Myth of Model Family

Myth of the Model Family The image of the model family is breathtaking, a housewife-mother, a breadwinner father, a couple of kids and a pet or two. This is the dream of most Americans but at the same time is a cliché. “The “traditional” family… has existed for little more than two hundred years” (18). This idea has been so widely accepted due to the attention that it has received in the media. Like Gary Soto in “Looking for Work” the perfect family misleads people into thinking what is truth and what is fiction. Of course the truth is that there is no such thing as the “perfect” family. One family cannot represent all the variation of families all around the world. The universal nuclear family is the same with the stay-at-home mother, the breadwinner father, a couple of children and maybe a pet or two. Preferably, people would like to see what a family should be or act like, but not everyone is the same. Each and every culture is different, with each of them having there own definition or idea of what the model family is like. In Soto’s “Looking for Work” the story is about a child's expectance of a family life filled with love and comforts, which is contrast with his real working class family life. In the story Soto, back at the age of nine, dreams to live is a life where his family is straightforward in there routine. Soto lived in a working class family that had only a breadwinner mother and three children. There was no mention of a father. Over the years there has been the question of who has the authority in an American family. It used to be the male of the family who had the most authority. Over the years, that has slowly changed. As in Soto’s story he lives with his mom and no mention of a dad. Today there are families that have two fathers or two mothers or only one of each and not the other. The idea of the “perfect” model family is so widely accepted, due to the attention that it receives in the media. So the idea of two fathers, or two