Sociology of the Family

Center for Worker EducationSpring 2014

“Myths”

We are nostalgic for a family that never quite existed. “Nuclear” not so clear.

Marriage trends Divorce rates Definitions of childhood The role of work and the economy The family as “happiness”

What is a Family?

You’re read and responded to Coontz and you’ve each had different and valid responses, so let’s take a few minutes to develop our own working definitions.

Karen will record these and post to our course site. At the end of the course, we will revisit our “definitions.”

Sociological Frames

The family as: An economic unit (Work, labor, and finances) As a site of gender & race & class politics (Care

work & managing populations) As a site of “reproduction.” (Children & workers) As a site of socialization (The labor of parenting) As a site of “safety” or “domesticity” (contra “the

factory) As as site of “happiness” or lack thereof As a site of “personal” fulfillment & choice

As Economic Unit

Historically, the family has been a unit of economic production Family as “business” Family as site of labor Wealth Accumulation

The transmission of wealth via genealogical lines

This is true across class distinctions

Gender, Race & Class

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/timeline-domestic-workers-invisible-history-america

Care work is political work. Who cares for whom and why?

Site of Reproduction

The family is endless site of worry with regards to “reproduction.”

Does this just mean babies?

What is “social reproduction”?

Marx & Engles “The Origin of the Family”

Feminist Marxist work of 1970s Silvia Federici, Wages for Housework

Socialization

How are parents charged with the socialization of children?

How is such parenting “policed”?

“Haven in a Heartless World”

With the rise of Industrial Capitalism (What is this?) the spheres of WORK and HOME are separated.

Compare this with the family in an agricultural society?

The HOME becomes associated with a place free from the cares of the WORKPLACE… but…

“Happiness”: Morality &

Consumption

Cultural Backlash

1960’s & 1970s Feminist Study of the family 1963 Betty Friedan “The Feminist Mystique”

"The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning [that is, a longing] that women suffered in the middle of the 20th century in the United States. Each suburban [house]wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries … she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question — 'Is this all?

Personal Choice

1980s: Divorce becomes public issue.

The rise of the companionate form of marriage. (Define)

Delayed childbearing (education, social class here)