what will be the future of family as an institution?

Question

basing on the available sources 2000.b.c., 2000 a.d. and 3000 a.d.

Answer 1

The family life as an institution is deteriorating now, both parents work and the child is at the mercy of a baby sitter then school and then college. He grows up insecure and sans proper care and love from parents.

I am sure that we humans are survivors and before the sky falls the system will be restored so that Family Institution lives.

Recently the trend of dad staying back at home and taking care of kids is an in thing, so we can say tht the old days will be back and family institution will be restored to its full glory soon.

Answer 2

Hi, lam afraid family life is crumbling fast, gone are the days mum and dad had the kids all the time- unless grandma was there to mind them- now they are "In the pub". Now, Grandma wants to be called "Anything but that", and she is sat in the pub with them , then the kids go home to a babysitter, it doesn't matter "Who" anyone will do, even "young "children are left to mind Even younger ones.I saw an article once- where it said-"it takes More than a Family to bring up A Child,- it takes a whole community" now, they don't have a Family doing it,- and The Community-Don't Care- how sad for our children's future, and their children's futures will be even bleaker. Love Jo xx

Answer 3

Future of Family as an Institution :
According to sociologist William F. Ogburn, the family – under the pressures of urbanization and industrialization – was stripped of many of its traditional functions until its only remaining functions were psychological: "to socialize children and to provide emotional sustenance and support for family members."

"After World War II, Talcott Parsons played a central role in defining the issues that informed the study of the family. He treated the family as a small group that served basic functions for the larger society, including reproduction, regulation of sexual behavior, socialization into adult roles, and emotional support. He argued that small, isolated nuclear families in which men specialized in instrumental, goal-oriented activities and women specialized in expressive, relationship oriented activities were particularly well adapted to the demands of an urban, industrial society. Parsonian structural-functionalism was profoundly ahistorical, and discouraged historical analysis of the family. It treated the family as a static unit . . . ."

In 1930, a Harper’s Monthly Magazine essayist wrote: “To-day social and civic agencies, in taking over most of these parental responsibilities, have deprived the parents of an important bond of mutual understanding. In the ‘higher life’ of the family there is now little opportunity for the sharing of ex-perience between husband and wife. Professional groups, lecture courses, literary and religious societies, Chambers of Commerce, civic organizations, and clubs have absorbed their time and energies. Modern husbands have also lost the opportunity to know and value their wives as personalities in the simpler daily affairs of the household. In the field of hospital married partners of yesterday had another sphere in which they could appreciate one another’s true resources. But neighborly calls are to-day almost obsolete, while the gathering of guests within the home is being re-placed by the practice of entertaining at hotels, theaters, and other places of amusement. In every sphere of par-ticipation between husband and wife, life is becoming more intellectually and spiritually barren. . . . Almost the only personal needs which each finds satisfied through the other are those of financial income and of sex. the influences which are estranging wives and husbands are also producing a gulf between successive generations. Parents and children cannot know one another as intimately as in former days.”

In 1930, the essayist continued: “If, through our segmentalized manner of living, the child is deprived of the steadying influence of the the parent, it is no less certain that the parent is losing the child. Should I wish really to know my boy or girl (and this will be increasingly true as they grow older), I must go out into the community to gain my knowledge. I must go to the playground supervisor or to the Y.M.C.A. in order to discover his athletic and social adjustments. . . What he is, in himself, as apart from all these pigeonholds and compartments, I have no way of knowing. He has ceased to be, for me, an intimately experienced personality, but has become a case study. I am no longer a parent, but a social worker. . . . ¶ Just as the bond between husband and wife is tending to become one merely of sex love, so the contact between parents an children is narrowing down to an intense but purely emotional affection. The break-up of home life does not, as some think, liberate the young from the tyranny and repression of an older gen-eration. For what really enslaves the young is not the customs of the past, but too narrow a love.”

In 1930, the essayist continued: “It, therefore becomes necessary to forego parenthood, at least for a considerable time, and to conceive of marriage purely as a relation-shop for comradeship and sexual satisfaction. Hence, there are arising more liberal views of sexual morality. The institutions of trial marriage and the companionate . . are being welcomed both in theory and practice. ¶ Strangely enough this new conception of marriage, which as arisen as a necessity, has come to be acclaimed as a virtue . . . . a revolt against the narrow morality of the past and against a society which demanded continuous propagation as the expense of individual happiness. . . I am inclined to think that the renunciation of parenthood, has for the most part, been forced upon us by the conditions under which we live rather than selected by freedom of choice. When we remove from the home nearly all the activities in which husbands and wives can participate on behalf of their children, the rearing of offspring, even when it is not financially precluded, becomes a tiresome and irrelevant process. Having rendered parenthood difficult and meaningless, our next logical step is to abolish it A man and woman who have been thus divested of the prospects of household and children are spoken of euphemistically as ‘the new family.’ . . . ¶ . . . The restlessness felt by so many married couples is cue not so much to the choice of the wrong partner or to the disturbing presence of children as to the break-up and dissemination of their interests throughout the greater community . . . Now that both husband and wife are seeking career away from each other and their home, now that they have stripped off the burdens of children and household encumbrances, what is left for them to be companionable about? Some social genius of the future may work out a scheme for true self-realization in wedlock. but surely the current proposal of the revamping of family institutions are fraught with no large promise of success.”

In 1930, the essayist continued: “You cannot cure institutions by institutions. . . The content of family life, however, is not changing; it is disappearing. When people shall have ceased to live and to participate in the freedom of face-to-face association, when they shall have scattered their interests into diverse organizations throughout the great society, we cannot say that the family as altered; we can only say that it has tone. No salvaging of conjugal and filial customs, no skill exerted in promoting co-operation between the parents and the community will bring it back. All the ingenuity and resources of the Government will be of little avail. . . . . We have set up vast corporate organizations and associations of every conceivable public function; but the life which these institutions were developed to foster is crushed and scattered beneath their weight. We have erected a stupendous civilization; but we have not learned how to use it.” .

In 1940, a sociologist wrote that “. . . the specific functions which the family once performed within these categories have been largely transferred to other insti-tutions, while at the same time new specific functions, elaborations, refine-ments, and additions have developed within the family. ¶ Recreational functions are being transferred, some to and some from the family. Many activities formerly car-ried on in the backyard or in the family living room have been moved to schools, churches, and group-work institutions. Yet at the same time the radio, the automobile, the growing practice of having play and game rooms, and the enforced economy of the depression have operated to restore recreation to the home. . . . In so far as housing becomes more spacious and adequate, the additional space will probably be used largely for leisure-time activities. Families of higher economic status carry on hobbies and other recreations in the house or on the grounds, which among the poorer classes must be conducted in the settle-ment house, the park, or the street. While activities themselves may be largely outside, the home becomes more important as a telephonic center for preparation and making contacts, and as a storage place for equipment. The organization of the individuals leisure life increasingly centers in the home as homes become more adequate and living standards rise.”.


In 1947, Senior Scholastic editorialized: "Families no longer 'do things together' automatically like the way our grandparents' did. So the Marshes constantly think up new things that the family can do as a unit."


In 1950, sociologist Hollingshead wrote: “The home is the center of family life, and the hope [ironic sic] of most working-class families is a single-family dwelling with a yard; but a fifth to one-half are forced to live in multiple dwelling units with inadequate space for family living. Added to this is the working-class mos that one is obligated to give shelter and care in a crisis to a husband’s or wife’s relatives or to a married child. Thus, in a considerable percentage [sic] of these families the home is shared with some relative. Then, too., resources are stringently limited, so when a family is faced with unemployment, illness, and death it must turn to someone for help. In such crises, a relative is called upon in most instances before some public agency. The relative normally has little to offer, but in most cases that little is shared with the family in need, even though grudgingly. ¶ While crises draw family members to-gether, they also act as divisive agents; for when a family has to share its lim-ited living space and meager income with relative, kin ties are soon strained, often to the breaking point. One family is not able to give aid to another on an extensive scale without impairing its won standard of living; possibly its own security may be jeopardized. In view of this risk, some persons do everything short of absolute refusal to aid a rela-tive in distress . . . This ordinarily results in the permanent destruction of kin ties, but it is justified by the belief that ones won family’s needs come first.”