Social Structure, Families and Children Reading Questions
1. How has the family changed in terms of consumption and production and why?
In today’s world the home has become a center for consumption and not production because families do not produce for needs but work for production and get compensated for it. Mother and father work outside the home to be productive because they earn money for it while the children grow up learning how to be productive and effective into adulthood. Most of these traits are learned outside the home, which means parents no longer shoulder the burden of child rearing. Socialization becomes more involved with other parties (government, social institutions) that makes family essential because of the challenges it brings to them.
In the 19th century and earlier, the family had to work for their needs include food and shelter for survival which was done at the home including medical treatment, education and child rearing which parents had to handle all on their own.
2. Describe the change in size of families. Provide 3 specific reasons for this change.
The change in size of families is due to the transformation of the social structure in modern western civilization including the emphasis of parents on their children. The socialization of family has made it much more challenging to parents thus making parents place priority on their children from birth to adulthood. This has created a shift of smaller families and less number children because of the ability to provide the attention.
Three reasons for this change is (1) the increase in value people place on their children (2) with industrialization children are no longer economic assets (3) advances in nutrition, sanitation, medical treatment and birth control allow more children to survive leaving parents the option to whether and when they can bear children.
3. List 2 disadvantages for children in smaller families and list 2 advantages for kids within smaller...