Nuclear vs Extended Family

A family is known as the basic social unit in a society and it is crucial in humanity. Do you know the reason behind these definitions? For those who don't know yet, let me first discuss about it before moving on to the main topic. 

A society is defined as the organization of mutually dependent people who share the same territory and culture and who act as one for survival and well-being purposes. The family with whom an individual lives with must meet his basic physiological needs like foods, shelter and clothing which are essential for his survival while, on the other hand, a society, attached with their culture, must meet the needs of its people like public order and public policy. Family is considered as the basic unit of society because everything starts from the family. The family in the end is what meets the basic survival needs of an individual being, while a society is the social network of peoples who support this goal. 

A family also plays a major role in the development of each family member in compliance with the law and policy in their society. The blame is often put to the family whenever there are problems in the personality or behavior of a person in relation to the society. It is said that stable families are the first unit in building unified communities and a stable society. For this reason, we should put greater emphasis on the way a person is raised in the family where he belongs because, eventually, the result would either benefit the society or be a source of trouble for the whole community. 

Moving on, a family is also defined as a unit which consists of group of people who are blood related or related through marriage and live together on the same house. In our today's society, there are these two major types of families that are prevalent. These are the so-called nuclear families and extended families. It is necessary to understand the differences between these two to explain their advantages or disadvantages. Let's find out the differences between these two types of families.

As I was browsing the internet, I found an article entitled Difference between Nuclear and Extended Families which is written by Katherine Harrington, an eHow contributor. This article provides us clear and brief definitions of nuclear and extended family. Here's how the article put distinctions between a nuclear family and an extended family.

Nuclear Family
Based on the article, a nuclear family is named from the idea of it being the 'nucleus' of other family groups which consists of a father, mother and their children. A family is defined by their blood relation and through marriage of the parents.

Extended Family

The extended family is a family which is usually define by some common genetic lineage that falls outside of the nuclear family. It consists of aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. It can be traced back for many generations and can be quite large. An example is the picture on the right which is the extended family of Bush. 

In other words, a nuclear family consists of husband and wife with their children living in the same place while an extended family consists of more than two generations and therefore it is larger than the nuclear family. More than two generations means that it may consist of grand grandparents, grandparents, parents and children.

Furthermore, a nuclear family often live separately from their relatives and the parents in this type of families are the ones responsible in the upbringing of their children. On the other hand, in an extended family, the members often strongly support each other.

Which are more prevalent between the two major types of families? We can say that nuclear families are probably common in cultures that lay emphasis on individuality and independence while extended families are probably exist in cultures that highlight group interests and high extent of reliance among family members.

In the past, people remained with their parents and even married and raised their kids in the same home because of less job opportunities. The type of family that we're talking about consists of husband and his wife, their children, spouses of their children and offspring of their children. Having this extended family, they can divide their roles and responsibilities to each member which can lessen the duties of each of them. For example,  the men of the family are the ones who works and support the family with the income earned while the women are left at home to look after the children and to prepare their foods. This arrangement worked well in the past because it was easier for men to be sure of the security of their families.

But when opportunities had come for them to work in cities, they grabbed it and move out of their parental home. Through this, the concept of a nuclear family had developed. It was only natural for a man to get married after getting a job in a city away from his parents and relatives and start his own family there. In nuclear families, there is greater privacy and autonomy for the head of the family. The father, which is considered as the head, may now freely decide on certain family matters which he cannot do while he was still in an extended family and the mother is more confident in her approach of raising a nuclear family rather than when she's in an extended family where she have to consult the others first before doing an action.

What is the difference between Nuclear Family and Extended Family? With the above statements, we can see that nuclear families encourage more entrepreneurship than extended families. But children are more likely to rebel especially if both of their parents are working and no one is left at home to look after them. But I can say that it is better for people in an extended family because they can have their works and responsibilities be divided among the others. And also, raising the children is easier since there are more women who can take care of them while their parents are at work. However, in terms of freedom, the nuclear family can freely decide on certain family matters without consulting first the other members of the extended family. 

Families In Crisis: How To Resolve A Family Crisis

There is no such thing as a perfect family. Families of today, whatever their sizes or shapes, have their own recipes of strengths and weaknesses. There are times when families are besieged by what it seems like a never-ending list of challenges in terms of attending to each family member’s needs, whether in school or in work. There are also times when the families get assaulted by turmoil such as job loss, ill health, or sudden death of any family members. And even happenings like receiving a bonus, job promotion, wedding or winning in a lottery can also upset families although those are some of the events that we consider as happy ones.

What can we do in times like these? How does each members of our family should act without contributing more to the crisis? Obviously, this is the continuation of my previous post which is about handling family crisis in best ways.

As I was browsing multiple of articles on the internet, I happened to read an article by Dr. Phil about How Families Can Overcome Difficult Times. Thankfully, this article itself provides us few, but helpful, suggestions on how to survive a crisis in a family. These are:

1. Set blame aside.
2. Prioritize your problems. 
3. Stand in others' shoes. 
4. Re-engineer the family unit.
5. Recognize that everyone's affected. 
6. Don't get stuck in the past. 

The aforementioned are just a quick look of what you can find on Dr. Phil’s article. However, if you’d like to have a comprehensive understanding of these, I recommend you to visit his linked site.

In dark times like these, it is not only about dealing with the consequences of the crisis but it is also about how to keep a family to continue to help and support each other despite of the crisis. Based on what I had understood from reading the article, each of the family members should not waste their time pointing fingers to anyone. Feelings like anger and resentment need to be put aside so that the family can work together and can make good use of their time looking for solutions for their problems at hand. No matter what the crisis may be the most important thing is to stick together as a family while going through the crisis.