FAMILY AND KINSHIP CHILDREN AND MATING

BACKGROUND PAPER

ON

FAMILY AND KINSHIP: CHILDREN AND MATING

1. Children and mating. Today’s culture and society are changing. The purpose of my paper is to talk about children and mating under the family and kinship part of the 12 Domains of Culture.
2. When people hear the word “family”, many different things come to mind depending on what culture you were brought up in. Family is defined as a basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not. 1 Family and kinship are how we inherit our values, spiritual, and emotional qualities. As we grow, we get our character from surroundings and our upbringing. Inheritance is also a major part of families. It allows us to honor our ancestors and to make their legacy apart of us. But, due to societies forces, mating practices and inheritance have taken the biggest hit and this has dealt huge blows to the American traditional family. Transformations in US families have proceeded steadily for more than two centuries as economic, social, cultural, and political forces shape the contours of daily family life.2
3. Would you think that the widespread use of birth control has contributed to family interference in steering children away from sex and same gender sex? Well, in my opinion it has. For example, the many different types of contraceptives have given our children/teens more confidence in themselves. It has allowed them to take more risks because the thought of having sex with a condom/birth control and minimal risk of pregnancy really looks good to them. It is societal forces like online dating sites, which have been major contributors to mating practices that differ from the traditional view of how we feel a family should be. Teens today have much more chances than the teens from a few decades ago. Societal forces are making a difference in our nation and making it difficult to maintain cultures and values in America.
4. We have also seen that within our culture a change in family dynamics is in part due to mating patterns and the way mating and choosing a mate is currently being viewed today. The definition of a traditional family set up has suffered in todays culture and our societies due to an increase in same gender relationships. Being in a same gender relationship goes against the views of what a traditional family is supposed to be. Is the traditional family becoming obsolete? This is a serious question that we all must consider. It is my opinion that the answer to this question is yes.
5. We have recently talked about family and kinship and the definition of a traditional family. How societal forces have played a part in shaping our children and our mating practices. How the over abundance and availability of contraceptives has gotten our children to become more confident in themselves and have decided to take more risks in their mating practices. They do not worry as much any more about getting someone pregnant or catching a sexually transmitted disease. We have also seen how the change in our society has changed our view of traditional families. With the acceptance in today’s society of same gender relationships, we are now moving further away from the traditional view of what a family is. With these ongoing changes, societal forces are making it more difficult for our nation to maintain our cultures and values in America. With these ever changing times, the only thing we can do is either fight to keep tradition or just roll with the changes as time goes on.