Nuclear families are the most common in our society and are undeniably encouraged more than any other sort of family because the parents are married, living together bringing up their own children and there are no complications whereas single parent families and reconstituted families are frowned upon the most in our society because they have obviously divorced and have had issues with their previous families etc.
Although the Nuclear family is viewed upon as ‘the norm’ in our society, every family has disputes and arguments at some point or another and there is probably no such thing as a family where everyone gets on with each other all of the time. Therefore, sociologists question whether or not ‘The normal family’ or ‘The perfect family’ actually exists or ever will in the future. Helping children to survive It is important to look after children from a young age because they are the most immature animals born and learn most things in the early stages of their life from their parents. Although it is important to have the skills children are born with they need to be educated and influenced by adults to learn how to survive in human society, if children weren’t trained to do so from a young age they would have many problems in later life because they wouldn’t be aware of what is acceptable and what isn’t and they wouldn’t be able to cope in life or know how to interact with other human beings.
Children also need to be taught how to show their feelings and how to form emotional bonds with other people. Otherwise, they will almost certainly find it difficult to ever love anyone throughout their life. Socialisation Primary socialisation- this happens when a child is born and throughout its childhood. It is usually learnt through initiation and interaction. (this is very important because it’s the process in which children learn how to speak etc) Secondary socialisation-this is when we learn to behave in a wider society and learn what is considered to be important. Adult socialisation- how we learn to behave in the world of work and parenting
Economic Support Families in our society play their part to support each other economically so they don’t have to cope all on their own and have someone to turn to if they’re in need of help. Usually, the parents/carers go to work to provide money for the rest of the family (money for food, pocket money for children etc) but when the children reach 16 years of age they can start to learn to be more independent and get their own job. Controlling sexual activity It is extremely important to control sexual activity within the family because otherwise the offspring will be deformed because the genes between the two people will be too close to make healthy babies, knowing exactly who your family are is vital in this sense because then people wont get confused regarding who they’re related to and who they aren’t related to and therefore they wont risk producing unhealthy offspring.
Emotional needs Everyone (especially young children) need to feel loved and wanted by other people, which is why it is important for us to show other people that we care for them. People feel the most wanted and at ease with their family because they have the strongest emotional relationship with them and they also know them better than anyone else. Security and position Families give us a sense of belonging and a position in society, which is very important because therefore, we know exactly who we are and where we came from. If we didn’t know who our relations were it would be very confusing because we wouldn’t feel particularly close to anyone and we wouldn’t have any source of a background.
Conclusion We need families because we need someone to support us emotionally and financially, we need someone to teach us what is acceptable in society and what isn’t acceptable, we need to feel a sense of belonging in the world, we need someone to bring us up so we develop into mature adults and above all we need to feel loved and wanted by other people and therefore learn to love others in return.