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F a i r D e a l i n g ( S h o r t E x c e r p t )

Reading: Ch. 2. Families Today (excerpt) (Home, School and Community Relations)

Author: Gestwicki, Carol

Editor: N/A

Publisher: Cengage Learning Publication Date: 2016 Pages: 20-24

Course: ECED 421 63A 2023W1 Supporting Young Children Through Home, School, and Community Relationships Course Code: 63A Term: 2023W1

Department: ECED

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20 | SECTION 1 Introduction to Families

For a teacher, one very important role is collaborating with families Although many teachers might prefer to concentrate only on the children who enter the class­ room each day, children live in the context of their families—and their families are the most important and lifelong influence on their development. Teachers must understand those family contexts and respect the uniqueness of each family while bringing them into the child's educational world as full partners.

The families with whom a teacher works may not resemble the teacher's own and may be quite unlike each other in their structure, family lifestyles and values, cul­ tural influences, and relationships. As America grows increasingly diverse, teachers need to prepare themselves to recognize, appreciate, and work with such diversity.

In this chapter, we begin to consider some of the reasons for the diversity and changes in family structure and appearance that are apparent in most American classrooms.

2-1 What Defines a Family?

The family is the most adaptable of human institutions and is able to modify its charac­ teristics to meet those of the society in which it lives. Certainly, the family has adapted to much in recent decades: urbanization, a consumer-oriented economy, economic uncertainty, wars and terrorist attacks, changes in traditional religious and moral codes, increasing cultural diversity, and changes in all relationships basic to family life­ including but not limited to those between male and female and young and old. Such changes have been occurring in every corner of the world, although our primary concern here is the American family.

، Consider the families you might meet within any classroom or community: single-father families and single-mother families, with parents who may be widowed, divorced, or have never married; blended families from second marriages that bring together children from unrelated backgrounds; unmarried couples with children; gay and lesbian parents; adoptive families; grandparents functioning as parents in the absence of the intermediate generation; foster families; and families of mixed racial heritage—either biological or adoptive.

Such a wide range of families and relationships may make us feel uncomfortable in the distance from our values or ideals or comforted by the realization that our families are not the only ones that do not fit the perfect image of 1970s families in The Cosby Show seen on late-night cable reruns.

The word family has always meant many things to many people. What comes to mind&؛ when you think of the traditional family? Social historian Stephanie Coontz reminds us that this answer has changed depending on the era and its particular myths (2000). Despite the obvious fact that the phrase the American family does not describe one reality, it is used sweepingly. Many creators of television commercials seem to think it usually means a white, middle-class, monogamous father and mother at work, children busy with school and enrichment activities family—one that lives in a suburban one-family house, nicely filled with an array of appliances, a minivan or SUV in the driveway, and probably a dog in the yard. Such a description excludes the vast majority of American families, according to the last census (which does not enumerate dogs or minivans but found less than 7 percent of households conforming to the classic family headed by a working hus­ band with a wife and two children at home). A recently made comment was that whereas most families used to have 2.6 children, many children now have 2.6 parents.

CHAPTER 2 Families Today | 21

The entire Western world has experienced similar changes in family life during the past several decades.

Rather than suggest that the family is under siege, it is more accurate to suggest that our image of family may need to be broadened to accept diversity. It may he more important to concentrate on what families do rather than what they look like. Family may be more about content than about form (see Figure 2-1).

FIGURE 2-1 Families come in all shapes and sizes

22 I SECTION I Introduction to Families

nuclear family A social unit composed of parents and children.

2-la "Ideal" Family Images What image comes to mind when you see the word family? People’s mental images vary greatly, based in large part on their individual life experiences.

Try an experiment while you think about family. On a piece of paper, draw stick figures to represent the members of the family you first knew as a young child. Who represented family to you? Then, do the same to represent your family when you were a teenager. Had your family changed? Was anyone added or removed? What were the rea­ sons for any changes?

Now draw the family in which you presently live. Who are your family members? What does this say about any changes in your life? If, as an adult, you have lived in numer­ ous family structures, represent them, too.

Now, for one last picture. Imagine that you could design the ideal family for yourself. Draw what it would look like.

Sorting through your pictures may generate some thinking about family. One predic­ tion is that most of the ideal pictures include a father, mother, and two children (probably a boy first and then a girl]. If you are like most students who have done this, the ideal fam ily usually includes these members—regardless of the actual composition of the families in which individuals have participated or presently live. Real experiences are often passed over in favor of the ideal two-parent, two-child home.

For many, the image of an ideal family is influenced less by real experiences than by subtle cultural messages that have bombarded us since childhood. The Vanier Institute reports that 86 percent of high school students surveyed, including 78 percent of the teens whose own parents had not stayed together, expect a lifelong marriage. From magazine advertisements to children’s books—and, even more pervasively, from television shows— the attractive vision of husband, wife, and children beams at us. These inescapable mes­ sages influence our thinking about desirable family characteristics, and may produce guilt and negative feelings when the reality does not match the ideal.

Interestingly, students surveyed are aware that their ideal image is just that and are also aware of the societal influences that helped produce it.

FAMILY IMAGES 1. Draw the family you lived in as a child 2. Draw the family you lived in as a teenager. 3. Draw the family in which you presently live 4. Draw the ideal family you would design for yourself. 5. Share your pictures with two classmates. 6. Considering all the pictures, what statements can you make about family and the influ­

ences that have created your sense of an ideal family?

But they may be less aware of how insidiously this subliminal image can influence their encounters with real families. If an ideal lurking unknowingly in a teacher’s value system is considered “right,” then a negative evaluation can be made of any family that does not measure up to this standard. The problem with assessing this one nuclear family model as “good” is that it may prevent us from considering alternative family structures as equally valid.

CHAPTER 2 Families Today I 23

It is too easy for a teacher to feel more affinity and comfort with a family that approaches his or her ideal than with one that is clearly outside the teacher’s individual frame of reference.

2-lb Samples of Diverse Family Structures If personal images of family cannot convey a complex enough picture, perhaps brief descriptions of families you might meet and work with will help. In Chapter 1, you fol­ lowed two fictitious families through a day. Here, we will meet them and others—as a sample of families any teacher may encounter—to consider the diversity in structure that corresponds to the differing values, customs, cultural influences, and lifestyles that appear in our world. Watch for these same families later in this book when we consider different relationships and techniques in teacher-parent communication.

A From Chapter 1, you will recall meeting Sylvia Ashley, 29, who lives alone with her sons Terrence (nine) and Ricky (three). Her marriage to Ricky's father ended in divorce before Ricky's birth; she did not marry Terrence's father, who was in one of her classes in college before she dropped out during the first semester. She has had no contact with her parents since before Terrence's birth. Although she lives in a subsidized housing apartment, she rarely has contact with her neighbors; hers is the only white family living in the area. Before Ricky was born, she worked in a department store. Since then, her income has come from TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families) funds and food stamp payments as well as the subsidized housing. She is now beginning a job-training program, hoping to follow through with her plan to become a nurse's assistant. Ricky has been home with Sylvia, but he will enter a child care program when his mother begins the job-training program.

B. You have also met Otis and Fannie ].awrence, each married before. Otis has two sons from his first marriage—14 and 10-who visit one weekend each month and for about six weeks each summer. Fannie's seven-year-old daughter Kim and four- year-old son Pete see their father, who has moved out of state, only once or twice a year and have called Otis “Daddy” since their mother married him three years ago. Fannie is six months pregnant, and they have recently moved into an attractive new four-bedroom house, knowing even that will be too small when the boys visit. Fannie teaches third grade and will t,١ke a three-month maternity leave after the baby is born; she is on the waiting lisi at four centers for infant care. Otis sells new cars and is finishing up a business degree at night. Kim goes to an afterschool child care program that costs $115 a week. Pete is in a private child care center, operated by a national chain, that costs $175 a week. The ].awrence family income is $98,000 annually. The Lawrence family is African American.

c. Bob and Jane Weaver have been married five years. They married the day after Jane graduated from high school. Sandra, blonde and blue-eyed just like her parents, was born before their first anniversary. Bob and Jane live in an apartment down the street from Jane's parents and around the block from her married sister. Jane has not worked outside the home much during their marriage. They are hoping to have another child next year. A second pregnancy ended in stillbirth last year. Bob earns $49,750 on the production line at a furniture factory. Jane started working part-time this year to help save for a down payment for a first home purchase. Her mother cares for Sandra while Jane works. Her income of $950 a month after taxes would not go far if she had to pay for child care. They are concerned that Bob's hours could be decreased in the economic downturn.

D. Salvatore and Teresa Rodriguez have lived in this country for six years. Occasionally, one of their relatives comes to stay with them, but the rest of the family has stayed in

٠٠٠

TANF Temporary Aid to Needy Families—the welfare reform legislation passed in 1996.

24 | SECTION I Introduction to Families

Mexico. Right now, Sal’s 20-year-old brother Joseph is here taking an auto mechanics course; he plans to be married later this year and will probably stay in the same town. Teresa misses her mother, who has not seen their two children since they were babies. Sylvia is seven and has cerebral palsy; she attends a developmental kindergarten that has an excellent staff for the physiotherapy and speech therapy that she needs. Tony is four. Teresa works part-time in a bakery. Her husband works the second shift on the maintenance crew at the bus depot so he can be home with the children while she is at work. This is necessary because Sylvia needs so much extra care. They rent a six- room house, which they chose for the safe neighborhood and large garden.

E. Mary Howard is 16 and has always lived with her parents in a predominantly middle­ class neighborhood of African American families. Her grandmother had a stroke and now lives with them, too. When Mary’s daughter, Cynthia, was born last year, her mother cared for the baby so Mary could finish the tenth grade. Cynthia is now in a church-operated child care center because Mary's mother needed to return to work to cover increased family expenses. Mary still hopes she might someday marry Cynthia’s father, who is starting college this year. He comes to see her and the baby every week or so. Mary also wonders if she will go on to train in computer programming after she finishes high school, as she had planned, or if she should just get a job so she can help her mother more with Cynthia and with their expenses.

F. Susan Henderson celebrated her thirty-ninth birthday in the hospital the day after giving birth to Lucy. Her husband Ed is 40. After 13 years of marriage, they have found adding a child joyful and shocking. Lucy was very much a planned child. Susan felt established enough in her career as an architect to be able to work from her home for a year or so. Ed’s career as an investment counselor has also demanded a lot of his attention. Some of their friends are still wavering over the decision to begin a family. Ed and Susan are quite definite that this one child will be all they will have time for. Money is not the issue in their decision; their combined income last year was well over $350,000. Susan’s major complaint since being at home with the baby is that the condominium where they live has few families with children, and none of them are preschoolers. She has signed up for a Mother’s Morning Out program for infants one day a week and has a nanny who comes to their home each day so she can work.

G. Sam (age two) and Lisa (age four) Butler see their parents a lot—they just never see them together. Bill and Joan separated almost two years ago, and their divorce is about to become final. One of the provisions calls for joint physical custody of their two preschoolers. What this means right now is spending three nights one week with one parent and four with the other. The schedule gets complicated sometimes because Bill travels on business, but so far, the adults have been able to work it out. The children seem to enjoy going from Dad’s apartment to Mom and the house in which they have always lived, but on the days they carry their suitcases to the child care center for the midweek switchover, they need lots of reassurance about who is picking them up. Joan worries about how this arrangement will work as the children get older. Sam and Lisa attend a child development center run by the local community college. Joan is already concerned about finding good afterschool care for Lisa when she starts school in the fall, and she knows that it will further complicate her schedule when she has to make two pickup stops after work. She works as a secretary for the phone company and needs to take some computer courses this fall, but she does not know how she can fit them in and the kids, too—let alone find time to date a new man she has met.

H James Parker and Sam Leeper adopted a one-year-old Korean boy, Stephen, four years ago. They have been together in a committed relationship for 10 years, although they