Family in Modern American Society

In the 1950’s, society depicted the picture perfect family behind the black and white screens of American television. Apron-draped mothers made breakfast for their newspaper-reading husbands, waxed-hair sons, and book-hugging daughters in American television classics such as “Father Knows Best”. The Andersons epitomized the ideal middle-class family life consisting of an astute breadwinning father, a merry and charming stay-home mother, and obedient children who were both socially and academically successful. In comparison to present day America, the very notion that such an “ideal” family exists seems all too false. In fact, families today resemble anything but the Anderson family as they develop towards a wholly different direction.

The everyday usage of “family” refers to the mom, the dad, the siblings the blood-related and often time, the pets. However, family extends beyond what is tangible into what is intangible. Family culture varies between eras and between homes, but its concept is universally defined by foundation, unity, and love.

One’s character is a convoluted result of a variety of forces. Yet, family is undeniably the main force behind one’s growth and lifestyle in adulthood. During the childhood years, one’s family is the source of all things necessary for growth-shelter, income, education, and care. How a child behaves is a direct result of what builds his or her character in the home. Consequently, the sense of foundation is also a psychological matter. Because family is the earliest source of education in many areas for children, it has the biggest impact on one’s mentality throughout life. Childhood years are impressionable and the family life that fosters these years lay foundation for a child’s growth. A disturbed child who is known as the bully at school for example, can be traced back to have a traumatic family life marred by child abuse. Though there are exceptions due to human’s sense of individual growth, the tremendous development experienced as a child in the home contributes much to one’s opinions, and attitudes. Hence, family is not only the foundation of one’s behavior but also one’s mentality.

“Everywhere we went I had trouble making out which was I, the one walking at my side, [or] the one walking in my pants.” (White, Par. 11). In E.B White’s “Once More to the Lake,” the narrator illustrates the reality that family is bonded by more than simple blood lines. By viewing both father and son as one person spiritually, White examines an important trait of family principles-unity. Composed of trust, shared experiences, or goals, the unity represented by family is the unity that binds a group of individuals together through some sense of mutual acceptance. Every human being exhibits individualism and growth with time, but a family is united whether in a sense of mutual love, or common need for belonging.

Love in of itself is a mystery. Virgil in his first authentic work-Eclogues wrote “love conquers all,” signifying the omnipotent power of love. Chaucer’s “The Miller’s Tale” of the epic Canterbury Tales claimed “love [to be] blind.” Shakespeare’s classic works attempted to define love to be a thing that surpassed skin color or name. After all, “that which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet." (II, ii, 1-2). Similarly, modern literature attempts to define love in many forms. What all writers may agree on is the fact that no precise meaning exists. Unlike literature, family universally epitomizes love just as love defines family. No love is more precisely shown when a mother kisses the wound on her child’s finger, when a father cheerfully opens his arms to his daughter after a long day at work, or when two sisters look past sibling rivalry to become the best of friends.

Closely attached to the media and easily influenced by growing trends, modern American society unfortunately no longer fosters an emphasis on family values. Rather, it emphasizes independence and success, perhaps a little too much even.
Teachers lecture their students on the importance of family values in the classroom, but peers on the playground teach each other the values of “the real world”. When a child begins his or her academic career, he or she takes the first step in creating a world outside of his or her family. As children begin to learn more about the world and the endless possibilities, they begin to drift apart from their families to explore a life of their own. They find that life truly exists not with their familiar family, but with others outside of their protective bubbles. Through years of social interactions with peers, young people confine themselves in the belief that acceptance is needed not with family members but with other girls and other boys. By adolescence, he, at sixteen, no longer wants to depend on his parent at for income. He wants to drive a car to school several blocks away. She wants her parents to spare her her privacy. She wants her parents to give her the space to develop on her own. They want independence, but more realistically, acceptance with others. Though independence is often looked upon as a positive notion, it is a cause in much of the dissolving of family ties. When teens depend on their parents less, they distance themselves from parents more. A bond so effortlessly built since birth begins to falter just as easily. Once parents become only a small part of a daughter or son’s life, they understand less. In an effort to rebuild what is perceived to have been lost, they appear to their children more oppressive and desperate. The distance only grows from there.

Today, society ideally calls for family unity, but absence of a parent(s) in broken homes emphasizes the need for self-reliance. The 1998 Census Bureau found that between 1970 and 1996, the proportion of children under 18 years of age living with one parent grew from 12 percent to 28 percent. [Teachman] The effects are as real as the numbers. Studies show that children of broken or nontraditional marriages perform relatively poorly in school, are more likely to exhibit criminal behavior, have more difficulty in their personal, social, and sexual relationships. [www.fathersforlife.org]. These trends continue through generations and gradually dissolve important family values.

Moral codes teach children that happiness derives from love and peace of mind, but the uninhibited greed for materialistic wealth in American society focuses on a need to succeed. Success often is deemed to be a positive drive in any one person’s life, especially in American children who are taught to believe that no dream is too high in the sky nor can one ever have too big a piece of the American pie. Yet, the success idealized in our modern society is focused on wealth and very little on happiness itself. Fortune and materialism, rather, are the focus of success. Some may be willing to move away from families to pursue a dream, while others stay but forget the meaning of family and happiness. The folly focus on success overshadows family values if not completely shatters it.

To be continued...