This week we look at family structures and bonds, from a wide range of perspectives. We see how the life course effects marital quality, if single fathers can mother, why growing up is hard to do, how grandparents are parenting, as well as consequences for divorce on both parents and children. Although it seems that we are reading about a wide array of topics, all have one thing in common, in that they discuss the relationships within the family, and how they effect its members.
Within the first few weeks of this class, the question “Does divorce beget divorce?” was proposed. Without the literature on the subject, it was unclear what the answer was, but according to the literature, it does. Although not addressed in Amato’s The Consequences of Divorce for Adults and Children, he had released a previous article entitled Explaining the Intergenerational Trend of Divorce (found on JSTOR if anyone is interested). It turns out, that children of divorced parents have an increased 70% chance of divorce within the first five years of marriage compared with those whose parents did not divorce, with the risk increasing if both partners experienced a parental divorce (Amato, 628 and 634). Interestingly, Amato found that children of divorced parents tend to marry earlier than most (due to many factors such as emotional neediness, wanting to get out of a household with stepparents, or economic hardships living with a single mother) and says that early age at the time of marriage is a great predictor of divorce (Amato, 629). As well, divorce can act as a barrier to the development of traits and interpersonal orientations that hinder intimate relations. For example, children of divorced parents do not have a model for successful marriage; therefore they do not know what a successful dyadic relationship is like. More importantly, experiencing a divorce can also lead to developing traits such as lack of trust, jealousy issues and inability to commit, that stem from emotional insecurity, which serve to strain a marital relationship (Amato, 631).
In this week’s reading’s we come across the question, Do you consider yourself an adult? This question is difficult to answer, as adulthood no longer begins when adolescence ends. This is reiterated in the article Growing Up is Harder to Do where children are depicted as stalling the beginning of adult life in order to gain a better education or until they can establish an independent household. These trends continue and are existent within a Canadian framework. By examining a Statistics Canada article entitled Parents with Adult children living at Home, written by Martin Turcotte, we are introduced to the boomerang generation and its effect in Canadian households. The boomerang generation are young adults who choose to live with their parents after a brief period of living on their own. According to the 2001 Canadian General Social Survey, in 2001 57% of young men and women aged 20 to 24 were living with their parents; in 1981, the proportion was only 41%. (Turcotte, 2) This is only a twenty-year difference, but it is a large increase. What exactly are the reasons for this increase? The survey indicates that parents who were living in urban cities like Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa were most likely to have an adult child living at home. Some of the explanations for this increase are due to the high cost of living in large cities and increased probability of postsecondary schools in large cities.
Although having an adult child live at home can be seen as a method of maintaining family ties, there are also consequences associated with it. In As Good as It Gets: A Life Course Perspective on Marital Equality, we learn that marital quality diminishes following the birth of the couple’s first child and doesn’t begin to improve until the children leave the parental home, with the lowest marital quality reached when kids are in their teens. The rationale behind this stems from the fact that children impose additional household and childcare duties and interfere with both the quantity and quality time that the couple is able to spend together. Although it is unclear in the life course article that the adult child is in fact a boomerang child (rather than an adult child who has just never moved out), “living with adult children may impose some strain on parents’ marriage or that living with adult children interferes with positive interactions between parents. (Umberson, 502) Canadian literature provides the same results in regards martial quality being lower when adult children are in the home, because the departure of an adult child lowers the level of conflict that often accompanies the arrival of a child in the marriage. This stage in the life course is also said to provide parents with the satisfaction of having successfully completed the responsibility of childrearing. So, when the adult children delay their departure from home, it is possible that the frequency of conflict within couples remains higher a little longer. Although the Canadian General Social Survey used loaded questions to ask parents living with adult children if they strongly agree, agree, disagree or strongly disagree such as, “I am often frustrated because my children take so much of my time,” (Turcotte, 6) the trends seems to follow the same pattern as the American results.
Although on a vast array of topics, all of this weeks readings touch upon the relationships formed within the family, and the consequences and reactions that stem from them. As the family adjusts to the modern world, new trends become evident. Our parents’ generation became adults when they graduated high school, and were raised primarily by their two heterosexual parents. It is evident through the reading material that these norms have evolved to create a new modern family, where grandparent’s parent, dad’s mother, and children never grow up. Through this week’s topic, we get to explore these changing trends and ideas.
Now for fun, take a look at this piece on “Yuckies” and “Babygloomers” http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/yuckies/?scp=2&sq=boomerang kids&st=cse
Here is another article, a Canadian look at the Boomerang Generation (us and our peers):
Another way of looking at the multi-generational bonds is a surprising new travel trend written about in the Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/travel/have-grandparents-will-travel/article1768519/
And although not a single Dad, here is a video of a stay-at-home dad “mothering”:
http://www.canada.com/news/family-portraits/Video+Family+portrait/3612171/story.html?tab=VID
(Don’t worry; all the links are really short!)
We look forward to reading your responses! Please label your posts Family Structures and Bonds.
I am really sorry, I know I am not suppose to put my post here but I am not at home and the only computer I have access to will not let me make a new post. I will try to figure this out but if not I will put my post up tomorrow morning. Sorry!
ReplyDeleteI found the topic of this week to be quite interesting as it made me consider many things about families and the dynamics of families that I had not yet thought about. For example, in the article by Amato which discussed the impact divorce has on those involved. I knew that a divorce of course had an impact on everyone implicated with the marriage that is dissolving but I did not think that the effects on the children were so devastating. I also, did not think that having one’s parents divorce would lead you to marrying at a younger age. Quite to the contrary, I find that friends I have whose parents went through a divorce are less likely to get married, view marriage negatively and if they do get married do so later in life then my friends whose parents did not divorce. The Risman article also discussed divorce. The part of this article that I found to be intriguing was that it reported that those who had gone through a divorce were more likely to be depressed, unhappy and abuse alcohol. I could see how this could be the case right after the divorce has taken place but I would have thought that many people would have felt happy not depressed after a divorce because they had left a situation that they were unhappy with and now had the opportunity to “restart” their lives. Perhaps, it is the unknown in their lives that causes this depression as they were probably use to a daily routine when married that no longer exists and this might be intimidating for them. However, I still think that for the person who chooses to have the divorce if it is not a mutual choice would feel enthusiastic about what is going to come next in their lives.
I also enjoyed the article by Furstenberg which examined how children are staying in their family’s homes years longer then they would have in the past. I agree that one of these reasons is because we now have to stay longer in school in order to get a decent job. However, I think that moving out of one’s parent’s home is a step that if at all possible should be taken in your early twenties or earlier because it teaches you the true meaning of being independent and it is through this process that you learn life lessons that will serve you throughout the rest of your life. Perhaps, I think this because I moved out of my home just shy of my eighteenth birthday and all of my brothers also moved out around that age as well. Also, my parents moved out of their parent’s homes at a very young age so this is the norm in my family. I always knew I would have to move away in order to pursue my education so for me it was an expected occurrence in my life. I have friends though that would never dream of moving out of their parent’s homes until they marry because that is the norm in their family. I guess, the point I am trying to make is that the effect of divorce, the choice to move out or continue living with your family is largely dependent on the specific situation you are in and your family’s opinions, practices and norms.
1)Does your experience or experiences of those you know whose parents divorced concur with the feelings and emotions discussed by both Risman and Amato? How where they similar or different? Do you think the divorce will influence your or your friend’s relationships in the future?
2) What do you consider to be an adult? How does one in your opinion know when one has become an adult?
3)Do you think having children stay longer in one’s household is a positive or a negative thing for the child in question? What about for the parents? What if the person is working and not going to school?