UNIT 1 FAMILY

Family is the collective body of persons who live in one house, and under one head or manager; a household, including parents, children, and servants, and, as the case may be, lodgers or boarders.

Family, culture, and community are essential foundations of child development. These three contexts teach children who they are as human beings, how they should relate to others, and what they can aspire to becoming as adults. These three settings are interrelated in their effects on children.

Family Structures

Families come in many forms, including two-parent families, single-parent families, blended families, adoptive families, foster families, extended families, and numerous other types. Many youngsters experience one or more changes in family structure (e.g., as a result of divorce, remarriage, or death of a parent) at some point during their childhood or adolescence. Individual family structures offer unique benefits and challenges for children, but ultimately the quality of family relationships exceeds family structure in developmental significance. Teachers can be inclusive of families by recognizing the existence of many structures and inviting families of all kinds to become involved at school.

Importance of family in our life

Family is very important part of our everyday life. It helps us in improving our personality. It also helps us in shaping our life. It teaches us the value of love, affection, care, truthfulness and self-confidence and provides us tools and suggestions which are necessary to get success in life.

Family is a place where you can be yourself. It is a place where you are accepted for what you are. This is where you are completely tension free and everyone is there to help you. Family encourages you when you are surrounded by problems. It helps you survive through tough times and bring joy and happiness into life.

Decency is very important in the communication of daily life. It helps us make strong relationship with others and make us come across as a very gentle, intelligent and likable person. Everyone loves to be in a company of such person. Family helps bring decency into our life which is necessary to lead a happy life.

One of the most important aims of our life is to build a successful and highly rewarding career. Our families help us in creating a strong future. It gives us valuable suggestion about different career prospective. It not only guides us in choosing the best but also financially helps us to cover the expenses of education. Thus it helps us in making a good future.

The importance of family is probably realized when one went to holiday or celebrate an occasion without family members. It was very hard to celebrate an occasion or went to holiday without being surrounded by family members. At that time probably we realize that how important they are to us. At that time, we came to know about the importance of our families.

Today, most people don't realize the importance of family. They prefer to spend most of their time with their friends. But when they are surrounded by problems, it was their family that helped them get rid of problems. At the time, when even our best friends refuse to help us, it was our family that came to help us. So it is very important for each and every individual to give importance to their families above anything else and enjoy spending time with family members

Family Relationship

Your family is the environment where you learned to use your faculties and understand and cope with the physical world. It is a time when you didn't bother with trivial things, such as the family relationship, because you knew you are the kingpin of your family. It is the place, where you learned how family relationships work, by observing your parents, grandparents, your siblings and rest of the family members deal with each other. You must have enjoyed meeting them on family vacations and family reunions and exchanging family reunion gifts with them.

With the passage of time, you matured and started taking note of other people on the fringe of your family and then of those, outside your family and how your family members interacted with them. It is this point in your life, when you learnt, what is meant by a healthy relationships and how to make a relationship last. You also noticed, how your family coped and adjusted with the ups and downs of life and time. Do you remember, whether your family exposed you to these difficult times or were you cocooned in the safety of your family totally, unaware of them.

Importance of  Identity

What you learned from your family becomes your value system and forms your perceptions and basis of actions. An individual is known by his or her actions. It is your family that gave you an identity. Whenever you move from one place to another, you carry your family history with you. Have you ever noticed that your opinions always confirmed to the values you acquired from your family or delved deep inside them to find the seeds of thoughts that lies at their bottom? Who planted these thoughts? What gives you courage, when you are riding the wave of fortune at its deepest trough with its crest hanging over your head like a sword.

Every individual, barring few unfortunates, are similar to the earth enveloped by its environment, which acts as a protective layer and keeps the empty space out. The earth is populated and fertile because of it. For an individual, the importance of family is incalculable

Family Processes

Parents influence children's development through the relationships they build with children, the activities in which they include children, and their manner of showing affection and disciplining children. Parents may affect children's development through their employment outside the home; for instance, some children of working parents care for themselves during after-school hours. Children influence their families, in turn, by virtue of their temperaments, interests, and abilities. Children also influence one another as siblings, but having a sibling is not vital to normal, healthy development.

Most families provide safe and nurturing environments for children. However, some families maltreat children, either by neglecting them or by subjecting them to physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. Such maltreatment can have negative long-term effects on children's development.

Effective partnerships between educators and families rest squarely on good communication. Teachers can use several methods of communication, and they can try to get parents actively involved in children's education and activities.

Life in the Community for Children and Families

In various societies across the globe, the society might differ but the fundamental structure of the family remains the same. Family is the fundamental unit in the entire social structure. Society is a web of relationships between individual members and also between individuals and social organizations and social institutions. The Definition of Family is given in various ways in various societies, but the crux is the same. Family Definition can be found in any book of Sociology, but it is much more than a mere definition in a book. It is the unit which binds one human being to another and forms a blood tie between two members within a family. Definition of Family mentions that a family is formed when a group of people live in a domestic environment.

A common ancestor, adoption and marriage are the basic source of a family. In a very intimate and close environment, a group of people share space with each other.Affinity, blood kinship and cohabitation are the three primary aspects which are reflected in the Definition of Family. A family performs an array of functions which includes both political functions as well as economical functions. These functions are extremely important as without these functions, a family cannot function in the way it is supposed to.

Reproduction is the primary function of any society, either socially or in a biological way, or both. The family serves as a great tool to locate children within a particular social environment. Enculturating and socializing children are two of the prime functions of a family, in regard to children. For children a family is a family of orientation and for adults and parents it is a family of procreation. The Definition of Family maintains that a family can be of three kinds, namely, matrifocal, consanguinal, and conjugal. A household has to be productive in order to provide sustenance to the members of the family. In recent times, families are formed even without children.

The family structure is usually build on the relationship between children and parents and between husband and wife, or may be both. In matrifocal families, a mother and her children are the primary members. The children are biologically born to the women. This type of family is usually found in societies where the mother are more capable of rearing their children or their husbands are often away from home. In a consanguinal family the members are usually the mother, the children and the mother's family members. The structure is reversed too, and in such families, inheritance plays a very important role. The inheritance determines who will be the head of the family, the husband or the wife. In a conjugal family, the family comprises one or more mothers and their respective children, or one or more husbands. The men exercise control on their children, in this type of family, or the family is generally mobile.

According to anthropologists, the unit of family forms the elementary economic unit. However, much of this function has changed with time. Politically too, a family has a very important role to perform.

Children and families are profoundly affected by their experiences in ethnic groups and cultural traditions. To a large extent, children's ethnicity affects children's values, actions, and styles of communicating. Boys and girls are socialized somewhat differently, depending on their ethnicity and the particular beliefs of their families. Children also are influenced by their community's character and by the incomes of their families. Educators can build on children's experiences in the community, and, very important, help economically disadvantaged children by providing support, resources, and acknowledgement of children's personal strengthens.

Terms used within the nuclear family:

Grandparent

Grandfather: a parent's father

Grandmother: a parent's mother

Grandson: a child's son

Granddaughter: a child's daughter

For collateral relatives, more classificatory terms come into play, terms that do not build on the terms used within the nuclear family:

Uncle: father's brother, mother's brother, father's sister's husband, mother's sister's husband

Aunt: father's sister, mother's sister, father's brother's wife, mother's brother's wife

Nephew: sister's son, brother's son, wife's brother's son, wife's sister's son, husband's brother's son, husband's sister's son

Niece: sister's daughter, brother's daughter, wife's brother's daughter, wife's sister's daughter, husband's brother's daughter, husband's sister's daughter

Complex or Joint Family               

Complex family is a generic term for any family structure involving more than two adults. The term can refer to any extended family or to a polygamy of any type. It is often used to refer to the group marriage form of polygamy.

A joint family (or extended family) can also be known as a complex family, parents and their children's families often live under a single roof. This type of family often includes multiple generations in the family. In India, the family is a patriarchal society, with the sons' families often staying in the same house.

In the joint family setup the workload is shared among the members, often unequally. The women are often housewives and cook for the entire family. The patriarch of the family (often the oldest male member) lays down the rules and arbitrates disputes. Other senior members of the household baby sit infants in case their mother is working. They are also responsible in teaching the younger children their mother tongue, manners and etiquette.

The house often has a large reception area and a common kitchen. Each family has their own bedroom. The members of the household also look after each other in case a member is ill.

Dysfunctional family

A dysfunctional family is a family, in which conflict, misbehavior, and often abuse on the part of individual members occur continually and regularly, leading other members to accommodate such actions. Children sometimes grow up in such families with the understanding that such an arrangement is normal. Dysfunctional families are primarily a result of co-dependent adults, and may also be affected by addictions, such as substance abuse (alcohol, drugs, etc.). Other origins include untreated mental.illness, and parents emulating or over-correcting their own dysfunctional parents. In some cases, a "child-like" parent will allow the dominant parent to abuse their children.

Relationships

An interpersonal relationship is an association between two or more people that may range from fleeting to enduring. This association may be based on limerence, love, solidarity, regular business interactions, or some other type of social commitment. Interpersonal relationships are formed in the context of social, cultural and other influences. The context can vary from family or kinship relations, friendship, marriage, relations with associates, work, clubs, neighborhoods, and places of worship. They may be regulated by law, custom, or mutual agreement, and are the basis of social groups and society as a whole.

A relationship is normally viewed as a connection between two individuals, such as a romantic or intimate relationship, or a parent–child relationship. Individuals can also have relationships with groups of people, such as the relation between a pastor and his congregation, an uncle and a family, or a mayor and a town. Finally, groups or even nations may have relations with each other, though this is a much broader domain than that covered under the topic of interpersonal relationships. See such articles as international relations for more information on associations between groups. Most scholarly work on relationships focuses on romantic partners in pairs or dyads. These intimate relationships are, however, only a small subset of interpersonal relationships. Interpersonal relationships can also include friendships, such as relationships involving individuals providing relational care to marginalized persons.

These relationships usually involve some level of interdependence. People in a relationship tend to influence each other, share their thoughts and feelings, and engage in activities together. Because of this interdependence, most things that change or impact one member of the relationship will have some level of impact on the other member.[1] The study of interpersonal relationships involves several branches of the social sciences, including such disciplines as sociology, psychology, anthropology, and social work. The scientific study of relationships is referred to as "Relationship Science" and distinguishes itself from anecdotal evidence or pseudo-experts by basing conclusions on data and objective analysis.

Types of relationships

Family · Marriage

Husband · Wife

Soulmate · Significant other

Siblings · Cousin

Domestic partnership

Widowhood

Boyfriend · Girlfriend

Cohabitation · Casual

Romantic friendship · Sexual partner

Friendship · Kinship

Monogamy · Same-sex relationship

Non-monogamy · Open marriage

Polyamory · Polyfidelity · Polygamy · Relationship anarchy

Mistress (lover) · Cicisbeo · Concubinage · Courtesan ·

Romantic relationship events

Bonding · Breaking up · Courtship · Dating · Divorce · Infidelity · Mating · Meet market  · Romance · Separation · Singles event  · Transgressing · Wedding

Feelings and emotions

Affinity · Attachment · Compersion · Intimacy · Jealousy · Limerence · Love · Passion · Platonic love · Psychology of sexual monogamy

Human practices

Bride price (Dower · Dowry) · Hypergamy · Infidelity · Sexuality

Relationship abuse

Child abuse · Elder abuse · Dating abuse · Infidelity

The natural development of a relationship follows five stages:

Acquaintance – Becoming acquainted depends on previous relationships, physical proximity, first impressions, and a variety of other factors. If two people begin to like each other, continued interactions may lead to the next stage, but acquaintance can continue indefinitely.

Buildup – During this stage, people begin to trust and care about each other. The need for intimacy, compatibility and such filtering agents as common background and goals will influence whether or not interaction continues.

Continuation – This stage follows a mutual commitment to a long-term friendship, romantic relationship, or marriage. It is generally a long, relative stable period. Nevertheless, continued growth and development will occur during this time. Mutual trust is important for sustaining the relationship.

Deterioration – Not all relationships deteriorate, but those that do tend to show signs of trouble. Boredom, resentment, and dissatisfaction may occur, and individuals may communicate less and avoid self-disclosure. Loss of trust and betrayals may take place as the downward spiral continues, eventually ending the relationship. (Alternately, the participants may find some way to resolve the problems and reestablish trust.)

Termination – The final stage marks the end of the relationship, either by death in the case of a healthy relationship, or by separation.

The Sociology of the family examines the family, as an institution and a unit of socialisation, through various sociological perspectives, particularly with regard to the relationship between the nuclear family and industrial capitalism, and the distinct gender roles and concepts of childhood which arose with it. The sociology of the family is a common component on introductory and pre-university academic curricula, as it is perhaps the most simple institution to which one may apply many fundamental sociological approaches.

Sociology of motherhood

In many cultures, especially in a traditional western one, a mother is usually the wife in a married couple. Her role in the family is celebrated on Mother's Day. Anna Reeves Jarvis was a woman who originally organized Mother's Work Day's protesting the lack of cleanliness and sanitation in the work place.[3][4] Anna died in 1905 and her daughter created a National Mother's Day to honor her mother.[3] Mothers frequently have a very important role in raising offspring and the title can be given to a non-biological mother that fills this role. This is common in stepmothers (female married to biological father). In most family structures the mother is both a biological parent and a primary caregiver.

In East Asian and Western traditional families, fathers were the heads of the families, which meant that his duties included providing financial support and making critical decisions, some of which must have been obeyed without question by the rest of the family members. "Some Asian American men are brought up under stringent gender role expectations such as a focus on group harmony and filial piety, carrying on their family name and conforming to the expectations of the parents."[5]

As with cultural concepts of family, the specifics of a mother's role vary according to cultural mores. In what some sociologists term the "bourgeois family", which arose out of typical 16th- and 17th-century European households and is often considered the "traditional Western" structure, the father's role has been somewhat limited. In this family model the father acts as the economic support and sometimes disciplinarian of the family, while the mother or other female relative oversees most of the childrearing. This structure is reflected, for example, in societies which legislate "maternity leave" but do not have corresponding "paternity leave."

Some often view mother's duties as raising and looking after their children every minute of everyday. Mothers are often criticized for not contributing to the family income but the lack of money that they contribute is due to the time that is put into raising the children, which allows no time for the mother to go out and work. If the family is really struggling and the mother does have to go out and seek work, she is also criticized. If the mother is out working, many people view her as abandoning her children and not giving them the best life. In this situation, it truly is a lose lose for the mother.

However, this limited role has increasingly been called into question. Both feminist and masculist authors have decried such predetermined roles as unjust. A nascent father's rights movement seeks to increase the legal standing of fathers in everything from child-custody cases to the institution of paid paternity leave or family leave.

Families are often influenced by the media portrayal of the way women should run their families. In the book Media and Middle Class Moms by Descartes, women are often influenced by the social norms and is often the reason as to why they believe staying home or working is the right thing to do while having a family.

Sociology of fatherhood

According to anthropologist Maurice Godelier, a critical novelty in human society, compared to humans' closest biological relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos , is the parental role assumed by the males, which were unaware of their "father" connection.

 In many cultures, especially traditional western, a father is usually the husband in a married couple. Many times fathers have a very important role in raising offspring and the title can be given to a non-biological father that fills this role. This is common in stepfathers (males married to biological mothers). In most family structures the father is both a biological parent and a primary caregiver.

In East Asian and Western traditional families, fathers are the heads of the families, which means that their duties include providing financial support and making critical decisions, some of which must be obeyed without question by the rest of the family members.

As with cultural concepts of family, the specifics of a father's role vary according to cultural folkways. In what some sociologists term the "bourgeois family", which arose out of typical 16th- and 17th-century European households and is considered by some[who?] the "traditional Western" structure, the father's role has been somewhat limited. In this family model the father acts as the economic support and sometimes disciplinarian of the family, while the mother or other female relative oversees most of the childrearing. This structure is enforced, for example, in societies which legislate "maternity leave" but do not have a corresponding "paternity leave."

However, this limited role has increasingly been called into question. Both feminist and masculist authors have decried such predetermined roles as unjust. A nascent father's rights movement seeks to increase the legal standing of fathers in everything from child-custody cases to the institution of paid paternity leave or family leave.

Family Similarities

Family resemblance

At some point or the other, we all have heard the phrase “You look so much like your Dad or Mom”. Normally, people from one family resemble each other. Children of the same parents look very similar to their parents. Sometimes children may look like their uncle and aunt too. This is due to genes.

Everybody has genetic blueprints that are received from both the parents. Due to this reason only, when twins are born, they often look a like. In our family twin brothers or sisters may be exactly alike.

If you compare the pictures of three generations from a family, you can easily trace the facial resemblance.

Family resemblance stands for the notion that members of a category (e.g., all dogs, or all games) resemble each other.

In general, family resemblance relies on some number of features shared by any group of category members, even though these features may not be shared by all members of the category.

Therefore, the basis for family resemblance may shift from one subset of the category to another

Familial resemblance arises when family members are more similar than unrelated pairs of individuals, and may be estimated in terms of correlations or covariances among family members. Multifactorial heritability (or generalized heritability) quantifies the strength of the familial resemblance and represents the percentage of variance that is due to all additive familial effects including additive genetic and those of the familial environment. However, the traditional concept of heritability, which may be more appropriately called the genetic heritability, represents only the percentage of phenotypic variance due to additive genetic effects. Resolving the various sources of familial resemblance entails other issues. For example, there may be major gene effects that are largely or entirely nonadditive, temporal or developmental trends, and gene-gene (epistasis) and gene-environment interactions. The design of a family study determines which of these sources are resolvable. For example, in nuclear families consisting of parents and offspring, the genetic and familial environmental effects are not resolvable because these relatives share both genes and environments. However, extended pedigree and twin and adoption designs allow separation of the heritable effects and, possibly, more complex etiologies, including interactions. Various factors affect the estimation and interpretability of heritabilities, for example, assumptions regarding linearity and additivity, assortative mating, and the underlying distribution of the data. No normality of the data can lead to errors in hypothesis testing, although it yields reasonably unbiased estimates. Fortunately, these and other complications can be directly modeled in many of the sophisticated software packages available today in genetic epidemiology

TWINS

Twins originate from a variety of organic instances. Some newborns may be identical while some aren’t. In some scenarios, twins share the same sex and in others, they don’t. Nonetheless, despite sharing the same birth date and DNA, they are poles apart in terms of personality traits and preferences. This statement can be reinforced by the quote- ‘I may be a twin but I'm one of a kind’. In this piece, you will uncover the various kinds of twins present in this world.

Different Kinds Of Twins

Monozygotic Twins

When a single zygote fuses with a sperm and splits into two separate embryos, the final product of this fertilization is what we scientifically call monozygotic twins. They are consistently identical to the human eye, sharing the same physical features due to matching genetic information. Since they stem from the same zygote containing either a male (XY) or female (XX) sex chromosome, their genders can never differ. However, in a few out of the ordinary cases of genetic mutation, a male foetus loses the Y chromosome and develops as a female with a deterred growth of ovaries. One-third of all twins are reported to be monozygotic.

Dizygotic twins

This occurrence is set off by the release of more than one egg in an ovulation cycle. When two separate eggs are fertilized by two separate sperms, fraternal twins are nine months away from earth! Also known as dizygotic twins, separate placentas, chorions and amnions confirm their type in the womb. Around two-thirds of all the twins in this world are fraternal.

Conjoined Twins

Conjoined twins or Siamese twins are essentially monozygotic twins that are joined ‘in-utero’. This rare and heartbreaking phenomenon is elucidated by unfinished division of the fertilized ovum. The two individuals will be stuck to one another till death brings them apart. Unless they consider surgery, which carries cautioned risks. Connected at certain parts of the body, Conjoined twins usually share the same organs, limbs and tissues.

Polar Body Twins

Sometimes, the egg first splits. Later, each half collides with a sperm. These twins might be extremely alike in several ways including looks but their DNAs won’t be 100% compatible.

Mirror Image Twins

Coming from a single fertilized egg, mirror image twins develop reverse asymmetric features. This can be attributed by a delayed split of the fertilized egg, often surpassing a week. 25% of identical twins tend to be mirror image twins. One will be left-handed and the other, right handed. They may possess matching birthmarks on opposite sides of their bodies and suck opposite thumbs. The name springs from the fact that if face to face, they would be seeing exact mirror reflections of themselves!

Same Face, Different Birthday

What if a Labour begins at the peak hours of New Year’s Eve and the second twin is still on the way while the first one is already inhaling monoxides? The clock strikes twelve and Oopsie! Forget their birthdays being one day apart. Picture this- Molly was born in 1983 and her twin sister Polly in 1984! In certain cases, preterm labor forces the delivery of one baby while the other one’s can be controlled.

Semi-Identical Twins

Identified in a pair of three-year old kids, these rare twins developed when two sperms fertilized one egg and later split. One twin was born a hermaphrodite while the other is anatomically male.

 

Heteropaternal Superfecundation

Very rarely but possibly a woman’s eggs can be fertilized by sperm from differing events of coitus. Suppose a woman engages in sexual intercourse with different partners, the twins could have separate biological fathers! This anomaly is defined as heteropaternal superfecundation.

Parasitic Twins

When conjoined twins develop asymmetrically and a tinier and less formed twin depends on the stronger, larger twin to survive, they are known as parasitic twins. A variation of this called ‘fetus in fetu’ occurs when an abnormally formed mass of cells swell inside the body of its monozygotic twin. At times, the other twin doesn’t get sufficient nutrition from the placenta.

Twins of Different Races

Heteropaternal superfecundation speaks of cases wherein fraternal (dizygotic) twins exhibit differing racial characteristics. In one case, the differentiation was propelled by a lab mix-up during an in-vitro procedure. Also, in UK, two bi-racial parents conceived fraternal twin girl twins; one was dark coloured and the other white. This is a "one in a million" occurrence, where twins acquire different genetic characteristics from their mixed races.