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#4: FAMILY
Outline
MCYS (Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports):
The family is an important institution. It brings fulfillment to our lives and is our anchor in this fast-paced, ever-changing environment.
Families serve as an important pillar of support for the nation.
At the individual level, families are the primary source of emotional, social and financial support.
At the national level, they contribute to social stability and national cohesiveness as they help develop socially responsible individuals and deepen the bond Singaporeans have with our country.
National Family Council
National Family Week (May)
Recognises role of family & contributions to society
Encourages and supports healthy family life and values
‘Eat with your family day’
‘Jetty Jump’
I. What Is A Family?
Marriage?
A universal social cultural construct
Children?
Kinship – blood, marriage, adoption, fictive (group formation)
Emotions – love, happiness, sadness (regulating emotions)
Rituals – marriage (joining together), divorce (breaking apart), funeral (separation)
Problems with defining the “family”
No such thing as ‘the family’ (single, timeless, homogeneous entity)
Family’ as a rhetorical term – does not refer to a concrete phenomenon
Families have been structured in many ways, and diversity of familial forms have been increasing
II. Diverse Family Forms
Besides nuclear family, gender revolution has also created diversity of family forms (Brym & Lie p. 456)
Step families
Grandparents caring for grandchildren (extended family)
Multiethnic
Transnational families (Howard 2011)
Deterritorialized families; astronaut families and parachute children (Ong 1999 Flexible Citizenship)
Cohabitation
Couples living together without being married and who may have children together
Increases over the decades
Prelude to, substitute for marriage
Lasting and enduring
Cohabitation – Reasons?
Cultural reason – norms and sexual relationships
Outline
MCYS (Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports):
The family is an important institution. It brings fulfillment to our lives and is our anchor in this fast-paced, ever-changing environment.
Families serve as an important pillar of support for the nation.
At the individual level, families are the primary source of emotional, social and financial support.
At the national level, they contribute to social stability and national cohesiveness as they help develop socially responsible individuals and deepen the bond Singaporeans have with our country.
National Family Council
National Family Week (May)
Recognises role of family & contributions to society
Encourages and supports healthy family life and values
‘Eat with your family day’
‘Jetty Jump’
I. What Is A Family?
Marriage?
A universal social cultural construct
Children?
Kinship – blood, marriage, adoption, fictive (group formation)
Emotions – love, happiness, sadness (regulating emotions)
Rituals – marriage (joining together), divorce (breaking apart), funeral (separation)
Problems with defining the “family”
No such thing as ‘the family’ (single, timeless, homogeneous entity)
Family’ as a rhetorical term – does not refer to a concrete phenomenon
Families have been structured in many ways, and diversity of familial forms have been increasing
II. Diverse Family Forms
Besides nuclear family, gender revolution has also created diversity of family forms (Brym & Lie p. 456)
Step families
Grandparents caring for grandchildren (extended family)
Multiethnic
Transnational families (Howard 2011)
Deterritorialized families; astronaut families and parachute children (Ong 1999 Flexible Citizenship)
Cohabitation
Couples living together without being married and who may have children together
Increases over the decades
Prelude to, substitute for marriage
Lasting and enduring
Cohabitation – Reasons?
Cultural reason – norms and sexual relationships