In the cover story of The Atlantic’s March issue, David Brooks charts the rise of the nuclear family as the idealized American household unit. He analyzes the shift over the past century from “big, interconnected, and extended families” to “smaller, detached nuclear families,” arguing that the latter has left many Americans lonelier, with fewer role models, and with a weaker support network to help them in times of need. If the Nuclear Family Has Failed, What Comes Next?
Brooks theorizes nuclear families minimize the benefits of extended families by being in somewhat of a cocoon (my words). In other words, being a close-knit family somehow causes its members to place less emphasis on other relationships. To me, that’s a false narrative. (Actually, it’s just nuts!) In my world, the extended family is a part of the nuclear family. Nuclear families become grandparents, aunts, and uncles for the next generation of nuclear families. What actually minimizes the benefits of the extended family is when only one parent contributes the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Many times, extended families split apart when the parents split apart, often accompanied by hostility.
Note: Favoring a nuclear family arrangement is not an indictment against those who can only function as a single-family. There are many reasons, including abandonment and death, for single-parent families who really must do double duty, especially if the extended family are not available to help.
Extended families can help both nuclear and other types of families. My family was not nuclear in the fact that my mother raised her six children alone. Mom was often saved with the help of our extended family. My maternal grandmother gave us money she didn’t have. Not much, but when we needed it, she helped. My Aunt Mary Jane, my father’s only sister, helped us out continually. Neither did she have much, living in a shack raised on cinder blocks with no indoor plumbing and six boys of her own. But we had to live under her roof countless times, sometimes for weeks when we had no home of our own. One of my uncles took me to my first football game. Another, who lived in Oregon, helped us out with rent one month and took me out for an ice cream soda on a night I still remember when I was eight years old. He mentored me for a few weeks when we lived in Medford after my dad got a job in the Northwest’s logging business. That only lasted seven weeks before my father stopped working from an injury, and unemployment ran out. We came back to Missouri on a train with one dollar to our name staying, once more, at my Aunt’s shack while my Mom looked for work. My father had disappeared once more.
But helping in emergencies is just one aspect of extended families. They teach values and tradition, and stories are inherited from parents to parents. The more people interested in you, and you in them, means more tales, more learning, more challenges, competition, and help. You don’t have to like them all or see them all, but you do learn from them all.
An acquaintance of mine is a retired international airline pilot who took his children on many of his travels, teaching them and learning from other societies. His name is Mark S., and he writes, “…those children that come from a strong family structure have HUGE advantages in their societal integration. From an educational, economic, marital, and even health standpoint, children from solid homes simply do better in life.”
Mark goes on to say, “Much of Asia is still strongly pro-family. All one need do is to visit, and one can see how that quality permeates their societies……We are definitely treated more favorably when we are viewed as being a full, or partial family unit by nearly everyone we encounter on that continent. Interestingly, Eastern Europe (the old Soviet Bloc) is also strong on family values.” Their time under communist rule has been a factor that has brought that value to the forefront.
Culture, heritage, pride, belonging, and caring are all comforting to a child. For many families, grandparents fill a critical need by providing regular child care that is trusted, affordable, and accessible. Cousins can be like brothers and sisters, as they are in my daughters’ families. Aunts and uncles can have unique talents and viewpoints, and they can lend an ear when necessary.
Of course, I imagine some readers say their extended family does not help, and some deflect from a happy atmosphere. It’s a terrible situation when it occurs. We can’t all have it the way we would like, and we must make due. With the shrinking birth rate, cousins, aunts, and uncles are becoming fewer and fewer, not giving us many choices in extended family relationships.
I agree that extended families are less interactive in today’s world, but I don’t fault the nuclear family. Instead of asking grandpa how to tie a square knot, a boy will look it up on a smartphone. That special recipe owned by Aunt Irma for apple pie is likely not as good as Martha Stewart’s recipe on the internet. We have forsaken human interaction for quick answers and easier access. It used to be a thrill if an uncle living in the country asked his niece or nephew to go fishing with him. Now, Tik-Tok, Minecraft, graphic video games, or Snapchat are more fun, it seems.
It’s also significant that people used to help people. Now people that need or want help rely on the government. The super-extended family was the church at one time. A little over 100 years ago, that was where one would go for help. The more socialized the government gets, the more secular people get. Churches attracted people not just for religion, but for a community with others. Churches suffer for this - as does a way of life from the past.
When family interaction is relegated to an occasional wedding, funerals, and occasionally asking for help, the joy is missing, and the ties become unwoven. It takes more forethought and purpose these days for extended families to remain close. Consider organizing family gatherings, initiating phone calls, or taking advantage of the technology that so often pulls us apart. Use Zoom or FaceTime for eye-to-eye contact if you can’t be together.
Why is an extended family an ‘Atom’ family?
Every atom contains three kinds of subatomic particles: electrons, protons, and neutrons. They are much like a family. Some are positive, some are negative, and some are in the middle. When an atom is missing a subatomic particle, it is unstable, also like many families. Unstable nuclei can be stabilized by introducing another subatomic element, in our case a wise grandmother or uncle.
Indeed, some non-nuclear families are more successful than some nuclear families. Absolute is the fact, backed up by unshakable evidence, that the success of children is much more likely in a nuclear family! And they were even more assured of succeeding when surrounded by an extended family – made up of many family nuclei that usually rotate and are attracted to each other, forming a bond, like an atom!
---
My apologies to those who didn’t study chemistry, or those that know it better. And to those who did not watch 1960's TV. :)
#powerofdadhood (search it on Facebook)
Brooks theorizes nuclear families minimize the benefits of extended families by being in somewhat of a cocoon (my words). In other words, being a close-knit family somehow causes its members to place less emphasis on other relationships. To me, that’s a false narrative. (Actually, it’s just nuts!) In my world, the extended family is a part of the nuclear family. Nuclear families become grandparents, aunts, and uncles for the next generation of nuclear families. What actually minimizes the benefits of the extended family is when only one parent contributes the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Many times, extended families split apart when the parents split apart, often accompanied by hostility.
Note: Favoring a nuclear family arrangement is not an indictment against those who can only function as a single-family. There are many reasons, including abandonment and death, for single-parent families who really must do double duty, especially if the extended family are not available to help.
Extended families can help both nuclear and other types of families. My family was not nuclear in the fact that my mother raised her six children alone. Mom was often saved with the help of our extended family. My maternal grandmother gave us money she didn’t have. Not much, but when we needed it, she helped. My Aunt Mary Jane, my father’s only sister, helped us out continually. Neither did she have much, living in a shack raised on cinder blocks with no indoor plumbing and six boys of her own. But we had to live under her roof countless times, sometimes for weeks when we had no home of our own. One of my uncles took me to my first football game. Another, who lived in Oregon, helped us out with rent one month and took me out for an ice cream soda on a night I still remember when I was eight years old. He mentored me for a few weeks when we lived in Medford after my dad got a job in the Northwest’s logging business. That only lasted seven weeks before my father stopped working from an injury, and unemployment ran out. We came back to Missouri on a train with one dollar to our name staying, once more, at my Aunt’s shack while my Mom looked for work. My father had disappeared once more.
But helping in emergencies is just one aspect of extended families. They teach values and tradition, and stories are inherited from parents to parents. The more people interested in you, and you in them, means more tales, more learning, more challenges, competition, and help. You don’t have to like them all or see them all, but you do learn from them all.
An acquaintance of mine is a retired international airline pilot who took his children on many of his travels, teaching them and learning from other societies. His name is Mark S., and he writes, “…those children that come from a strong family structure have HUGE advantages in their societal integration. From an educational, economic, marital, and even health standpoint, children from solid homes simply do better in life.”
Mark goes on to say, “Much of Asia is still strongly pro-family. All one need do is to visit, and one can see how that quality permeates their societies……We are definitely treated more favorably when we are viewed as being a full, or partial family unit by nearly everyone we encounter on that continent. Interestingly, Eastern Europe (the old Soviet Bloc) is also strong on family values.” Their time under communist rule has been a factor that has brought that value to the forefront.
Culture, heritage, pride, belonging, and caring are all comforting to a child. For many families, grandparents fill a critical need by providing regular child care that is trusted, affordable, and accessible. Cousins can be like brothers and sisters, as they are in my daughters’ families. Aunts and uncles can have unique talents and viewpoints, and they can lend an ear when necessary.
Of course, I imagine some readers say their extended family does not help, and some deflect from a happy atmosphere. It’s a terrible situation when it occurs. We can’t all have it the way we would like, and we must make due. With the shrinking birth rate, cousins, aunts, and uncles are becoming fewer and fewer, not giving us many choices in extended family relationships.
I agree that extended families are less interactive in today’s world, but I don’t fault the nuclear family. Instead of asking grandpa how to tie a square knot, a boy will look it up on a smartphone. That special recipe owned by Aunt Irma for apple pie is likely not as good as Martha Stewart’s recipe on the internet. We have forsaken human interaction for quick answers and easier access. It used to be a thrill if an uncle living in the country asked his niece or nephew to go fishing with him. Now, Tik-Tok, Minecraft, graphic video games, or Snapchat are more fun, it seems.
It’s also significant that people used to help people. Now people that need or want help rely on the government. The super-extended family was the church at one time. A little over 100 years ago, that was where one would go for help. The more socialized the government gets, the more secular people get. Churches attracted people not just for religion, but for a community with others. Churches suffer for this - as does a way of life from the past.
When family interaction is relegated to an occasional wedding, funerals, and occasionally asking for help, the joy is missing, and the ties become unwoven. It takes more forethought and purpose these days for extended families to remain close. Consider organizing family gatherings, initiating phone calls, or taking advantage of the technology that so often pulls us apart. Use Zoom or FaceTime for eye-to-eye contact if you can’t be together.
Why is an extended family an ‘Atom’ family?
Every atom contains three kinds of subatomic particles: electrons, protons, and neutrons. They are much like a family. Some are positive, some are negative, and some are in the middle. When an atom is missing a subatomic particle, it is unstable, also like many families. Unstable nuclei can be stabilized by introducing another subatomic element, in our case a wise grandmother or uncle.
Indeed, some non-nuclear families are more successful than some nuclear families. Absolute is the fact, backed up by unshakable evidence, that the success of children is much more likely in a nuclear family! And they were even more assured of succeeding when surrounded by an extended family – made up of many family nuclei that usually rotate and are attracted to each other, forming a bond, like an atom!
---
My apologies to those who didn’t study chemistry, or those that know it better. And to those who did not watch 1960's TV. :)
#powerofdadhood (search it on Facebook)
