Patrick A. Velardi
The changes in the American family are startling. As a teacher in the public schools of New Haven observing the various situations from which children come, I soon realized that educators must understand the concept of family. Furthermore, teachers must be fully equipped to deal with the many manifestations of the family. Before a teacher can begin to influence a child’s mind, that teacher must know with whom he is dealing. It is generally accepted that the first several years of a child’s education take place in the home so the family, it follows, is the first and probably the most important molder of the child’s mind. What the school gets, then, is a child who may already have his most important education in place. The school picks up the process at that point and continues. If the school continues without benefit of what family means to the child, the job may be impossible.
The first goal of my participation in the seminar on the American family is to provide a firmer understanding of what family means. When is a family a family? Why does it make a difference to teachers to know the answer to that question? The influences brought to bear in shaping a family are numerous. Cultural differences, the age at which a family begins, single-parent families, the break-up of a family, and the subsequent re-forming of a new family are some of the many influences that come to mind. In this unit I intend to take a look at a sampling of research into the formation and functioning of American families. While most of this part of the paper will be for the benefit of the teacher, I plan to discuss various configurations of the American family with my students. By doing so they will become aware that there is no one ideal type of family, and that our American culture draws much of its strength from the diversity that we all bring to it. When reading a book about a traditional family, students will be better equipped to understand their own families, many of which may not resemble the mother, father, sibling arrangement. Since so much of the literature we read in class has family as a central theme, the time spent on what makes a family will be fruitful.
The second goal of this paper is understanding literature and how family plays such an important role in so many of the novels we read. As a teacher of sixth-grade English I want my students to learn to peel away the layers of a novel or short-story and begin to see what lies beneath the plot. One novel that I plan to use,
Farmer Boy
, is the story of a pioneer family whose daily existence depends upon the family. Living on a farm, each member is a contributor to the well-being of the whole. While the family is undeniably a traditional one, students can understand why each member is such an important cog, and then relate principles of the fictional family to their own, even if their family may be far from traditional. The model of a family presented in
Farmer Boy
is clear, and from that starting point we can develop a deeper understanding of the variations of the family.
A second book that I plan to use is
Nobody’s Family Can Change
. In this novel the family is also traditional in the mother, father, sibling sense, but now we have an Afro-American family living in the present in New York City. The story revolves around the conflicts of the children in coping with the family’s values, and their own desires and aspirations. Students enjoy this book because of its contemporary language and problems, but it also provides insights into the generational advancements of families, that is, parents expecting a child to progress beyond what they have. This theme is very important to immigrant as well as Afro-American families. In the novel we see goals of children that are different from what parents expect, a pertinent issue to many young adults who are pushed and pulled by peer pressure in contemporary America.
The third goal of the paper is to look at art as a chronicler of the American family and how art can open our eyes to the changes that have occurred. In particular I want to concentrate on photography as an historical marker of changes in the American family. However, I want most of the emphasis to be on the students’ own pictorial documentation of family. No family, it seems, is absent of a photographic record of its important events. These snapshots may or may not be art, but they surely provide the color or vividness to one’s recollections of his own personal history as a part of his family. Wedding pictures, baby pictures, picnics, trips or shots of everyone gathered together for holidays provide frozen moments that provide amazing impetus for discussion and then writing in a classroom. Students love to talk about themselves. Getting them to write it on paper is not always so easy. Photographs can provide the needed push into creative writing about a topic a student feels comfortable with.
My role as a teacher of young adults carries with it a responsibility to understand as well as possible what influences may have made them what they are. My role as an English teacher, then, makes me want to use these powerful forces in their lives to advantage. By using family, good literature and art as motivators, I want to build appreciation for all three. I want the students in my classes to understand family, and to feel comfortable enough with it to use it as a force in their writing. Through the development of this unit on the American family, I hope to accomplish all these goals.
Thoughts on the Family
A general definition of family is impossible because of the various cultural colorations of the concept. There are some basic similarities among various peoples that might prove useful in trying to understand the importance of family in our own particular society. People everywhere seem to live in groups that can be called families. While different cultures have different specific values that determine family structure, there are basic social functions that need to be met by families in general, such as child bearing, child rearing and control of sexual behavior. As our own society changes, we can see different methods of achieving basic goals of a family. In Colonial America, families were quite large, a practice that seems to have continued for quite some time. Many ethnic immigrants came to America with their own cultural mores concerning marriage. As society modernized, for example, family size seems to diminish, until we have family size in modern America down to one, two or three children. The basic function of family remains constant. It still is the primary imparter of values, but, in America, at least, the family has had to make many changes, and has had to make them extremely rapidly at times.
Teachers deal with families. The student is the teacher’s primary concern, but the student comes with a set of values taught to him by his family. As family structure changes, these values tend to change as well. In the article, “The Family As a Changed Institution”, Pepper Schwartz (1988) notes that the American family is composed of voluntary associations. Spouses can leave, children have outside resources to rely on if they perceive the family crumbling. The divorce rate, women’s rights, psychiatry emphasizing self over community may all have a hand in creating this flexible concept of family. Schwartz hypothesizes that the traditional family was undermined with the founding of our country on the principle of enlightened self interest. When that concept is extended to all people, as it is happening more today, the family would have to change drastically. A family is a group in which some members must compromise their own self-interest for the good of the whole. When individuals truly realize a sense of self, then the family unit cannot exist as it once did. Schwartz envisions the creation of three major family types, an idea that teachers can consider and benefit from. The single-head household will be prevalent among the poor as long as society picks up the economic burden of supporting families that are centered around women and children. The middle class family will be composed of two wage earners either of whom cannot provide enough for the desired lifestyle. The strong incentive to marry and remarry is present so that this arrangement can continue. Divorce is undesirable due to the high cost, but will occur. The executive family will have one income, (usually the male’s), high enough to allow the other partner the choice not to work. If both decide to work, economic independence will be further enhanced. All three situations have parents doing the best they can for themselves first, and their children second. The individual is concerned with being successful and society is providing a structure that allows this to happen. In our society it is becoming difficult if not impossible to retain the notion of family as a group giving up self for the whole. The idea of Dad going out to work while Mom stayed home is no longer feasible in today’s society which is acutely aware of every individual’s right to self-fulfillment. It is important to understand and accept the changing concept of family, and extremely important not to judge the concept. In particular teachers must not judge the family, but understand its workings and how it affects teaching.
Before disposing of the traditional family, shouldn’t we look a little more closely at it? Traditional extended families as brought to America by immigrants stressed obedience to parents, respect for elders, loyalty to the family and similar values that can be found in literature. However, could the children of these families succeed in America? In an article by Martin King Whyte titled “Is America Well Served by Its Family System?” (1988), the author states that immigrant children could not succeed unless their families adapted to the founding principles of American society. Assimilation necessitated family change. As Mr. Whyte points out, the assimilation argument has its objectors who feel that American children do not interact enough with adults. Young people spend more time in peer groups that reject adult values and this leads to antisocial behavior. Traditional immigrant families, strong family bonds and loyalties exert powerful inducements to study hard, to excel in sports and music, deferring pleasure, so as to repay the family for its sacrifices. Japan’s family system is frequently cited as an example of the benefits of traditional family structure. The fact that Japanese women withdraw from outside social contacts allows them to concentrate totally on encouraging and assuring that their children will do well. When Japanese children are compared to American children academically, the case for traditional family values seems to take on added weight.
Should the traditionalists’ view lead America to return to the traditional family values? Whyte correctly states that America never had such a tradition, even if some immigrant groups brought one with them. What is more important is the nature of the relations among generations and what values are stressed during child rearing. How do we raise children who possess the values that Americans deem important to society? Those values are autonomy, self-development, a desire to overcome obstacles, a curiosity about how things work and a desire to seek perfection, even if it can never really be achieved. Perhaps these values, too, need to be questioned. Have we produced too many artistic, creative individuals, and not enough disciplined workers? When teachers ponder such questions, it is not so much an effort to answer them, but to be aware of what it is we do each day. The responsibility for developing the American value system does fall on teachers’ shoulders, even though that responsibility may be unwanted. Teachers must know what our country’s goals are before they can address the questions.
An article entitled, “Social Structure and Black Family Life, An Analysis of Current Trends’’, by Robert Staples (1987) provided many useful insights into minority families. Historically, the Black family structure was thought to have been destroyed under slavery. This idea has been challenged, Staples tells us, through the use of slave journals, that Black families were functioning institutions and strong family ties persisted in the face of frequent breakups as a result of slave trading. Black culture flourished, the matriarchy was in reality a healthy equality of the sexes and the majority of Blacks were lodged in nuclear families in cities between 1880 and 1925. Slave narratives can be tainted since they were frequently edited by northern abolitionists, but historians conclude that the Black family was stable during and immediately after slavery. The rise in out-of-wedlock children and female-headed households are more the result of twentieth century urban ghettos, northern segregation in obtaining industrial jobs, vulnerability to disruptions due to urbanization, reduction of family functions, and the loss of extended family supports.
Staples says that education, employment and income are the principal supports for families. He contends that little change has occurred in all three areas when comparing Black to white families. Blacks are more likely to drop out of high school, Black women tend to be slightly better educated than Black men, and Blacks do not get the same rewards financially for their education. One third of America’s Black population is living at poverty levels, and one fourth are receiving public assistance. Unemployment among Blacks is extremely high. These figures point to reasons why the Black family is struggling to maintain its integrity.
The sexual revolution has affected Blacks more than whites. Black women are twice as likely to engage in sexual intercourse by age 19 as white women. A result is the large number of Black children born out-of wedlock. The increasing divorce rate in America has affected Black couples more than whites. Female headed households have increased, and the number of Black children living in two parent families has declined. The total birthrate among Black women is decreasing, particularly among college educated Black women, which points to the need for low cost abortions and education about the prevention of pregnancy. Staples’ conclusion is that public policy must not attempt to force idealized middle-class family models on Black families, (or on white families, for that matter), but should educate the population according to the needs the statistics demonstrate. Clearly, according to Staples, America must move away from middle-class Puritanism, the Protestant ethics and out-dated ideas about male-headed families.
Staples relates some thought-provoking ideas about why the nuclear family has declined among Black Americans. He says the basis of a stable family depends on the desire to bear and raise children and fulfill certain roles. The traditional role of men, economic provider, is difficult to fulfill due to the unemployment problems among young Black men. Staples provides the all too familiar statistics regarding the incredible unemployment rate among young Black men, the very same pool of marriage aged men. Those that are employed have a high rate of underemployment. They are overeducated for their jobs and have difficulty translating their education into a meaningful job. Marriage in the traditional sense, based on the above societal factors, becomes extremely difficult. There are further complications. Black males are more likely to be committed to mental institutions than Black females. Black males are much more likely to have drug and alcohol abuse problems. These and other problems affect the non-college educated women when seeking a traditional-role husband. Black college-educated women, if they desire to marry a Black male of similar educational background, find that about 43% of Black college students are men, and that these men have a much higher attrition rate than their female counterparts.
In conclusion, Staples feels that the decline in Black family structure is in tune with changes in American families. He concludes that the forces that are redefining American family structure in general are much more pronounced among Blacks because of the “institutional decimation of Black males.” (pg. 283) The social forces that account for dropping out of society in general, also account for Black men eschewing traditional family roles. The origin of these forces is in the school systems that better educate Black women for reasons that are open to speculation. Staples cites studies that show female-headed households declining when the supply of Black males increases. Finally, the crisis of the Black family is caused by the inability of the Black male to fulfill the traditional role of husband and father.
What conclusions can a teacher in an urban school draw from such insightful, thought-provoking studies? Primarily, what comes through clearest is that changing family structure is certainly nothing new. Our country has such diverse influences that arriving at a model family structure is absurd. As a teacher one must be prepared to adapt to as many different cultural make-ups as there are children in the classroom. Awareness of the diversity is an important step in providing the best educational environment possible. More importantly, teachers must control expectations in regard to family structure, and teachers must never judge family structures. What enters the door is what must be worked with. It makes for a very exciting day, and yet new problems still arise. In the Friday, May 25, 1990 edition of “The New York Times,” a headline reads, “Crack Babies Turn 5, and Schools Brace.” The first line of the article says, “The nation’s inner-city schools, already strained by the collapse of families and the wounds of poverty, will face another onslaught this fall—the first big wave of children prenatally exposed to crack.” The uncertainty of the consequences of drug abuse in our society, and in our schools, will be the next huge problem getting addressed. The problems that already exist will not go away, and will continue to need society’s dedication. Public education is going to play a major role in dealing with all of them.
