Discuss:
36 Part 1 Decisions About Parenting
Procreation. Through the couple,
children are conceived and born. As
discussed earlier, children may not be raised
by their biological parents. In these cases,
the family of origin meets all of the family
functions except procreation.
Economic support. The family provides
shelter, nourishment, and protection. Each
family must decide who helps with economic
support. These decisions may change over
time. For example, a parent may stay home
while the children are young, but may return
to work as the children enter school. Older
children may even work to pay some of their
expenses.
Emotional well-being. All people need
to feel their family members love and accept
them for who they are as individuals. The
way each person feels about himself or
herself is affected, positively or negatively,
by being part of a family. Family members
support each other as they cope with the
stresses of life. This function is critical in
parenting children. Through nurturance,
parents provide the foundation for positive
interactions with others throughout life.
Socialization/education. All family
members strive to grow and change.
Although this function is often shared with
child care programs and schools, it is a major
parenting function. Parents need to transmit
positive values—their ideals and beliefs
about what is important and how to act on
them. They also need to transmit positive
attitudes. In addition, they must provide
knowledge and skills in many areas. Parents
must also promote self-discipline in children.
Helping children grow and develop enables
them to become competent adults.
Assignment of social roles. Family
members have roles. The titles of the roles
are basically the same in all families, such
as wife/mother, husband/father, son and
daughter. Each role has certain tasks. Family
tasks within social roles help define a person,
such as mother as a wage earner, family cook,
and scout leader. These tasks show how she
fits into the family. For each family role, the
tasks will vary from family to family. For
example, in some families the father may
stay home and care for the children while the
mother works outside the home.
Similar, Yet Different
Although all families share the same
functions, no two families are alike. Why do
tasks differ for the same role in two different
families? Customs, including social roles,
come from a family’s background, such as
its racial, ethnic, religious, or socioeconomic
group. Social roles, like other aspects of
heritage, are passed down within a family
from generation to generation. For example,
in some families the husband/father takes
on the traditional role of wage earner. As
the family leader, he makes major family
decisions including how to raise children. In
these traditional families, however, the wife/
mother (or perhaps the grandmother) does
the day-to-day parenting. Children develop
2-6 Couples without children are able to develop
their relationship and spend more time alone
together.