Chapter 14 Family Life Today
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Recreation
Members of families enjoy each other ’s company and try to make
time for family-oriented leisure activities. Sports, games, and other
recreational pursuits provide family members with relaxation and
often much-needed physical activity. Such experiences also provide
children with opportunities to learn communication skills and good
sportsmanship. When children grow up, they may wish to continue
some of these activities with their own families.
Roles and Responsibilities of Family
Members
Members of families have certain roles. Your role as a son or
daughter is a given role you acquired when you became a part of the
family. You may also have the given role of brother or sister. When you
marry, you will assume a chosen role as husband or wife. You may also
decide to assume another chosen role—that of father or mother. These
and other family roles will overlap throughout your life. The emphasis
you give to each particular role will change from time to time. If there is
a major change in your family, such as a severe illness, divorce, or death,
roles may change.
Roles are defi ned by responsibilities. How people fulfi ll these
responsibilities determines to a large extent how well they perform
their roles. Even if the mother works outside the home, she often has
primary responsibility for the care and supervision of the children. As
the children grow older, she may be the parent who usually volunteers
at the children’s school and arranges and supervises after-school
activities. In recent decades, however, more fathers have been helping
with these responsibilities.
Providing the income to buy food, clothing, and housing for family
members has traditionally been the responsibility of the father. Today
this responsibility is often shared by both father and mother. Today’s
fathers are also sharing more of the child care responsibilities. They
are often seen in grocery stores doing the shopping for the family. Care
of the yard and outside chores have traditionally been the father ’s
responsibilities, but today the entire family may share in these tasks. If
the mother works, the father may be the parent who takes the children
to school, or he may serve as coach for sports teams. Guiding children is
a shared responsibility in many of today’s families. Fathers are fi nding
they enjoy the nurturing role, and mothers enjoy sharing the provider
role. As they share these roles, they offer encouragement and support to
each other.