Read "Changing American Families" and then write 1 well-developed (at least 5 sentences) paragraph in response to the following question:
--Aulette describes many different types of families. Ignore the names of each category of family and pay attention to the descriptions instead. Which traits do you feel describe your own family experience the most? (the different traits that you discuss do not have to--and probably won't--all come from the same category).
Due: Before our next class meeting.
After reading "Changing American Families" I was able to identify to a few of the traits. Middle-class families sometimes replace kin with friends in seeking emotional and social support. I found myself at my friend's house for dinner very often. It was somewhat of an escape from the home life. I also related to the working class who were affected by the economic realities of their lives. Our family could not afford much so i had to make due with what i had. Our family was very dependent on other members of our extended family, having stayed with several relatives during my childhood. These are some of the traits that i was able to relate to.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading "Changing American Families", i noticed that i could relate to a lot of traits from the different classes. When i was young my parents always encouraged my siblings and i to play a sport because, like the upper class families, they believed it would teach us how to compete at the highest level, while learning how to be disciplined. Like the middle class families, education was always stressed upon us. If i didn't get an education, i wouldn't have the ability to move forward. My dad would tell me that if i passed up on education i would be passing up many great opportunities. My family doesn't depend on anyone else, but we love having our extended family and family friends around. I think it's a beautiful thing when you can do things with your extended family without expecting anything in return. These are the traits that i found fit my family and i the best.
ReplyDeleteI think my family experience is most similar to the "Middle-Class Families" description. My father was able to rely on banks for loans when we needed it, and rarely swallowed his pride enough to ask for help from his well healed father. A father who invested heavily in his grandchildren's education in a way that seems both; like the middle class emphasis on education, and like the upper class staggering of inheritance to avoid taxes. Each member of my family operates autonomously so we rarely share child care, food or other resources (even though they are ample) and rely more heavily on outside sources for resource support. My family experience was also similar to the working-class family's in that My parents never talked about work or had work meetings at home. There was a harsh separation between work and home and that seemed to work just fine. In all, I think I see a lot of my family life in all the descriptions of white families.
ReplyDeleteIn the reading "Changing American Families" I have identified a few traits of my own life that compare to excerpts of the work. One of these are the fact i have not seen my family in over two years due to moving. I might only talk to them three times a month, whereas i call my childhood friend daily for advice or support. Also my family was against the idea of playing sports unless you were stable academically, it was more important to them. Not in entire contrast but for note, my family is a tightly knit unit excluding myself they all live close and rely on each other very frequently.
ReplyDelete(For some reason my wife's name is being displayed instead of my own)
ReplyDeleteJoel said...
From reading “Changing American Families,” many of the descriptions mentioned reminded me of my own family. I would consider my family to be egalitarian; we equally have our own share of chores throughout the house. My family has many “fictive kin” in addition to our close relationship with our extended family. My parents have influenced me to marry someone for love, but to also look at financial stability. As I grew older, I was taught that education is important for success in the future. Throughout my experience, I learned the importance about individual achievement as well. I believe that these traits illustrate a good picture of my family experience.
After reading "Changing American Families", I decided I see similarities in my family in most of the social classes. My family knows a lot about each other because we trust each other for advice and guidance and in order to ask that from one another we must confide in each other. My parents have always believed that education should come first because it gives us so many more opportunities with our lives, but not the ability to outshine our family and disengage from our customs. As far as finances, I have seen my family take out loans from banks but we also make out loans between relatives. We also believe in marrying for love, thinking about it, I was actually kind of surprised to realize that I can only think of one couple in my family that has had a divorce. So I'm not really sure that we fit one social class but these are all characteristics of my family.
ReplyDeleteI see my family in a variety of the social classes. When it comes to education my extended family always reaches out to me to help further my education whether it’d be financially or guiding me on how to reach my goals. The same goes for my family and the way we treat our extended family. It has become a lot more apparent now how much we are there for each other due to the way the economy is right now. We are willing to lend financial support in any way that we can. My immediate and extended family (mostly cousins), stress the importance of education because we are first generation college students from our family. Our grandparents came here not knowing how to read or write English so that our parents could make the best of their lives. Unlike working class, we acknowledge that our work can identify us as the person we are. My family doesn’t separate the two completely. I think it has to do with the fact that we are grateful that because of the jobs we have, we can take care of our families. Also, many members of my family are passionate about the careers they have so there is no reason to separate them and not speak about them during “family time”.
ReplyDeleteafter reading "Changing American Families" i realized that my family has a lot of similarities to those talked about in the article. One aspect is that everyone in the house is expected to do equal amount of chores. My family has also always had an emphasis on education, like the middle class, which would lead to better jobs and more success in life. When i was little both me and my sister were involved in numerous sports, creating a greater sense of discipline and competitiveness. We have also always grown up with our extended family. Not depending on them or other family friends but being around them like siblings. I loved being able to see my cousins and aunts so often and feeling like i had older brothers that would protect me. Finally, when problems arise in the household, not just one parent disciplines or fixes the problem, but if it can then we will discuss it as a family and find a good compromise.
ReplyDeletewhile reading, i found that i was able to relate with the middle class families. growing up my family pushed us to do our best both in school and sports.Education is very important in my family my parents push me as well as the rest of my family to do the very best that we can in every theing that we do, from school work to washing the dishes. It is beleved that if we became well rounded children then we would grow up to be well rounded adults.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading changing America i was able to relate to a lot of the different types of families. i relate to the middle class families because while growing up my family did push me to do my best in anything i did. But i also relate to the working class because i did move a lot due to economical reasons and how my family moved to where the job was located. My family also tends to relay on each other for emotional support as well as financial support
ReplyDeleteafter reading, I believe that the working middle class family fit me the best. Growing up my parents always believed education was important and that if i wanted success in life that school would help take me there. My parents put more pressure on me to be more independent in school and push myself so they wouldnt have to. i learned always marry for love and not money because money doesnt bring happyiness,also i was always encourgaed to play different sports and try new things out in life. finally it was taught that if we work hard young and acheieved our goals that life would be more enjoyable as an adult.
ReplyDeleteAfter i read this article it reminded me of my sociology class i took last semester. Describing different social classes and why we are all categorized in different social classes. The class i am put by unwillingly would be the working class. Why? Because i cant help it i was born into it. i have worked for myself and like most working class people we sometimes rely on our families with financial needs. My parents never really enforced me to continue my education. Though from my my own personal experience i wanted to become the best that i could because i didnt want to be struggling financially, and by those reasons, motivated me to continue my academic journey to get out of the working class.
ReplyDeleteAs I was reading "American Families", I noticed that I had similar traits with each of the families listed in the chapter. My family is strange because I live with my grandparents, but I still visit my my Mom, Dad and siblings on occasion. In the household I live in, there is no dominant figure that has the absolute say so to whatever goes on. We all have equal power and after reading "American Families" I'am so grateful to have such a luxury. My family bases a lot of support on getting a good education so that we have a steady career and won't have to worry about money. We support eachother fully and do whatever we can to help one another given the situation.
ReplyDeleteI find myself identifying with the working-class such that my family has been constantly living paycheck to paycheck since as far as I can remember. We've never really owned a house of our own. Judging by the struggle my parents are currently going through, it is safe to say I am categorized in the working-class. There was never really a lot of money that can simply be frittered away like the other higher ranking social classes. My parents have always encouraged me to stay in school and to excel in whatever career I want to pursue. Being an independent individual is looked highly upon in my family but in times of financial need, I know I can always count on my immediate family as well as my extended family.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading "Changing American Families", i noticed that i relate most to the middle and working class families. My family has always believed in and taught us that education is important. They have supported me through school and encourage me to continue my education. I always learned that individualisn is a good thing and we were taught to be our own person. I also learned to marry for love. My mom always told me she would support my decisions as long as i was happy. My family is very understanding of each other and we are always there for each other.
ReplyDeleteSome of the traits that I identified with while reading "Changing American Families" were that my family has "adopted" friends into our family. We are closer to friends than to our blood relatives, and at times rely on our close friends to help us through hard times instead of our family. In my family, all of the children have been baptized and now have godparents who will assume responsibility of them in case anything where to happen to our parents. My family also places a high importance on education, and see this as a way to be successful. A last trait my family resembled is the investment of resources lineally. My siblings and I can only depend on what my mom will leave for us. My mom and her brothers and sisters have never depended on each other for resources, so the sharing of such won't happen between my brothers, my cousins, and I.
ReplyDeleteReading through "Changing American Families" I believe that my family would fall in the the Middle class families category for many reason. One reason being is my parents have always gave importance to education, my sibling and me all went to private school in hope to gain higher degree of education. Another reason is neither my dad or mom are close to our extended family; they have many friendship in order to fill that need. Also the money that is earned stays within the immediate family it is not "Shared Wealth"
ReplyDeleteAfter reading "Changing American Families" I feel that my family can relate to many of the traits described in each category. Both my parents have enforced that education is important, they believe that with good education I will have greater oppurtunities for my future. Friendships are also key, although my family is extremely close with all members we still see to it that friends are family. I can also relate to some of the traits described in the immigrant families. Growing up as a child my mother, who is from a traditional mexican family, did much of housework with some help from my father. As I get older I see the same traditions being passed onto to me.
ReplyDeleteReading "Changing American Families" allowed me to spot many similarities in my own family to most of the family categories listed by Aulette. My family puts lots of emphasis on education and they believe it is the only way to succeed in this country. My parents always expected the best grades from me and have no problem with paying for college because they know it will be worth it in the end. Another trait my family shares from the reading is maintaining a supportive connection with kin. They always keep touch extended family and are very supportive of them.
ReplyDeletewell many thoughts can come to mind as one reads "American Families" and one that came to mine was that status and income has a great affect on how people interact with each other. The reason I mention this is that in my family my mom raised us to be humble people and to look passed materialistic things but society now has changed greatly and our views have also changed. My family is also strange in a way because my mother is the breadwinner in the family and the head of the household rather than my dad. So sometimes we look up to her instead of my dad when it comes to achievements. I would consider myself in the working class due to the fact that my parents taught me to work for my things and my parents as well came from a low income family which the children also had to work for their own things. Even though we come from low income backgrounds we learn to appreciate things and live happy with what we have. We all support each other in everything.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading "Changing American Families" i believe that my family most resembles the middle-class family. I think we resemble this type of family is because there have been times when my family has had to move in order for my dad to get a better job. We also depend on our friends as if they were family members. We have many friends that we refer to as our family. Overall we are a very close family and we do not depend on other family for money and resources, we depend on ourselves for such things.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading "Changing American Families" my family would fall under the middle class category. One of the four factors Aulette mentioned was, "reliance on friendship rather than kinship." A lot of the times when i find my self in diffuclt situations i go to my friends rather then my family for advice. Education has also been a huge deal in my family even though we dont consider oursleves as an upper class rich family. My parents value and stress the importance of education, considering both of them graduated and went off to college.
ReplyDeleteI can clearly see my family falling mostly under the middle-class category. My family is not reliant on our family at all, we hardly even communicate and live nowhere near one another. I can also see my family partially on the upper and working class families. My family isn't wealthy at all, but they constantly stress us on how important our education is to us. As for the working class side, my dad is a carpenter and its sometimes very hard for him to find work during this economic crisis. Overall, i know my family just wants me to succeed and live a stress free life.
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