two intercultural family examples discussed here correspond to an assimilationist nature rather than using an intergroup approach.

This decision was made without intending to diminish the value of other cultures or ethnic groups in the country, but an extensive revision of all types of intercultural families is beyond the scope of this article. Second, the assimilationist approach forces one to consider cultures that are in the process of adapting to a new hosting culture, and the Thai and Hispanic families in the United States comply with this theoretical requisite. For example, Whites recognize African Americans as being as American as Whites (i.e., Dovidio, Gluszek, John, Ditlmann, & Lagunes, 2010 ), whereas they associate Hispanics and Latinos with illegal immigration in the United States (Stewart et al., 2011 ), which has been enhanced by the U.S. media repeatedly since 1994 (Valentino et al., 2013 ), and it is still happening (Dixon, 2015 ). In this scenario, “ask yourself what would happen to your own personality if you heard it said over and over again that you were lazy, a simple child of nature, expected to steal, and had inferior blood? . . . One’s reputation, whether false or true, cannot be hammered, hammered, hammered, into one’s head without doing something to one’s character” (Allport, 1979 , p. 142, cited in Arias & Hellmueller, 2016 ).

As a consequence, on this cultural canvas, it should not be surprising that Lichter, Carmalt, and Qian ( 2011 ) found that second-generation Hispanics are increasingly likely to marry foreign-born Hispanics and less likely to marry third-generation or later coethnics or Whites. In addition, this study suggests that third-generation Hispanics and later were more likely than in the past to marry non-Hispanic Whites; thus, the authors concluded that there has been a new retreat from intermarriage among the largest immigrant groups in the United States—Hispanics and Asians—in the last 20 years.

If we subscribe to the idea that cultural assimilation goes in only one direction—from the hegemonic culture to the minority culture—then the results of Lichter, Carmalt, and Qian ( 2011 ) should not be of scholarly concern; however, if we believe that cultural assimilation happens in both directions and intercultural families can benefit both the host and immigrant cultures (for a review, see Schwartz et al., 2013 ), then this is important to address in a country that just elected a president, Donald Trump, who featured statements racially lambasting and segregating minorities, denigrating women, and criticizing immigration as some of the main tenets of his campaign. Therefore, we hope that it is clear why special attention was given to the Thai and Hispanic families in this article, considering the impact of culture on the familial system, marital satisfaction, parental communication, and children’s well-being. Even though individuals with Hispanic ancentry were in the United States even before it became a nation, Hispanic and Latino families are still trying to convince Americans of their right to be accepted in American culture and society.

With regard to the “So what?” question, assimilation is important to consider while analyzing the role of culture in family communication patterns, power dynamics, conflict, or the functioning of the overall family system in the context of the United States. This is because this country is among the most popular in the world in terms of immigration requests, and its demographics show that one out of three citizens comes from an ethnic background other than the hegemonic White culture. In sum, cultural awareness has become pivotal in the analysis of family communication issues in the United States. Furthermore, the present overview of family, communication, and culture ends up supporting the idea of positive associations being derived from the pivotal role of marriage relationship quality, such that coparenting and communication practices vary substantially within intercultural marriages moderated by gender roles.

Culture is a pivotal moderator of these associations, but this analysis needs to be tethered to societal structural level, in which cultural differences, family members’ immigration status, media content, and level of acculturation must be included in family research. This is because in intercultural marriages, in addition to the tremendous parenting role, they have to deal with cultural assimilation and discrimination, and this becomes important if we care about children’s cognitive development and the overall well-being of those who are not considered White. As this article shows, the quality of familial interactions has direct consequences on children’s developmental outcomes (for a review, see Callaghan et al., 2011 ).

Therefore, the structure and functioning of family has an important impact on public health at both physiological and psychological levels (Gage, Everett, & Bullock, 2006 ). At the physiological level, the familial interaction instigates expression and reception of strong feelings affecting tremendously on individuals’ physical health because it activates neuroendocrine responses that aid stress regulation, acting as a stress buffer and accelerating physiological recovery from elevated stress (Floyd & Afifi, 2012 ; Floyd, 2014 ). Robles, Shaffer, Malarkey, and Kiecolt-Glaser ( 2006 ) found that a combination of supportive communication, humor, and problem-solving behavior in husbands predicts their wives’ cortisol and adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH)—both physiological factors are considered as stress markers (see 2006 ). On the other hand, the psychology of individuals, the quality of family relationships has major repercussions on cognitive development, as reflected in educational attainment (Sohr-Preston et al., 2013 ), and highly mediated by cultural assimilation (Schwartz et al., 2013 ), which affects individuals through parenting modeling and socialization of values (Mooney-Doyle, Deatrick, & Horowitz, 2014 ).

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What is the Family? Definition Essay

Introduction, critical analysis, reference list.

In the human perspective, a family is a group of persons connected by kinship, compassion, or sharing of residence. In a number of societies, the family is the basic unit for the socialization of children. A basic family unit is made up of a father, mother, and children, and is known as a nuclear family, however, this unit can be extended to include other relations to be known as an extended family.

The concept of the family has undergone a transformation and in today’s society, many people define the family structure as an arbitrary cultural set-up, a statement could be partially true. In ancient times, the family was a closely-knit, patriarchal clan consisting of a man, his wife or wives, and several children!

This has changed to include a monogamous parent taking care of the children. Besides, certain concepts of the family have broken with tradition within specific communities while some have been implanted through migration to thrive or else disappear in the new communities and societies.

Current debates and interest concerning the family have forced individuals to reassess themselves in a society driven by change and uncertainty. Because of its intricate nature, sociologists have not succeeded in coming with a universal definition of what family is and how is constructed. Rather, the definition is subject to individual interpretation and depends on the value a person attaches to being a member of a communal social group.

The aim of the paper is to give a concise definition of family, and the context of family structures such as the traditional family; single parent family, blended family and cohabiting relationship families. The paper also examines the influences that have progressively shaped the concept of family from the past to the present day.

A family is generally defined as a group of individuals who are linked by kinship or adoption, and who have a common residence. (Germov and Poole, 2011, 132). Kinship ties are connections or associations that link individuals through genealogy lines or marriage.

However, a few writers disagree with this concept. For instance, George Murdock, an American anthropologist, defines family as a social group that lives together, support each other economically, and raise children (Germov and Poole, 2011, 128).

In the mid 20 th century, sociologists defined family as a man living together with his wife and children, joined by blood, marriage or adoption. The couple had sex, procreated, and cared for the children jointly, besides bringing resources such as money and food together. The family members also guarded and supported each other.

Again, some writers have given a different perspective. Some asserted that previous definitions of the concept of the family should be altered as they are founded on ‘monolithic’ models that exhibit partiality towards a specific kind of family typified by gender discrimination and legal attachment, instead of gender fairness and patterns of care or emotional response.

Besides, modern reproductive methods have changed family associations and the definition of terms such as ‘mother’ and ‘father’ gas considerably changed. For instance, women past their menopausal age can now have children through surrogate mothers. Consequently, an increasing number of studies are focusing on what really defines a family. This perspective overlooks the gender inclination of the couple and the legitimacy of the relationship, and centers rather on the patterns of caring and affection.

The concept of the family has been conventionally related to the traditional family setup, which can be defined as a relationship in the children live with both the biological parents with the father often at work while the mother stays at home (Germov & Poole, 2011, 128). Today less than ten percent of families satisfies this principle.

The second approach is that of single parent setup in which the child resides with one of the parents, and may result from death, divorce, separation, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, or a nonunion pregnancy. Milstead and Perkins (2010, para. 8) recognized that teenage mothers were less likely to enter marriage and preferred to care for the child without paternal help leading to certain social and economic deficits for both the mother and child including lack of proper education, poorly paying occupations, reliance on welfare, and bad health for both of them.

The third approach is that of a blended family, in which the child lives with one of the biological parents, and that parent’s partner. This type of family may also include children born to the new couple. This family setup is made up of children, one of the biological parents, and a stepparent (Kinnear, 2010, 8). Even though the availability of another adult may lead to more material and financial resources, studies indicate that such children may be more disadvantaged than those living in stable single-parent families. In fact, children living in blended families have a higher likelihood of suffering emotionally and/or psychologically than those in single parent families.

The fourth perspective is that of a cohabiting relationship, in which a child lives with one of the biological parents, and that parent’s significant other, however, in contrast to blended families, the adults are not married. This type of family has been on the rise and a possible explanation could be that couples take it as a good practice before marriage. In contrast, Joltes (2007, para. 2) notes that those who have cohabited are more likely to divorce than those who have not. Cohabiting families regularly create less defined family roles, lower levels of parental support, supervision and involvement, and more conflicts (Kinnear, 2010, 8).

In contrast from the family setups described above, the traditional family is characterized by a unit comprising of a married couple with two or more children. In this setup, the male adult is the head of the house and the breadwinner too, while the female adult performs household tasks and cares for children and her husband.

Back then, the gender roles were clear. Most (preferably all) members of the family attended a church service weekly. Children were obedient, respectful and responsible. Families resided in the same town, or at least close to each other. Instances of divorce were an abomination and were very rare. Unmarried couples were uncommon too, and the act was thought of as shameful (Briggs, 2002, 5).

The number of unmarried adults was very low. The 1950s was a period when everybody worked together towards a common goal; society was stable or improving, and disagreements extremely rare. Women were satisfied with their housekeeping roles and respected their husbands as the house heads. Similarly, it was generally accepted that homosexuality, divorce, sex before marriage, abortion, and illegitimate birth did not exist, or occurred only to ‘bad’ families. Indeed, such issues were never conversed in an open forum.

For instance, women living in Australia in the 1950s had their lives centred on family and housekeeping tasks. Women who held wartime jobs were supposed to quit their jobs to create opportunities for men who had previously been in war. Consequently, women quit their jobs and returned to their housekeeping tasks. However, a few women challenged these norms and retained their jobs, but were paid less than men for similar jobs and were often given lowly paying jobs.

The practices in the traditional family have transformed significantly, and it is unlikely that we will ever switch back to the conventional nuclear family as the only ideal type of family. For the near future, the new family setup is here to stay. The ‘cereal packet’ image of the family comprising of the father, mother, and the children joyously having breakfast together is a bad reminder of how single-parent, blended, extended, same-sex, or childless families have considerably dented the idea of a perfect family.

Add this to the effects of the multiplicity of ethnic and cultural origins, aboriginal Australians and post-war migrations, and all Australians will finally encounter family forms quite dissimilar from their own. In Australia, as in many societies, the nuclear family setup is no longer conventional.

Towards the end of the 20th century, major demographic changes had affected even the family setup. Societies were aging while the number of children and youths was diminishing. These anomalies led to a shift in roles that today challenge the traditional family setup.

Today, families may comprise of couples who may be married or cohabiting, and have a child who is either a co-resident. A new form of family setup emerged in the 21st century, as mentioned by Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck. The two sociologists write that from the mid 70s onwards, significant changes occurred in family life and relationships; marriage rates were failing, divorce was on the increase, and fertility rates dropping. According to Saggers and Sims (2004, 34), these changes marked the end of the family.

While often referred to as a ‘haven in a heartless world’, the fact is that families cannot be insulated from the world of which we are a component. In fact, change in the family stricture has always been inherently linked to wider social changes. As society undergoes swift, turbulent and far-reaching changes in economic, cultural and political aspects, family keeps pace with the changes (Saggers and Sims, 2004, 32).

The family, as we once knew it, has undergone rapid transformations and is today a shadow of its former self. Previously unacceptable behaviors such as homosexuality and same-sex families are now welcomed in the family. Consequently, these unnatural acts have further deteriorated the family by causing same-sex families, which raises important sociological questions about the actual meaning of the term ‘family’.

Secondly, the rising number of women in the workforce has altered the basic roles of members of the family. Divorce and separation, once abhorred, is now a normal affair. Indeed, parental divorce disrupts the lives of almost one in five Australian children. Cohabiting has also found its way into the modern family, and this has resulted into a popular and often quoted belief that the Australian family is disintegrating.

While the social construct of the family has evolved to cater for the social pressures of modern life, the values attached to it are perhaps more enduring. While the concept of the family is multifaceted, perhaps it comes down to the individuals belonging to any particular family group, who seek the similar values of belonging and compassion that offer a true definition of what a family is.

Briggs, Freda. 2002. The changing family, from Children and Families : Australian Perspectives , Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

Joltes, Richard. 2007. Critical Enquiry: Family Values . Web.

Kinnear, Pamela. 2002. New families for changing times . Discussion Paper No 47. Web.

Milstead, Kayla & Perkins, Gerra. 2010. Family structure Characteristics and academic success: Supporting the work of school counsellors. Academic Leadership, Vol 8, issue 4. Web.

Poole, Marylin & Germov John. 2011. Public Sociology, An introduction to Australian Society , 2nd edition, Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

Saggers, Sherry and Sims, Margaret. 2004. Diversity: Beyond the nuclear family , Edited by Marilyn Poole, Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

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IvyPanda. (2024, February 1). What is the Family? https://ivypanda.com/essays/what-is-the-family/

"What is the Family?" IvyPanda , 1 Feb. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/what-is-the-family/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'What is the Family'. 1 February.

IvyPanda . 2024. "What is the Family?" February 1, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/what-is-the-family/.

1. IvyPanda . "What is the Family?" February 1, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/what-is-the-family/.

Bibliography

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• Familiy Changes
• The Definition of Marriage
• Cohabitation: Family Environment and Life
• Sociological View of Family
• Marriage and Alternative Family Arrangements
• Family Formations, Breakdowns and Re-formations
• The Discussion on the Institute of Family
• Critical Theories of Bodies, Genders, Sexualities and Identities

Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Family Relationships — Importance of Family Relationships

Importance of Family Relationships

• Categories: Family Relationships Parent-Child Relationship

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Words: 515 |

Published: Aug 31, 2023

Words: 515 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Table of contents

Emotional support and security, healthy development and identity formation, nurturing communication skills, shared traditions and cultural heritage, crisis support and resilience, socialization and moral development, interpersonal skills and conflict resolution, elderly care and generational exchange, building strong communities and societal cohesion, conclusion: the enduring significance of family bonds.

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Essay on Importance of Family in 500 Words

• Updated on  
• Mar 8, 2024

Essay on Importance of Family: Family always comes first; everything else is secondary. The importance of family can be seen in the fact that a family always provides us with emotional, moral, and financial support. Family members take care of each other and provide security from external and internal threats. What we learn from family forms the foundation of our personality.

The importance of family can be seen from the fact that they are our first hope. To make the entire world a better place, the Indian Prime Minister emphasized the importance of family by highlighting the Sanskrit term ‘Vasudevakutumbakam’ . It means the ‘World is one family. ’ It states that your family is not limited to those with whom you share blood; every human is connected to others in some way.

Table of Contents

• 1 Importance of Family Support
• 2 Joint and Nuclear Families
• 3.1 Conclusion
• 4 10 Lines on the Importance of Family

‘A Place Where Someone Still Thinks Of You Is A Place You Can Call Home.’ – Unknown

Importance of Family Support

Family support is crucial at every stage in life. Right from the moment we are born, family support empowers us to understand the world around us. Every moment of life requires strong family support; from joy to challenges. 

Our family lays the foundation of our personality. The kind of person we become is completely determined by the family support and care we have received. A family is responsible for a child’s first educational environment. Family teaches us important values and principles. We learn about our identity and the world around us from our family. Our emotional, social, and cognitive activities are shaped by the developments taking place in our family.

Master the art of essay writing with our blog on How to Write an Essay in English .

Joint and Nuclear Families

Families are of two types; joint families and nuclear families. Joint families are large or extended nuclear families where grandparents, parents, and children live together. Sometimes nuclear families also include uncle and aunt. 

Nuclear families, on the other hand, are small families, which consist of parents and children. In today’s busy world, nuclear families have become more prevalent as children step out of their houses for study and occupation purposes. 

In a joint family, relationships go beyond the nuclear family unit, fostering a broader support system that withstands the test of time. Nuclear and joint families have their advantages and challenges. Whether you are living in a nuclear or joint family, both are your blood. You need to take care of your family and keep them happy.

Also Read: Essay on Family in 100, 200 & 300 Words

Family and Happiness

Spending time with family brings happiness and satisfaction. Our family’s love, support, and encouragement help enhance self-esteem and confidence to face challenges and lead a positive life. Strong family connections are important for a happier life. 

Our family’s unconditional love lays the foundation for happiness. Feeling accepted and valued for who you are, regardless of successes or failures, enhances overall well-being. This love serves as a constant, supporting individuals through life’s challenges.

The importance of family can vary from person to person. Some families are sensitive towards their children while others want their children to learn from the developments around them. In both cases, families are taking care of their children. Our family is our first hope. Therefore, accepting and valuing family support is important for a successful and happy life. 

Also Read: Essay on Women in Sports

10 Lines on the Importance of Family

Here are 10 lines on the importance of family. Students can add them in their essays on the importance of family or similar topics.

• Our family is our world.
• Family always comes first.
• Our family lays the foundation of our growth.
• Our family is our first hope.
• Our family provides us with emotional, moral, and financial support.
• Family support is crucial to deal with challenging situations.
• The kind of person we become is completely determined by the family support and care we have received.
• The world can become a better place if we accept the entire world as a family.
• Spending time with family brings happiness and satisfaction.
• Our family’s unconditional love lays the foundation for happiness.

Ans: The importance of family can vary from person to person. Some families are sensitive towards their children while others want their children to learn from the developments around them. In both cases, families are taking care of their children. Our family is our first hope. Therefore, accepting and valuing family support is important for a successful and happy life. 

Ans: Our family is our world. Family always comes first. Our family lays the foundation of our growth. Our family is our first hope. Our family provides us with emotional, moral, and financial support. Family support is crucial to deal with challenging situations.

Ans: Our family is our first hope. They provide us with emotional, moral, and financial support in every possible situation. Taking care of our loved ones must be our priority, as it shows how much we care for them.

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Essay on My Family for School Students and Children

500+ words essay on my family.

Families are an integral part of one’s life. It does not matter if you have a small or big family, as long as you have one. A family serves as the first school to the child where one learns about various things. The basic knowledge about one’s culture and identity comes from their family only. In other words, you are a reflection of your family. All the good habits and manners one has incorporated are from their family only. I feel very lucky to be born in a family which has made me a better person. In my opinion, families are an essential part of one’s being. In this essay on my family, I will tell you why family is important.

Why Families are Important?

Families are a blessing not everyone is fortunate enough to have. However, those who do, sometimes do not value this blessing. Some people spend time away from the family in order to become independent.

However, they do not realize its importance. Families are essential as they help in our growth. They develop us into becoming a complete person with an individual identity. Moreover, they give us a sense of security and a safe environment to flourish in.

You can read essay on my mother here .

We learn to socialize through our families only and develop our intellect. Studies show that people who live with their families tend to be happier than ones living alone. They act as your rock in times of trouble.

Families are the only ones who believe in you when the whole world doubts you. Similarly, when you are down and out, they are the first ones to cheer you up. Certainly, it is a true blessing to have a positive family by your side.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Pillars of Strength

My family has been always by my side in ups and downs. They have taught me how to be a better person. My family consists of four siblings and my parents. We also have a pet dog that is no less than our family.

Within each family member, lies my strength. My mother is my strength as I can always count on her when I need a shoulder to cry on. She believes in me more than any other person. She is the backbone of our family. My father is someone who will always hide away his troubles for the sake of his family.

In short, I will forever be indebted to my family for all they have done for me. I cannot imagine my life without them. They are my first teachers and my first friends.

They are responsible for creating a safe and secure environment for me at home. I can share everything with my family as they never judge one another. We believe in the power of love above everything and that drives us to help each other to become better human beings.

FAQs on Family

Q.1 Why are families important?

A.1 Families are important because they nurture and develop us. They make us happy and give us the chance to become better human beings. Families enhance your confidence and make you believe in yourself.

Q.2 How do families act as pillars of strength?

A.2 Families are the pillars of strength because they give us the courage to face the world. They are always there when we need them. Even in the loneliest of times, families make us feel better.

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Types of families.

• Word Count: 557
• Approx Pages: 2
• View my Saved Essays
• Downloads: 38
• Grade level: High School
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            A family can be defined in numerous ways. The Oxford University Press defines a family as "a group consisting of two parents and their children living together as a unit". This definition is extremely limited, as it only covers a portion of the families today. In actuality, there are five basic types of families. Each of them vary in appearance, but the purpose of each one is ultimately to provide a caring, loving and constructive environment to all of its members.              The most recognized of these families is the nuclear family, a family in which the mother, father and children all reside together. This is seen as the traditional family, and is considered by many to be ideal. Traditionally, in this setting, the father plays the role of breadwinner, while the mother handles the domestic work. But with time comes change. In modern life it is not at all unusual to encounter a household where the father stays at home caring for the children and the mother is the main source of income. In either situation, the role of the parents is to ensure that their children have a stable atmosphere in which to live.              Another type of family is the extended family. An extended family contains relatives from beyond the nuclear family who dwell in the same household (http://www.hartland64.freeserve.co.uk). Extended families include members like grandmothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. These additional members may help reduce the financial stress on a family, as they may bring in additional income. They also may reduce the hassle on the parents when it comes to finding child care. .              Lone or Single Parent families are another type of family. This one is self explanatory - It is a family in which there is only one parent present to take care of the child or children. This may be the case because of children born out of wedlock, parents who were widowed, or families who were simply abandoned by one parent. Lone Parent families are usually harder to manage, as one parent must play the role of two, but in many cases they are successful in doing so.

• Page 1 of 2

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Family and Gender What is the definition of a family? ... Both family structure and family values have been changing and as a result of these changes, the American family is a much-altered institution. ... However, if family life today seems unsettled, so, too, was family life in the past. ... Family values are a part of our family of origin and are the rules that we go by and family values are different for every family. What family values are depends on what each family teaches their children to believe in. ...

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Family Is What You Make It There are different types of family in society. Two of which are a nuclear family and an extended family. ... Some people refer to a nuclear family as a conjugal family. ... Of the two types of families defined, I think that in Summer of My German Soldier Patty has more of an extended family. ... I feel as though the family in the story does not keep with the definition of the type of family that is supposed to be in the book. ...

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What is Type 2 diabetes? ... The Cause of Type 2 diabetes: Type 2 diabetes is caused by the body's resistance to insulin. ... Drug Type Effect Impact on Family and Friends If a family member gets diagnosed it can impact the entire family. 1. ... It changes the schedule of the family it means regular meal times and cooking with a diabetic menu for the whole family. ... Routine blood sugar testing limits family vacationing 5. ...

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