9. American family: values and gender roles in the family and society.

Americans view family as a group,whose primary purpose is to advance the happiness of individual members. The result is that the needs of each individual take priority in life of the family. So the basic American value is equality of opportunity and name and honor are less important.

The American desire for freedom from outside control clearly extends to the family. Americans do not like to have controls placed on them by other family members.

Independence and self-reliance are two more important values. Most American children live with their parents at least until they finish high school at age 17\18. Then may go away to college leaving some parents sad and lovely in their empty nest and others enjoying their release from parental responsibilities. Some children live with their parents until their marriage,but may return to Mom and Dad in case of divorce. Middle-aged or elderly people seldom live with their grown-up children. Older people don’t want to be burden to their children. If they are ill or handicapped they prefer to live at nursing houses, or at the living quarters for older people who don’t need constant nursing care but cant do shopping and cooking for themselves.

As the main value is the equality of opportunity, it also affected the relationships between husband and wife,and the institution of marriage in the USA has experienced 4 stages of development. STAGE 1 Wife as a servant to her husband. ,STAGE 2 Husband-Head, Wife-Helper. ,STAGE 3 Husband-Senior partner,Wife-Junior partner..STAGE 4 Husband-Wife Equal partners

So the evaluation of women’s role in the family and society is clearly seen from these stages. And now a wife can become even the breadwinner in the family . She may be the one going off to work while the husband is at home with the baby and the housework. But occupation of husband is usually a temporary not a lifelong career.

Like any other family , American family may face a number of problems . For example,the divorce rate slowly and steadily increases. As a result, there happens the of nuclear family and more and more singled parent family appears. Americans may have problems with their children ,they call the period of adolescence as the time of turmoil. Children are expected to be self-centred,moody and uncooperative,they want to establish their personal identities and separate from others in the family. So this problem is called” rebellious teenager”. One more problem is the “ empty nest syndrome”. It refers to the psychological impact on the parents, est. the mother when the last child leaves home. The syndrome is the combination of boredom,depression and purposelessness.

Another major turning point is likely to come when the parents’ parents become enfeebled or die. It is usually considered a difficult situation when an aged parent is living with grown children,thus ideas about independence and self-sufficiency make the situation of enforced dependency extremely uncomfortable both for the elderly and their children.