Family Deterioration

* * * * What is a family? This seems like such a simple question, obviously a family is those who you are related to by biological definitions, but what about step parents, adoptive families and much more. The text of Beth LePoire defines families, “through their relatedness and their functions of nurturing and control” (27). To clarify the term relatedness LePoire includes biological, legal, and marriage like commitments. Nurturing LePoire defines as encouraging physical, social, emotional and intellectual growth; and control is limiting the behavioral options of family members to help their development (11). As mentioned in lecture divorce is on the rise since 1960, but divorce does not cause families to be unrelated, nor stop nurturing or controlling each other. It means that shape and locations of the family members may change. Today’s families are merely changing form, no matter the distance between family members they can still be tied by strong communication; communication is what prevents families from deteriorating. * It is true that families today are different from the idealized nuclear family of the past. This is a result of the changing forms of families and greater acceptance of different types of families. According to the text only twenty-four percent of the United States population consists of nuclear families (4). To assert that all other types of families are deteriorating or are not real families would be quite exclusive. I agree with LePoire and argue a family is a group of people connected by relatedness of blood, legality, and similar commitments, who nurture each other to provide for growth, while controlling and guiding. A family that goes through a divorce is not any less of a family. In many cases both parents are still involved in the lives of their children and want to help with the children’s growth and control. Divorce can provide a rough path to maintaining a strong family, but a family must maintain good