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ቤተ መጻሕፍቲ ባይዱ
The changes of American family: In the latter half of the twentieth century, great changes took place in America families. Men didn’t take control of family’s economy, and women didn’t need to stay home everyday. And the number of singleparent family, unmarried cohabit family and mixed family increased continuously. Meanwhile, divorce rate increased to a great extent, birth rate decreased noticeably and cohabitation rate has been increasing. Thus I think that the number of America families was declining. And the American families turn to diversity in which will not be just one type.
With implementation of the reform and opening-up policy in china,some changes have taken place.Family members come to pay attention to independent economic models ,new-fashioned life styles and advanced educational conditions .Such new cultural elements have greatly influnced chinese ancient traditions.In the meantime ,the changes have brought negative impacts:rising rate of divorce ,domestic violence and increasing number of illegitimate .
Influenced by confucianism ,Chinese family members do not always possess equal rights .
• Firstly ,the conventional wisdom holds the view of "nazhun nvbei ",and the couple should do their own duties ,supporting parents and rising children . • Secondly,in a traditional sense,parents stand for authority in the family .Children never grow up in parents' eyes .The ancient saying "yiri weishi ,zhongsheng weifu "shows traditional parental status.
Family is the cell of our society, and its development can influence and reflect the society’s present situation.
From the increase of the single family and single parent family both in China and America, we can see that with the development of society, traditional family pattern has lost its leading role, and people’s self-awareness has been enhanced. Women prefer to get rid of family’s fetter and realize their social value. No matter which sexual orientation one has, equal love rights concept is gradually accepted by most of us.
America doesn’t have such long history. Individual freedom is most American’s aim and norm. So as their family, every member should be responsible for himself or herself. In other words, when someone runs into a stone wall, his or her family and friends needn’t face the troubles together. They are more independent.
Core family and couple family take the majority of proportion also. About 40,000,000 single families About 10,000,000 single parent families
Implanted with confucian thoughts ,Chinese have always treasured family as the most important institution.Chinese stress harmony in the society,intimacy among family members and ones responsibilities.
Family Structure
Core family is about 70% Couple family and cross generation family are rising China likes the big family before. Now this tradition still exists.
Most of the Americans are immigrants. Influenced by western democratic ideology and the Renaissance, American culture show its diversity and toleration. While China has been influenced by Confucianism for a long time.
However, in American, they live longer, marry later, have fewer children, and are more likely to get divorced than ever before. Young people leave home earlier, though not necessarily to get married. More women now go out to work, and more people , especially the old live alone, which is really different from China. The nuclear family (parents and perhaps two children ) gas largely replaced the extended family where many generations live together.
No. 2 is the couple family(对偶家庭), composed by the husband and wife.
No. 3 is the cross generation family(跨代家庭), composed by grandparents and their grandchildren. No. 4 is the single family(单一家庭/独立家庭), just a single person constitute this family. No. 5 is the single parent family(单亲家庭), children and their dad or mother constitute the family. No. 6 is the expand family(扩大式家庭), this family composed by the old parents and the core family or the couple family.
This kind of family education let kids grow independently. But sometimes extreme democracy in the United Stated cause a lot of self-centered kids. What is more, American youth's make sense of economic independence earlier. It is based on this concept of early education of economy. In the United States, parents used economic means to urge progress in children’s study and stimulate competition between children.