New Forms of Family

Family

The author of this report is asked to answer to several questions relating to family. These answers include what the main functions of a family are including the answer to the question from a functionalist perspective. How someone's family influences his or her cultural identity shall be answered to including item such as gender, race and identity. Finally, it shall be explained how family life has changed over the last thirty years. While the forms of family have changed over the last generation or two, the core functions of the family have not changed much at all.

The main functions of a family have not entirely changed over the year but they have shifted a bit. Traditionally, the main focus of family has centered around marriage and having children. However, the definitions of marriage and what makes an "acceptable one" over the years has changed and many families are making a conscious choice to not have children. Further, some people are eschewing marriage altogether and choose to remain alone. However, even people that choose to remain alone still have feelings of family as they would still gravitate towards the family they do have including their parents, cousins, nieces, nephews and so forth. Even though family takes on many forms, the more traditional nuclear family with a married man and women with a few children is becoming less and less common and the social acceptability of this coming to pass is being more accepted by wider society. In terms of what this has to do with functionalism, this would refer to the idea that even if a family is not comprised in the more traditional form, this does not mean that the family does not function in the traditional way. For example, a father figure may be a father but it may also be an uncle or even a family friend. Another example would be two lesbian partners who parent a child with one taking on the traditional female role while the other takes on the male role (Levin, 2014).

Even with the shifts above, there has been a lot of controversy and toiling about what defines a family and what does not. For example, some may hold that the aforementioned lesbians parenting a child is not acceptable and is not a "real" family. However, functionalism would hold that it is so long as the core functions are operating and functioning nonetheless. Factors that influence these directions and perceptions are internal feelings and desires but they are also influenced by society, race, biological gender and ethnicity. Even if a person feels that they are part of a family, this does not mean that the wider society feels this is the case. However, many changes have occurred in the last thirty years including the idea that gay or lesbian couples can adopt kids or be foster parents and people much more commonly having children out of wedlock. Some decry this to be the case but it is happening a lot more nonetheless and society is not wilting as a result (Jayson, 2010).