The Nuclear Family: The Ideal American Family

The ideal family from the American perspective has traditionally been known as the nuclear family by sociologists. The nuclear family, consisting of a married couple and their unmarried children, materialized as a romantic ideal as the Industrial Revolution transformed the United States into a country where families didn’t have to depend on many children and extended families for help on a farm or financial stability and families got smaller. Wealthier families could afford to have a home for themselves and their family of procreation (an individual, their mate, and their children) without needing the financial support of additional family members, and this kind of a family became desirable. Additionally, some other characteristics of the ‘ideal American family’ became popular and commonplace in the US and around the world as well.
While more common in the US than any other country, the ‘neolocal’ idea of residence has become viewed as an ideal - the nuclear family not only lives in their own home, this home tends to be geographically far away from the extended family - it is not common outside of the US.
More common internationally is the family that follows a pattern of patrilineal descent, where close relatives are seen as the family of a person’s father, as they inherit their father’s family name, and inheritance is passed down from father to son. The patriarchal system of authority within the family is also quite international, entailing the head of a household being the oldest male, and patriarchal families sometimes place a mature son’s authority over that of his mother and sisters, as well. For a few centuries, this type of family has been idealized, strived for, and represented in the media. However, some sociologists believe that its popularity may be dying as new alternative families arise and gain
popularity. Regarding alternative families, they exist as situations where a nuclear family failed to be created or stay together, or a situation where an individual chose to deviate from the nuclear family ideal. Of course, this choice is received differently in different subcultures within the US specifically, and different ethnic groups have slightly different ideas of what defines an ideal family - or most common family. A good way to understand alternative families is analyze how they have evolved from patterns within the US as a whole. A common family type today that is still classified as nuclear would be a two career family, where both parents work. This family type has actually been a part of American society for quite some time, but disappeared as a common family type when the men of the family got jobs working for higher pay, and their wife’s salary was no longer needed (this transition occurred quite a bit around the industrial era). Again a symbol of wealth, a household that only had a man working and a woman at home caring for house and children was deemed ideal. Today, however, this family type has gained popularity again for families who need two working adults to financially make ends meet or for families where the wife enjoys working. Another family type with a more recent history is that of the single parent families, which increased in number in the later 1900’s. The most common cause of this family type is divorce, and the United States has the highest rate of divorce in the world. Many single parent families are headed by divorced women or mothers had children out of wedlock. There is more on divorce in the next paragraph. A third family type is a blended family which is, simply put, a step family, and usually consist of a mother and her children and a stepfather. These families even make up about a third of American families today. Families today may also differ in the fact that many today choose not to have children. Individuals may choose the single lifestyle while others will choose to live with a romantic partner but not marry. Others have lived the latter lifestyle, not by choice, because of their homosexuality (although this is not the case in the US today). All three of these lifestyles have increased in commonness due to a change in American society that is more tolerant of nontraditional living situations and does not drastically inhibit these people from having the same opportunities as traditional families. On divorce, divorce rates have also gone up in the United States as a result of a changing American society that provides more services for divorcing and the divorced and does not socially condemn divorced individuals. The same may apply to interracial couples as well. With the Civil Rights movement that spanned across the 1960’s and 70’s, integration between the races eased tensions that allowed some of the negative stigma attached to interracial couples to dissipate. This somewhat recent tolerance of diverse family types has led to the evolution of American families as a social institution. This, of course, then raises the question of what the future is for American families. Some scientists propose their own hypotheses concerning the future of the American family - whether these patterns of continued acceptance and tolerance of diverse family types will continue or not. Overall, data shows that people are increasingly being more approving of different family types. Today, the younger, more educated, and middle to upper class people are more likely to approve of both gay and interracial marriage. Many divorced people are able to find financial support from the government or through personal social networks should they need it, rather than being shunned. There has been increased approval for unmarried couples who live together and people who choose to remain single (or people who take multiple partners with their consent - polyamory). While increased acceptance of these alternative families in the future does sound promising, another pattern has arisen in the country as of late that is the ‘conservative trend’, or ‘conservative backlash’ as some like to call it. People within this trend are generally traditional, strongly religious (and typically Christian), and are uncomfortable with modern societies changes that have made the United States come to accept ‘immoral’ ways of living. Conservatives are somewhat more likely than others to be disapproving of gay rights and marriage and pity children of these people, disapprove of extensive casual relationships (they may consider living together as casual), and be uncomfortable with the success of women’s movements and civil rights movements that promote egalitarian relationships, two career marriages, and support single mothers and matriarchal families and interracial relationships. This combination of increased tolerance and strong conservative response have resulted in conflict within the United States concerning families, the sanctity of marriage, etc. Likely, more conflict is to come in the future over these relationships and families, but with the slight majority of people in the US favoring the support of diverse families, progress for them within society is definitely being made and will continue to be made.