Talk:Nuclear family

New Picture

I feel like this pictre better represents the classic nuclear family, with the suburbian house behind it. <img src="https://i.insider.com/5d80fd176f24eb00ce08e2aa?width=750&format=jpeg&auto=webp" alt="Vintage Photos of Levittown, America's First Suburb, in the '50s"/> — Preceding unsigned comment added by FuturisticPat07 (talk • contribs) 16:26, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

I would support adding additional pictures of diverse families, as the current picture only plays in to the stereotype of the White nuclear family.Captchacatcher (talk) 15:14, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

I just want to highlight the new picture on the North American subsection of the Sheridan family. Whilst the picture is a good one, and we need a diversity of portraits on this wiki page, including families that have adopted, the picture as it currently stands could mislead reactionary assumptions from viewers.

One should clarify that the couple has adopted the young daughter, and highlight how the picture represents an evolution of the American nuclear family in the contemporary age ? Something in that style. It's unfortunate to have to request this, but I just feel it would be best to preempt reactionary fantasies.

Also the picture claims to be from an Irish family but is in a section about North America. Should that be amended to Irish-American or am I misunderstanding ? 92.89.169.213 (talk) 04:22, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

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TITLE

This article says that it follow the USA primarily and not any other country. If the title were to be changed to "The American Nuclear Family" or such. TheIronWill (talk) 21:24, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Congrats

I'd like to congratulate everyone for the current, apparently stable version of the article. I think it is far more balanced and informative than it was a mere month ago! Kudos! DavidBailey 15:30, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Dismissive of Gay relationships, missing a wider analysis of the term

I feel personally that this article may have been written to be balanced, but I must come from a different point of view and state I don't feel it is. I feel that it dismisses homosexual relationships, emphasizing it only affects a 'minority', and that is not accepted in most countries, but using these two points I feel it puts gay relationships in a negative light even if it wasn't intended. Further I would like to point out a wider discussion about the nuclear family, in that for some Socialists, the nuclear family is by-product of capitalism, and is therefore merely the 'Bourgeois Family’. This ‘family’ in Socialist Feminist thought is the origins of Patriarchy and the systematic oppression of women. We assume as westerners that the nuclear family is the most desirable and normal, but in pre-capitalist society families were in a communal setting and often polygamous. Judeo-Christianity in the west has created the structure of validating sexual intercourse through a ceremony of a man and a woman. However ‘Bourgeois Marriage’ was the contract between two families merging/exchanging capital and assets see dowry system. This article should explore a much wider context, which it currently doesn’t and is based on western assumptions about the natural structure of the family we call the nuclear family. I do not dismiss any good intentions of this article or homophobic intent, there very good articles in wikipedia about homosexuality, however this article isn’t one of them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by PiousTrent (talk • contribs)

The extensions proposed are excellent, i tried to extend it some time ago, but was prevented by the common understanding of the term, nuclear family. A wider sociological examination is required. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.41.211.99 (talk • contribs)

The article quotes George Murdock's description of NFs: "It contains adults of both sexes, at least two of whom maintain a socially approved sexual relationship..." This permits polygamy, but not monogamous gay relationships(?...) I, personally, consider gay couples with children "nuclear families," and I think most Americans anyway do. userX 23:30, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

This can also be seen in the DOMH article made famous by Al Frankin here http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_10/sr10_246.pdf on page 10 uses the definition of a nuclear family without referencing a gender for the parent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.39.197.90 (talk) 22:34, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

This article does seem to lack NPV in regards to families of same-sex spouses. Encyclopedia Britannica addresses this issue frankly: "nuclear family, also called elementary family, in sociology and anthropology, a group of people who are united by ties of partnership and parenthood and consisting of a pair of adults and their socially recognized children. Typically, but not always, the adults in a nuclear family are married. Although such couples are most often a man and a woman, the definition of the nuclear family has expanded with the advent of same-sex marriage. Children in a nuclear family may be the couple’s biological or adopted offspring." I suggest more neutral language is required in the lead paragraph of this article and elsewhere. 74.83.14.59 (talk) 19:54, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

The article is not complete—not by a long shot. It can certainly stand some expansion in the direction of same-sex and other definitions. Binksternet (talk) 20:30, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Sentence moved from divorce section

Society assumes these families can only be fixed through another marriage, and the single parent status is only temporary and can be overcome.

This statement is unsupported and seems fairly POV to me. It's here until someone can rewrite it to include references. DavidBailey 12:55, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, upon reading the whole divorce section I think it's not that relevant or well-written to begin with. I guess the question is, what happens to a nuclear family when a divorce happens. If it's no longer a nuclear family by definition, then it isn't "challenging" the nuclear family, it simply ceases to be one. If it still is a nuclear family, then it still isn't challenging the nuclear family, because it still is one. Anyone else think it needs to stay, if so, what does it need to state? DavidBailey 13:00, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Here's the whole divorce section. If it needs to be in the article, it needs to written better than this.

The number of single parent families in society is challenging the idea of the nuclear family. Divorce has given rise to different living arrangements for parents and chidren. These post-nuclear families have been described as “broken because the marriage bond has been broken”

DavidBailey 16:06, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

References

Contemporary Perception

Since this article began some have inserted commentary on the family itself. For instance, this section is more of a commentary on family itself rather than on the nuclear family structure. If there's no objection, I'll move it to the 'Family' article instead. DavidBailey 16:16, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

This has been moved to the family article. DavidBailey 03:15, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion from a wiki-newbie: remove parochial reference in the opening paragraph

I'm new here. I cannot figure out how to edit the opening paragraph.

I suggest that the penultimate word in the opening section should be amended from:

"[...] in the nation."

to:

"[...] in that nation."

Pendant 08:04, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Nuclear family

…In main Article: Is stated[ can be any size, as long as the family can support itself and,.( the continuation is in of course 'the main article. And in the Article describes what in early years is the definition of Kernel or nut. Perhaps I may explain the comparison on this talk page of Nuclear and Kernal and Nut. Property of an existing, Pertaining time, a gathered entity that has a defereniteness's, though is structured to the share of it's course. Meaning a Hole structural balance that has keeping though expresses a reason and notification of a quality. I was typing A Lending though in study the choice was to be a whole which may be in a security in same sense as security, though may be extended within a reachable terming.David George DeLancey (talk) 01:06, 4 September 2008 (UTC) …My apologies on defereniteness's i actually checked it three times and wanted it without the apostrophe and was spelling it deferentness which now I realize was suppose to differentnessDavid George DeLancey (talk) 01:18, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Incomplete reference

Can someone complete reference 4 (Williams et al.)? It's a good reference, but the citation lacks page number. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sverrebm (talk • contribs) 13:22, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Partial references

I'm not certain what happened to this text, but the references have been lost and the content is at odds with recent information from the US Census bureau. I'm placing the sections there to encourage editing them back into a form that can be inserted back into the article. Thanks. DavidBailey (talk) 21:06, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

According to a 1954 issue of McCall's magazine: "[t]he most impressive and the most heartening feature of this change is that men, women, children are achieving it together. They are creating this new and warmer way of life not as women alone or men alone, isolated from one another, but as a family sharing a common experience."

Some sociologists studying families and their formation, attempting to detail the changes in fami

• Increase in sole occupancy dwellings and smaller family sizes
• Average age of marriage being older
• Average number of children decreasing and first birth at later age
• The historical pattern of fertility. From baby boom to baby bust (instability)
• The aging population. The trend towards greater life expectancy.
• Rising divorce rates and people who will never marry.

References

Henry Ford's "8 hour day, $5 week"

Henry Ford famously paid his workers $5 per 'day', not per week. Straight from ford.com:

http://www.ford.com/about-ford/heritage/milestones/5dollaraday/677-5-dollar-a-day

$5 per week, or $1 per day, was a miserable wage even in Ford's pre-inflationary times. I'm changing "week" to "day". Heian-794 (talk) 17:27, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Single-parent families

Roughly 75% (or percent) of all children in the United States will spend at least some time in a single-parent household.

What does "some time" mean? What "single-parent household" will they spend time in? Their own home? Their aunt's house? And it's not referenced. I deleted the phrase as vague. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.203.221.17 (talk) 03:33, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Restored Article

I restored the article, an anon user had removed virtually all of the article on 3/10/09 --RLent (talk) 15:14, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Wolfgang Haak

The article has the name of the co-leader of the dig put into brackets,This person does not seem like he is very important, maybe for this dig he was but not in general.I would ask if it would be okay to remove his name, because the addition of his name does not seem to add very much to the article.It seems like someone might have wanted to give this person more light ( i cant think of the word , kinda like famous,but that would fit for him) but the addition of his name doesn't particularly help the page.Thank you Durga Dido (talk) 15:24, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

According to the 2000 census, "nuclear families (mother, father, and children living together) now constitute fewer than 25 percent of U.S. households."

1. Joe Queenana, "Nuclear Dad: Last of My Kind," New York Times (December 23, 2001), Sect. 9, p. 1.

and

2. Allan C. Ornstein and Francis P. Hunkins, ''Curriculum: Foundation, Principles, and Issues'', Boston, MA (2009) p. 153.

---

"The fact is, parent-child interaction has declined 40 percent in the last 20 years, 75 of women with children were working in 2000 compared to 18 percent in the 1950's, and the number of latchkey children, ages 6 to 14, has soared to 70 percent."

1. Allan C. Ornstein. Teaching and Schooling in America: Pre- and Post-September 11 (Boston: Alllyn and Bacon, 2003).

and

2. Allan C. Ornstein and Francis P. Hunkins, ''Curriculum: Foundation, Principles, and Issues'', Boston, MA (2009) p. 154.

24.174.20.33 (talk) 06:45, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

First paragraph

The last sentence in the first paragraph seems like it is trying to imply that the nuclear family is the most common living arrangement in the united states, it no longer is (by a small margin) as childless couples are more common. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.126.69.92 (talk) 04:25, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 24.8.166.146, 22 July 2011

I would like to request an edit for the first line
FROM
"A nuclear family is defined as a family group consisting of a father and mother and their children, all exclusively sharing living quarters"
TO
"A nuclear family consists of one or more children living with two parents who are married to one another and are biological or adoptive parents to all children in the family."
Per the definition in the 2010 study done by the Center for Disease Control; reference link below - PAGE 6,7 "Selected Results" section

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_10/sr10_246.pdf

(support to the above) http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhis.htm

These are definitions that are currently in use not only by the CDC, but also in congress and by lawmakers. GreasyMonk (talk) 22:23, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

 Not done. The definition of nuclear family is not only in the hands of the U.S. government. More interpretations exist, international ones, and ones that are older and more established in the literature. Binksternet (talk) 00:23, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Sort-of Done. I added a sentence clarifying it. Though I did not use your source, Encyclopedia Britannica acknowledges this concern specifically, and a textbook referenced cites an inclusive definition as well. I think we can conclude that for the time being, both definitions are in use.Theinactivist (talk • contribs) 08:31, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

And Al Franken's interpretation is not a reliable source. Also, on page 15 of that study, it provides a pie chart showing the make-up of family types in the study. 48.4% are shown to be "Nuclear." However, the text on the page which elaborates on the pie chart describes that group to be "'traditional' nuclear famil[ies]." Since when has anything other than a family headed by a mother and father ever been described as "traditional?" Given that this study began in 2001 when there was no such thing as gay marriage in the U.S., it's odd that the CDC would include anything other than a mother and father under "nuclear." 67.233.224.204 (talk) 05:50, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I think when we're looking at older definitions, it's going to be difficult to say that 'two parents married to each other' was intended by the speaker to mean anything other than father and mother. The reason the speaker may not have stated father and mother specifically, is they couldn't conceive at the time a definition of married parents that included same-sex couples. Compare similarly to the US constitution, where 'all men are created equal' carried the implicit assumption 'except for those who are enslaved'. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:01, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

The text itself was written some time between 2007 and October 2010. Just because they chose not to study same-sex parents does not mean they didn't conceive of their existence, an assumption I would consider dubious for any time at least since 1970. I could conversely say that since the study does not distinguish parent gender in any of the categories except single parent (and then only for biological parents), they assumed that factors such as legal recognition of both parents to the child is more important to child well-being than gender of the parents. The CDC should at least be expected to know of the existence of unrecognized same-sex families. (Also as a note, the phrase "all men are created equal" was in fact interpreted by some at that time to renounce slavery.) Theinactivist (talk • contribs) 20:11, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Conservatives and nuclear family

American conservatives are really defenders of nuclear family? I am not an American, but, for what I know about American conservatism, they dont't seem to have any problem with enlarged families, with strong relations between sons, parents, grandparents, cousins, uncles, etc (eventually living in the same home). Yes, they are in favour of "traditional nuclear family", but the operative words seems to be the "traditional", not the "nuclear" (they are against non-tradional families, not against enlarged families)--81.84.188.236 (talk) 01:18, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

"Financially viable"?

This sentence in the first paragraph is rather mystifying to me, especially since the citation is not freely available:

With the emergence of proto-industrialization and early capitalism, the nuclear family became a financially viable social unit.

I would expect that a nuclear family could exist before the industrial era, and this article's section on history gives no mention of earlier challenges. To be blunt: What on earth is this sentence trying to say? —dgies^t_c 09:54, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I think it is trying to say that one man's income could support the family, when in earlier times it often took the whole family working to make a living. Binksternet (talk) 10:09, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I suppose this should be clarified. I guess what it's implying is that prior to proto-industrialization (PS, the wiki article on this topic is worthless and uncited) you basically saw either communal village living or vassals living with their lord, either of which violating nuclear family definitions by sharing living space. We need a more robust definition of what caused this change and when. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:43, 24 February 2012 (UTC):

Or grandparents, sons, grandsons, uncles and nephews living together (what I suppose is the typical non-nuclear family in pre-industrial ages--81.84.110.204 (talk) 15:44, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Compare and contrast.

Second Sentence: "This is in contrast to a polygamous family, single-parent family, and to the larger extended family. "

There are more ways to have a multiple-parent families than with Polygamy. These include Polyandry and Polyamory, probably others. Perhaps this could be modified to be closer to: "This is in contrast to families with a single parent, the larger extended family, and other family arrangements containing more than two parents."

I didn't read much further through the article than the intro and a bit of the first section, but if there are any other references to polygamous families these should be changed to a more neutral term. 216.185.68.30 (talk) 19:36, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I made the change to "more than two parents". Binksternet (talk) 23:08, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

The Real Nuclear Family

The term 'nuclear family' was coined in the 1950's in the new nuclear age. It was used to describe a modern, middle class, 'perfect' family consisting of a married man and a woman and their biological children, usually one male child and one female child. The term was mostly used during the height of the Cold War during the 1950's through 1970's period and had largely disappeared from usage by the 1980's. The term did not associate itself with extended, adopted, step-families and homosexual relationships as those types of relationships did not lend themselves to the 'perfect' family concept and, during that period, carried significant social stigma's. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.253.249.8 (talk • contribs)

I bet that some other people agree with you about that, but the books on the subject are conclusive that the term has nothing to do with the nuclear age from the late 1940s through the 1960s.

You might be surprised to find that the term "nuclear family" was in use many decades before the atomic bomb was developed. Sociologists used the term in the 19th century, more than 100 years before the atomic bomb. Binksternet (talk) 16:18, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Changes to family formation

The first two paragraphs of this section seem to conflict; or perhaps I'm misreading or it needs rephrasing. The result seems to convey to me that a majority of children in the U.S. live in a nuclear family, yet the second paragraph conveys that a small minority do. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Slamond (talk • contribs) 19:12, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Freudien Theories of Identification and Their Derivatives

This article is improperly cited. The text seems to imply that the citation is from a publication by Freud himself entitled "Theories of Identification and Their Derivatives", as it says "in [ibid] 'he' states ...", though the actual author is not named and the source is not included in the list of references.

The cited article, "Freudian Theories of Identification and Their Derivatives" by Urie Bronfenbrenner, was published nearly 60 years ago. That the publication is so old should be taken into account since it seems to be included only to discredit the argument that "[the nuclear family is] central to stability in modern society", or to provide evidence that such a position "has been challenged". However, as cited it does not constitute evidence of a challenge, but is merely a concession of ignorance on the part of a researcher of 1960.

The Functionalist perspective of the family makes exactly the claim that the nuclear family is the "basic building block" of society and is written about extensively. The omission of discussion of support of the claim and the inclusion of such poor example of challenges are evidence non-neutrality of the original contributor of this paragraph, especially given that the opening sentence seeks to associate the claim with a particular political group.73.156.246.197 (talk) 15:47, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

New addition ideas

I am thinking of things that could be added to this Wikipedia article to make it better. I would like to add what the nuclear family looks like today how it has or hasn't changed and the pros and cons of nuclear family's and possibly if I can find more information it would be interesting to expand on the expanded family section and just compare it more to the nuclear family's. These are some articles I plan to use but if anyone has any suggestions please let me know.

Bibliography

LaFave, Daniel, and Duncan Thomas. “Extended Families and Child Well-Being.” Duke University, 0AD, pp. 1–33. http://www.colby.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/73/2012/04/extfamily-mar12.pdf

Gangopadhyay, Soumik, and Soma Sur. “Burden of NCDs among Nuclear Families.” Journal of Health Management, vol. 19, no. 4, Sept. 2017, pp. 602–609., doi:10.1177/0972063417727623. http://journals.sagepub.com.aurarialibrary.idm.oclc.org/doi/10.1177/0972063417727623#articleCitationDownloadContainer

“1. The American family today.” Pew Research Center's Social & Demographic Trends Project, 17 Dec. 2015, www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/17/1-the-american-family-today/.

Laurenfeiman (talk) 20:39, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Changes to North American Conservatism

Is nobody here going to talk about he massive changes made to the "North American Conservatism" section in April of 2018, all by one user, all referencing one source?

This phrase isn't in the reference and from what I can tell isn't supported by it: "The numbers of nuclear families is slowly dwindling in the US as more women pursue higher education, develop professional lives, and delay having children until later in their life.[25]" It's probably right, but isn't due to just women, but also men and again isn't in the reference.

This phrase just like the other is not supported by the reference: "Children and marriage have become less appealing as many women continue to face societal, familial, and/or peer pressure to give up their education and successful career to focus on stabilizing the home.[25]" There is no talk of how appealing things are, nor is there any reference to peer pressure. This was wholly made up by the author.

This sentence makes claims not even supported by this article: "As diversity in the United States continues to increase, it is becoming difficult for the classically traditional family unit—a heterosexual couple of the same race and ethnicity with two children—to stay the norm[25]". This article itself doesn't define nuclear families as being of the same race and isn't about "classically traditional families". Also the conclusion in that sentence is not in the reference.

"calling the relevancy of North American Conservatism into question." LOL. Really, wikipedia?

This whole section is interesting and probably supported by the data but just doesn't seem to be relevant in this section. Perhaps there is a demographic section that could be created: "Data from 2014 also suggests that single parents and the likelihood of children living with one is also determined by race. Pew Research Center has found that 54% of African-American individuals will be single parents compared to 19% of Caucasian individuals.[25]Several factors account for the differences in family structure including economic and social class. Differences in education level also change the amount of single parents. In 2014, those with less than a high school education are 46% more likely to be a single parent compared to 12% who have graduated college.[25]".

I have a few other issues but this is the crux of it. I personally think the areas highlighted above should be deleted.

Truthseekerleaker (talk) 13:55, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Stone age burial

The history section opens with this: "DNA extracted from bones and teeth in a 4,600-year-old Stone Age burial in Germany has provided the earliest evidence for the social recognition of a family consisting of two parents with multiple children."

The source also states that they were all interred simultaneously after being killed in a violent raid.

While the 4 are arranged as a nuclear family in death, there was also 12 other people buried nearby. To me, it doesn't seem genuinely relevant to the concept of a nuclear family. We don't know anything about their living family structure or household (if they even had a household). Pythagimedes (talk) 03:29, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Nonsensical criticism

The criticism makes limited sense (about "the Extended Family" being more common historically, therefore Nuclear is "not traditional") in three ways:

• Disputing the Nuclear family as "not traditional" when we consider its prevalence since 13th century England, and as the most common family structure in the US from the mid-20th century, seems to be undue weight.
• The Nuclear Family as a "nucleus" of father-mother-children, is still the most prevalent family structure in America; , with 70 percent living in two-parent families in 2005. Taking an extended family by its literal meaning of "extension", Extended families and Two-parent families are not mutually exclusive; they may consist of such a nucleus.
• The second paragraph in "Changes to family formation", the article writes that there is no prominent style of family in America. But, as sourced above, it is still clearly true of the vast prevalence of two-parent families in general (70 percent.) This is a clear inconsistency with data sourced in the article.

Zilch-nada (talk) 17:29, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

References

Why does this article seem like is was written by someone seething over their keyboard?

Looking at all the references here I just have to assume this is the work of the "just love. don't judge" people. I've been a lifelong atheist, but I've never been in your face about it, but everyone has known a person who identified as an atheist and would constantly be confrontational about it. They would get into arguments with people randomly and would just never let up about their moral superiority and rightness of it all. Then there's the same exact archetype of dude who does the same with Marxism/communism/socialism. They make it their whole identity and use it as some entitlement or license to high-horse everyone.

I just came here to possibly find an unbiased book that explains the history of the nuclear family and why it has a name relating to physics. Basically, what I'm saying is, with all due respect, the lgbtq+ community is becoming the cringy atheist anarchist of the 2020s. 2600:1700:7491:D490:18F4:2CA2:87C3:B2C3 (talk) 20:43, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Merriam-Webster can help with the history of the term.[1] (Short version: Coined in the 1920s, based on on "nucleus".) The Way We Never Were by Stephanie Coontz is an excellent book on the history of the family in the U.S. Schazjmd (talk) 20:54, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

And I see that the article does discuss the name (rather verbosely): While the phrase dates approximately from the Atomic Age, the term "nuclear" is not used here in the context of nuclear warfare, nuclear power, nuclear fission or nuclear fusion; rather, it arises from a more general use of the noun nucleus, itself originating in the Latin nux, meaning "nut", i.e. the core of something – thus, the nuclear family refers to all members of the family being part of the same core rather than directly to atomic weapons. Schazjmd (talk) 21:06, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Ah, thank you for the response, I will look into if you say it's a good resource. I don't want to judge a book by it's cover, but to me "The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap", with a sensational and negative title it seems like it's going to be a bit biased.

Thanks I did read that part, but I was wondering more who originally came up with the term and if they were trying to develop some kind of model(as in approximation) in relating the family to particle physics and if they had more writings and expanding on it for more comparisons about how societies operate, free electrons, social order and crystalline structure and stuff like that.

I was just looking for some basic information and was kind of suprised about how contentious this is. 2600:1700:7491:D490:18F4:2CA2:87C3:B2C3 (talk) 21:38, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

As I recall (it's been awhile since I read it), Coontz's book is countering the Happy Days mythology in which the TV versions of families for a brief time in the 1950s became culturally embedded as not only the way families were but they were supposed to be by examining what families and family life were really like over the past two centuries. Schazjmd (talk) 21:42, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Distinctive line or blurry line from extended families?

It seems to me that a nuclear family consists of a husband, a wife, and their child/ren, all living under one roof. An extended family, in contrast, has more family members living together with them. This could simply be an in-law. For example: a husband, a wife, her mother, and the wife's children (the older mother's grandchildren) and they all live in the same house. Or we could have more people living in there. A husband and wife, their grown daughter, as well as her husband and their children (grandparents own house; their adult daughter, that adult's spouse, and their grand/children all live together sharing one house). We could have a much bigger house where you have multiple families living together at once, such as an Iroquois longhouse. We could have a different sort of situation, like three brothers living together paying rent, and one's widowed and raising his child with his brothers (the child's uncles). It could be three women who are friends all raising their own children together- they're single moms, but not really. It could be a polycule all living together with their children. These are all examples of a non-nuclear family set-up, all of which could be called an extended family (depending on your definition, the "single-mom" trio and/or polycule may not count).

It seems to be that for some people, step-parent and monogamous gay parents also do not count. Though we still have the same situation where you have two parents and their children living under one roof. That seems to skew the definition a bit towards being heteronormative. I'm not seeing anything where the women's income seems to count. That doesn't mean that people don't use it in that way, to indicate a male breadwinner, but it does show that for this article currently it's about a fully genetic family living with their children. It doesn't matter if she's an actress and he's an at-home parent, so long as if all the children raised are biologically there's, it's a nuclear family. That means that if they ever adopt a child, it's not a nuclear family. I don't agree with that definition personally, but that's where the article stands right now.

The issue here that I want to focus on is the distaste of a presumed picture-perfect 1950s Caucasian family that is skewing the image. Most Caucasian-American conservative families actually do include relatives. Having an in-law/parent/grandparent or adult brother/uncle or adult sister/aunt living together is not too unusual. We see many representations in family sitcoms. To say it in a way some people will understand, "it's a very white thing to do". In actual, real-life family dynamics, if the children do not live with their grandparent or uncle/aunt (or even if they do) they are supposed to visit and occasionally stay with them. That can be anything from:

1. Using family as unpaid babysitters when something comes up 2. Staying with a family member while on a few week vacation 3. Letting your kid spend a (or all) summer/s over at their relatives. 4. Letting your child hang out with their cousins every weekend, putting them into the care of their aunt/uncle

This all falls in that realm of a picture-perfect white family. Some are slightly less perfect and weird, but they still fall into the typical family models pre-2010s American Caucasians can expect. If someone's trying to follow the traditional Caucasian-family lifestyle, then you don't want to take near relatives away. If an extended family includes visitation, then most follow an extended family lifestyle.

The deviation comes from when you have two married couples living together, any of the other possible arrangements I mentioned farther above, and more. Having three aunts stay together in a married couple's house is unusual. Having two unrelated couples with their offspring together is unusual and may or may not fit into the extended family definition. Newly weds staying at the groom's house and the wife is raising her newborn there is...not an unusual situation and sometimes considered an imperfect one.

There is also another important deviation. The strictly nuclear family. What's trending now is parents who are actively preventing grandparents and their siblings from taking part in their grandchildren's/nieces/nephews lives. This is often done under the belief that those other family members are "narcissistic" or otherwise have a lifestyle or moral values that they not only don't want to impart onto their children, but also that they don't want their children to even come into contact with these individuals. This is done by Americans of many races these days, including white people. I would say that some types on the political right speak out against this sort of intense family shunning. Combating the need for complete individual freedom (like breaking away from parents and siblings so that they have no idea what's going on in their own life whatsoever) is something that they fight against sometimes. The right to interact with grandchildren and nieces/nephews despite political differences. The fight against personal estrangement. The family must live on, but ideally grown children move out of the house into their own and get married and have children. But that doesn't mean they break away completely.

That strict family idea, where a bread-winning father and his house-keeping wife and their children all live under one roof and shun the rest of the family is not that 1950s ideal. It's a family that has shunned their relatives from intervening with them. A lot of cult or deep-Christian converts end up in this situation. It happens with other religions too. Sometimes the husband and wife roles are circumstantial and not part of their value system. Atheists can end up having that sort of family dynamic. But again, it can be just for religion, but politics and lifestyle differences as well.

TL'DR: 1950s-2000s White-Americans have an extended family system according to some definitions of the differences between nuclear families and extended families. True nuclear families are typically due to religious cults, extreme personal independence, or strong distaste of family. True nuclear families are becoming more common nowadays due to encouragement to abandon narcissistic relatives. It was not a feature of a cereal-box picture perfect family because the parents are supposed to keep in contact with their grown siblings and parents and let their children bond with their aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Sometimes they are even allowed to live together: children staying over at their grandparents or aunts/uncles for extended or short periods of time is expected and sometimes even encouraged. Therefore we have a definition clash as to what a nuclear family is. Is it a genetic family consisting of a married male and female and their offspring living under one roof with absolutely no close-relatives living with them? Or is it about a married male and female and their offspring living under one roof with no contact and intervention from relatives interacting with those children? Does it change from a nuclear family to an extended family the moment a grandfather dies and the widowed grandmother moves in to support herself? Does it change from a nuclear family to an extended family the moment the husband's father apologizes for going out to buy milk and never coming back and he's allowed to talk to his grandchildren now? Does it change from an extended family to a nuclear family when two parents and their children move out of town and, due to the year and technology available, use only phones to keep in contact? Since the 1950s ideal includes talking to other relatives and the 2020s ideal does not include talking to other relatives, what is a nuclear family? Is it just a heteronormative monogamous family or is it stricter than that?Wacape (talk) 20:41, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

@Wacape: do you have any changes (with, of course, supporting sources) to suggest? If your criticism is that the article fails to adequately and neutrally summarize reliable mainstream sources on the topic, we need specifics. (And I'll point out that an article talk page is not a forum for discussing the topic, only the article.) Schazjmd (talk) 20:51, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Merge proposal

I propose to merge Conjugal family here. While a distinct subtype of a nuclear family (the conjugal family requires married parents, an example of a nuclear family that is not conjugal is a single mother), most attributes (independence from other relatives) are common. While conjugal word implies marriage, the modern use skews to committed relationships in general (cf. Scott 2014 as referenced in the Conjugal family). Викидим (talk) 18:29, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

I believe they are distinct, at least sometimes. Though the nuclear family seems most typical in the West of the conjugal family. I don't think every definition of a nuclear family requires the parents to be married, unlike the definition of a conjugal family. And not every definition I see of a conjugal family requires there to be children. For example: https://www.britannica.com/topic/extended-family#ref251289. Perhaps the two pages should be merged into an article on family units anyways, but in my opinion, they are distinct and often overlapping units. Captchacatcher (talk) 18:55, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Support the merge, given the extensive overlap. Differences in nomenclature can be discussed on the Nuclear family page, and the text is short enough in Conjugal family that it won't unbalance the page. Klbrain (talk) 09:27, 22 October 2024 (UTC)