Nuclear Family: Advantages and Disadvantages

A nuclear family is defined as a family unit consisting of a mother and father and their children. Generally, it is believed that it is the ideal arrangement to raise a family where the father is the one who provides the needs of the families with the income he receives from work, the one who serves as the family disciplinary model and the one who insures the protection of his family while, on the other hand, the mother is the one who is in-charge with the household.

In the past decades, nuclear families have gone through major changes in their structure caused by divorce leading to single-parent families, remarriages, and resulted in extended families. These changes and the problems which they may cause, especially for the children, has brought the advantages of nuclear families back into focus.

An article I found from the Buzzle called Advantages of the Traditional Nuclear Family talks about traditional nuclear family. In this article, Rita Putatunda provides us six (6) advantages that a person may have from living in a nuclear family. These advantages are as follows:

• Stable Environment
• Behavioral Stability
• Sense of Consistency
• Learning Skills
• Sharing Responsibility
• Physical and Emotional Support

Stable Environment

Based on how it was explained in the article, children who were nurtured by a family with the same parents are more likely to have stability in their relationship and emotional bonding while those children who grew up with a single parent lack emotional and dual support that both both parents can provide.

Behavioral Stability

Children are said to have a better sense of what is right and wrong especially when both of their parents are there to guide and look after them.

A Sense of Consistency 

The nuclear family can provide children with consistency. Children who have both stability and consistency in their lives are more likely to behave positively, do better in school and become more involved in community and extracurricular activities.

Learning Skills

Based on my understanding, children from a nuclear family are more trained lengthily in life skills especially when there are only few members in the family. The parents can concentrate more in lecturing or training their children without worrying about their relatives' problems. 

Sharing Responsibility

Based on the explanation in the article, having both parents in the family, they may share the responsibility of the upbringing of their children. For example, one parent may do other things or may take a rest while the other parent attends to the needs of their children. Children may also share in the responsibility like the older siblings taking care of their younger siblings while their parents are not at home for some businesses. They may also share in the responsibility of doing household chores.

Physical and Emotional Support

Nuclear families usually have more physical and emotional resources with which they can reinforce the whole. Through observing their parents and by following the examples set by them, children learn how to help in the building of the family. If there are more members in the family, children might be confuse of who should they follow or not.

If there are advantages, of course, disadvantages will always be present although these disadvantages are only few. As I was looking for disadvantages of a nuclear family, I came across with an article written by Michelle Blessings entitled Pros and Cons of a Nuclear family from LoveToKnow. This article also provides advantages and disadvantages in her article. These disadvantages are:

• Isolation
• Burnout
• Less conflict resolution skills

Isolation

Based on what I had read, although nuclear family provides closeness and lifelong bonds with the other members, a nuclear family may isolate members from their relatives. Since the members are accustomed living with their nuclear family, they might think that they don't need their relatives anymore and so they tend to isolate their selves from their relatives. This can break down the extended family unit, which can be beneficial in hard times.

Burnout
Since we are just human, family members, particularly our mothers, may sometimes explode from attempting to meet the family needs by herself. Our mom is the one who prepares food, do the laundry, washes the dishes, look after us, and sometimes, they help our fathers to earn income in order to provide all our needs and wants.That leaves little time for pampering and nurturing their selves and their relationships with others. 

Less Conflict Resolution Skills
As it is explained in the article, if we think that nuclear family is advantageous in terms of having less conflict and stress, it also puts the family at a disadvantage. Nuclear families can begin to develop like-minded thinking, which will lead to fewer arguments within the family unit. However, it can increase the disagreements with extended family members. Their relatives can help them learn to effectively deal with conflicts and opinions other than their own.

Whether you choose to live or to raise your family to be a nuclear one, it doesn't necessary mean that it will provide your family success or eternal happiness. However, it can provide you basis in achieving those. By being aware of the possible disadvantages, you can always find some useful ways to lessen them. After all, no family is perfect. The important thing is to work together with your family at all times and it will ensure you the best possible results.

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.

Families In Crisis: How To Handle A Family Crisis

As defined by the American Heritage Dictionary, a crisis is a crucial or decisive point or situation; a turning point. Things will either get better, or they get worse, and sometimes, daily hassles can be amassed which may cause a stress overload. Crisis is a serious event which is very stressful and may come accidentally. It is also defined as a situation in which individual may perceive the stress factors or hazardous event as a threat.

Have you ever been involved in a family crisis? How these crises affected you and your family? What did you do in order to survive these and protect your family relationships?

Going through a family crisis is what I think the worst part of one’s family life. It is the point in our life where the relationships or ties of our families are under risk to be broken or to fall apart. At times of crisis, one person can’t solve the conflicts by himself alone. All of the family members must work together and find effective ways to resolve the crisis among them.

Internal or external events may result to a family crisis. Internal events like death, drug addiction, health diseases, or external events like flood, unemployment are examples of these events that may trigger a crisis in a family. Either way, it provides a turning point for a family to either work hard as one for them to be closer to each other or exert no effort and just fall apart. In this point of time, a family can easily adapt to a crisis by being flexible and through the support that they give to each other. In addition, a family may need more guidance in handling a crisis in the best ways.

Today I came across with an article entitled How to Handle a Family Crisis which is written by Jennifer Magnesi, one of the eHow contributors. This article is very helpful especially for those who are currently in crisis. The article contains the following instructions:

1. Communicate with each other during and after the crisis. It is important for family members to communicate with each other before, during and after a crisis without using foul languages or antipathy. The members of a family should be able to share their feelings and emotions and come up with a solution together.
2. Have one-on-one discussions with family members who seem to need more attention or guidance. Here, it is important to have a one-on-one talk with any of the members who is in need of attention or guidance. The parent or guardian should listen to her child and help her overcome any issues she is currently facing over the crisis.
3. Avoid placing blame, pointing fingers or judging other family members. A family should stick together to get through a family crisis. Lean on each other and accept individuals' flaws without pointing fingers at anyone in the family for the problem.
4. Accept your hardships as they are and move forward to the next phase of your life as a family. Learn to accept what has happened in order for you to move on and make a better new life for yourself.
5. Spend as much time as you can as a family. A family should eat lunch or dinner together, go on outings or picnics, and organize family events.
6. Get outside help if and when you need it. If there's a need for outside help, don't hesitate to seek help in your community, government funding and organizations, churches and counselors.

As we all know, crisis will be always a burden on individuals and the family as a whole. But if the family makes an effort to resolve the conflicts/crisis in their family in such a manner that is acceptable and effective, it may be possible that relationships and ties that the family built for many years will remain or will become stronger. Through the acceptance of such crisis, one may be able to move on from it and make a new life for himself.

Exercise 1: Formal Language

In the passage of time, the world has seen changes in the structure of a family. Typically, a family is composed of a father, mother and one or more children living in the same lodging (definition of a nuclear family). However, there are other forms/types of family that exist. An example of these is an extended family where a nuclear family or single-parent family lives with any extended family members. Like, for example, in my own case, I am currently living in a house somewhere in Pasay together with my nuclear family, my grandmother, one uncle, two aunties and 3 cousins making us an extended family. There is also this instance when a childless family adopts a child. Considering all of these, a family can also be defined as a group of people who may not be blood-related but are bonded with love, respect and concern for each other.

Changes in the structure of a family have been seen by the world in the passage of time. A father, a mother and one or more children living in the same lodging is what construct a typical family. However, a lot of forms/types existed nowadays. An extended family is an example of these where a nuclear family or single parent family lives with any extended family members. One may be currently living in a house together with her nuclear family, her grandmother, one uncle and two aunties and cousins making them an extended family. The adoption of a child by a childless family would be another instance. Therefore, in consideration to the above statements, a group of people who may not be blood relatives but are bonded with love, respect and concern for each other may also constitute a family.

Is There Such Thing As A Perfect Family?

Have you ever dream of having a family that is different from your current one? Are you one of those who are fascinated with the idea of a perfect family? What is your idea of a perfect family and how you compare it with the normal ones? Every one of us has his/her own dream of perfection. We all have that dreams of what our ideal family life should become. When we see people who have better family lives and relationships than us, we may feel unsatisfied with what we have, get envious, and strive to mimic them.

I admit that I once had my own dream of a perfect family life. That is, my family dwells in a nice and peaceful house and that my parents don’t have to go to work. We all live peacefully and harmoniously without incurring any problems. We always love and care for each other. And we could also get everything we want by just one click as if we have unlimited money and resources. I know I had a dream which was hard, if not impossible, to achieve. It’s a bit frustrating that I couldn't get all I want. I also admit that I sometimes compare my own normal family life with some portrayals of perfect families that I’d seen on dramas/movies, celebrities and other famous and wealthy personalities that I know.

As I was browsing the net, I found a site called Families of Destiny containing an article which is written by George and Claudia Vorgin and is entitled as The Myth of the Perfect Family. I personally chose this article because, aside from it being related to my post, it had perfectly explained what I'm trying to explain.

Here is the screen cap of my favorite part of the article.

I really love the article and I love how the thoughts were expressed. It really gives enlightenment to the readers especially those who claim that there is such thing as a perfect family. Near-perfect family exists though but they are only few. Actually, it's just depends on how we describe a normal and a perfect one. A normal for one may be viewed as perfect by the others. As I age, I realized that it is not wise to spend my time in pursuing an unrealistic dream. I don’t want to waste my time running after the perfect family image which I’m longing to have in reality. Why would I strive to create that image only to realize that it’s impossible? I don’t want to create my own disappointments so I have to be realistic. Now, I am very happy and satisfied with my extended family. We may not be rich, we don’t own mansion/s, or we may sometimes have family issues but the love, respect, concern and other little things like having meals together, attending mass and hanging out somewhere together is what makes my perfectly good family.

There is no such thing as perfect family. And I believe in that. For me, a family is like a tooth. Although it may seem to be in a good condition in the eyes of other people but we don’t know that it is really damaged inside. A family may wear a mask and pretend to be alright when in front of people just to be called a perfect family. They may fool us but it cannot fool their selves. Moreover, getting along with your family without incurring any fights at all is impossible. No matter how good your family members, troubles/conflicts are always there to arise especially when you are always together. A common example of this is sibling rivalry.

Again, every family has its own problems, no matter how perfect they seem to appear. We wouldn't know the truth if we are just judging them at the outside. But if we put ourselves in their shoes, we would realize that they really have more problems than it seems. So in truth there is no such thing as a perfect family just like how no one is truly perfect.

In addition to the information that I learned, there are few questions that I would like to be answered. These are:

1. How do people define a normal family?
2. How do people define a perfect family?
3. How many people believe that there is such thing as a perfect family and how many people who do not?

In order for me to answer these questions, I should read more articles, blogs and other publications that can be found on the internet, books about family life and conduct surveys/interviews in my neighborhood.

What Is A Family?

In the passage of time, the world has seen changes in the structure of a family. Typically, a family is composed of a father, mother and one or more children living in the same lodging (definition of a nuclear family). However, there are other forms/types of family that exist. An example of these is an extended family where a nuclear family or single-parent family lives with any extended family members. Like, for example, in my own case, I am currently living in a house somewhere in Pasay together with my nuclear family, my grandmother, one uncle, two aunties and 3 cousins making us an extended family. There is also this instance when a childless family adopts a child. Considering all of these, a family can also be defined as a group of people who may not be blood-related but are bonded with love, respect and concern for each other.

Today I came across with an article written by Jan Hare and Lizbeth A. Gray entitled All Kinds of Families: A Guide for Parents, an article from CYFERnet. This article talks about the different forms of a family and how it can affect children. This article aims to make its readers understand what really makes a group of people a family. In the article, a family has been defined as 'a heterosexual couple and their offspring, sharing a common dwelling and dividing work by gender'. This is also a definition of a typical/traditional family, that .is, a father and a mother and their own child/children and the father is the one who works while the mother is the one in-charge with the household.

The article also provides us some other forms of families which currently exist in the majority of households around the world. Let's take a look at them. 

• Cohabiting Families
In these families, an unmarried couple (man and woman) lives together in a single house. If there are children, at least one of the couple is a biological or adoptive parent.
• Single-Parent Family
In this family, there is only one parent in the home.
• Blended Families and Step-families 
In these families, children who are not blood related may live in the same house.
• Grandparent-led Families
The grandparents are the one who take the lead responsibility of child care when their biological parents are working, have died or cannot take good care of them.
• Families in Which the Adult or Adults are Lesbian or Gay
The children in these families are raised by lesbian or gay parents. Adults may bring children from a heterosexual relationship to these families or children may be adopted or they may be conceived by assisted reproductive technologies, such  as Intrauterine Insemination or In Vitro Fertilization.
• Commuter Families
In these families, the parents live and work in different places in which one parent is the one who provides the primary residence while the other parent comes home after work but only for a short period of time.
• Foster and Group Home Families
Children may live with foster parents and institutional child care workers while problems with their biological parents or guardian are being resolved.

As we notice in today’s society, these family forms became more common and the typical/traditional family less prevalent. A family is no longer composes of just a father and a mother and their child/children. Actually, there are a lot of variations which can be made nowadays. It can now also be just a mother and her daughter/son or a father or a mother and his/her dog and etc. Over time, the traditional form had to adopt with changes like divorce, unmarried couples, single-parenthood, same-sex marriage and a lot more.

In my opinion, having a different or weird (what other people would say) family structure doesn't really matter. No matter what form of family you have doesn't make you different from the others. Although it's true that there are really some people who think that they are outcasts in their society. Let’s say that you have that so-called traditional family but you and your family members have awful relationships while your friend/classmate is being raised by a gay or a lesbian parent or is an adopted child but they have a healthy family relationship. The structure of a family doesn't determine how healthy the family is or how they function. It is simply the physical makeup of the relationships of each member regardless of their functions. So what really makes a family? A German poet named Johann Schiller have the perfectly describe a family when he said “It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons.” This definition depicts that it is not only by marriage, blood or adoption that makes a group of people a family. It is also the love, respect and concern that each person has towards the other that make a family.