FAD 4265 Reading Guide for Test 1 Familiarity mystification sacredness secrecy as much as we want to be objective our perceptions are guided by cultural visions of family by our own family experiences and paradoxically by the very familiarity of family life everyone considers themselves to be an expert on their own family yet we are too close to our families to see them dispassionately mystification if the deliberate misdefinition of family matters or complicated stratagems to keep everyone in the dark distorts family realities we often misunderstand family processes in general and we even have miscon ceptions about our own families objectivity is obscured by familiarity and mystification families have myths secrets and information processing rules that determine the kinds of communication that goes on secrets occurring in the realm of interpersonal relationships can occur in any family remain hidden for decades and have unsettling even destructive impli cations when they are revealed the family is a sacred label with strong moral connotations is also the most a family s business is nobody s but their own symbolizes decency and other private of all society s institutions cultural values we hold Back stage front stage backstage area is where people are free to act in ways they would not in public much of the intimacy of family life remains hidden behind front stage be havior to maintain a proper appearance in front of others we have a backstage view of our own families but we can judge others only in terms of their front stage presentations Images of family family as haven refuge from an impersonal world characterized the family as a place of intimacy love and trust glorification of private life family was idealized as a repository of warmth and tenderness mother standing in opposition of the competitive and aggressive world of commerce father protect against outside world family as fulfillment today family is more contemporary than protective intimacy spouses lovers and even children making us feel alive and invigo rated brightens up the social landscape intensive parenting large amounts of time spent interacting with children is seen as both critical to children s development and intrinsically fulfilling to parents family as encumbrance we blame the family for inhibiting our full human devel opment freedom from domestic relationships SNAF ex workers escape demanding and stressful family relations by spending more time in the workplace and less time at home Standard North American Family an ideological code that distorts family reality and glorifies the two parent family model social and economic forces make the ideal inaccessible to all yet the two parent family is the universally expected family form Family Darwinism blames families for structural failure belief that the family survives or sinks by its own resources and fitness ignores the harsh effect of economic conditions poverty or near poverty un employment and underemployment and downward mobility or the threat of downward mobility and social inequalities Feminization of poverty the growing impoverishment of women and their children in the U S society there is a rise in mother only households and poverty often accompanies them vast majority of single parent households are maintained by mothers less than 50 of children in the U S live in traditional nuclear families Gendered institutions there are gender differences in every aspect of family living including decision making household division of labor and forms of intimacy and sexuality ex researchers who ask husbands and wives identical questions about their mar riages often get quite different replies even to fairly simple factual questions Themes of the structural diversity approach families are socially constructed and historically changing families vary by economic political and cultural conditions what seems natural depends on time place and circumstance and how family is defined depends on historical period the society and even the social stratum within that society family diversity is produced by the same structures that organize society as a whole gender the institution of family is intertwined with social institutions such as the econ omy politics education and religion also with systems of stratification and in equality such as class race and gender the uneven distribution of work wages and other family requirements produce multiple family forms and experiences not only do power relations determine the resources different groups have avail able for family life but there is a direct relationship between the privileged cir cumstances of some families and the disadvantaged position of other families families are embedded in and shaped by interconnected systems of class race and not only do race class and gender shape families in different ways their link ages mean that people of the same race may experience family differently de pending on their location in class structure as unplowed poor working class or professional their location in the gender structure as male or female and their location in the sexual orientation as heterosexual gay lesbian or bisexual family diversity is constructed through social structure as well as the actions of family members family in idealistic ways although society and its structures are powerful human beings are not simply the product of structural forces even in social locations characterized by limited resources family members can find ways of adapting and thriving family members are not passive but actively shape their family understanding families means challenging monolithic ideas that conceive of the today the family field takes various standpoints into account and several bodies of scholarship by and about marginalized groups are documenting multiple fam ily realities new scholarship about families as they vary by class race gender and sexuality offers powerful alternatives to the old paradigm feminists representing different schools of thought along with various racial and ethnic groups members of the working class and lesbians and gays have pressed for redefinition of the family Human agency women men and children actively shape their families by adapting to and changing certain aspects of their social environments people use their families in order to survive Current economic transformation shift from private capitalism to industrial capitalism nuclear families was a self contained economic enterprise working together