FRHD 3040: Lecture 1

Introduction and Contexts of Parenting and Intergenerational Relationships

Defining Family:
- The word family
o Mental pictures and associations both unique to us and shared with others
- Definition of family continues to change over time
- New kinds of emotional, financial and living arrangements challenging traditional
concept of family
- Lack of research information on new families
Defining Family: Government of Canada:
- A married couple and the children, if any, of either and/or both spouses
- A couple living common-law and the children, if any, of either and/or both partners
- A lone parent of any marital status with at least one child living in the same dwelling and
that child or those children
- All members of a particular census family live in the same dwelling
- A couple may be of opposite or same sex
- Children may be children by birth, marriage, common-law union or adoption, regardless
of their age or marital status as long as they live in the dwelling and do not have their
own married spouse, common-law partner or child living in the dwelling
- Grandchildren living with their grandparent(s) but with no parents present also
constitute a census family
Defining Family: Vanier Institute of the Family:
- Any combination of two or more persons who are bound together over time by ties of
mutual consent, birth and/or adoption or placement and who, together, assume
responsibilities for variant combinations of some of the following:
a) Physical maintenance and care of group members
b) Addition of new members through procreation or adoption
c) Socialization of children
d) Social control of members
e) Production, consumption, distribution of goods and services
f) Affective nurturance – love
Family: Historical Changes:
- Marriage laws – sexist and Eurocentric
- Marriage and parenthood
o Rites of passage (adulthood, maturity respectability, authority within
community)
- Remaining single
- Increased cohabitation in 1980s & 1990s
- Where young people met their partners
- Increased in divorce
o Restrictions and concerns about gender equality
- More equitable family laws (women and children)
- Family policies
 o Gender, social class, ethnicity, jurisdiction
Diverse Family Contexts:
- Nuclear families
o Product of industrialization?
- Extended families
- Diverse caretakers (Parke, 2013)
o Cooperative parenting
o Importance of social and cognitive input
- Family authority
o Patriarchal
o Matriarchal/matrifocal
o Egalitarian
Marriage Systems:
- Polygamy
o Polygyny
o Polyandry
- Monogamy
- Arranged marriages
- Free-choice marriages
- Group marriages
Trends in Canadian Families:
- 9.8 million census families
- 66% married couples
- 24 000 married same-sex couple (33%)
- 18% common-law couples
- 51% living with children
- 16% lone-parent families (78% headed by women)
- Age of 1st marriage in 2008:
o Men: 31 years
o Women 29.6 years
- 1.58 children per women in 2014 (decreased)
- 12% stepfamilies (simple, 61% & complex, 39%) with children under 25
- 2.9% multi-generational households (3+ generation) (increased)
- 33 000 children 0-14 lived in skip-generation households (increased)
- <2 800 foster children aged 0-14 (decreased)
- 4.9% (1.7 million) Aboriginal identity
- 0.9% (73 000) of couples are same-sex couple families (increased)
- 12% of same-sex couples raising children (increased)
- 21.9% of people in Canada not born in Canada (increased)
- >22% belongs to a visible minority group (increased)
- 4.6% of all couples were mixed unions (2014) (increased)
- 1 in 5 Canadians aged 25-64 living with at least disability (women, 23% & men, 18%)
- 4 in 10 Canadians (38%) have an immediate or extended family member living with a
mental health problem
 - >27% of Canadian surveyed in 2014 said that religion is very important in their lives
Characteristics of Healthy Families:
- Commitment
- Effective communication patterns
- Spending time together
- Shared value system
- Coping with stress
- Appreciation
- Balancing of needs
Summary:
- Parenthood is socially constructed
- Family contexts impact parenting and intergenerational relationships
- Parenting and intergenerational relationships may be functional or dysfunctional
- Family process is more important than form