Final Summary/Reaction

After getting the results back from my survey, I found it really interesting how people have so many different opinions on family and marriage. I asked the people who took my surveys to evaluate their view of family and marriage. The survey questions were meant for the people (mostly girls between the age of 16 and 17) to evaluate their own family lives; whether parents are married or divorced. It was interesting to see how the girls with the divorced parents looked at the questions I asked like, "what do you consider a truly successful family and marriage?", with a more pessimistic view than girls with parents who are married and who valued the importance of in-tact family and marriage. My survey and evaluation of my own family conveyed opinions  about family and marriage that varied based on a person's family status right now and what they believed to be important in their lives.

Revised Summary/Plan/Update

I revised my plan to asking survey questions to between 5-10 friends and myself about family life and marriage.  It was too challenging and broad to try and get answer from all family members therefore I made the questions more specific about family life getting the results of one's view on an in-tact family and marriage.  After receiving some of the surveys back I have found various answers to all the questions showing how people's views of a successful in-tact family and marriage can vary. My friends are able to evaluate their relationships with their parents and the parent to parent relationships in their families and convey it to me through the survey questions.

Strategy and Plan for Research

I am planning on giving a survey to my family and two other families; my best friend's family and my cousin's family. The survey will be general for all members of the immediate family (siblings and both parents).  Examples of questions I will ask on the survey are as follows: who is the dominant person in the family? who makes most decisions in the family? what is everyone's roles? do you feel in control of your children's  lives? do you think it is necessary to be a whole family unit rather than separated or divorced? etc. Then I will use that data from the three families and observe my own family and compare and contrast the families to see what is similar and what is different. The survey will  help me get some background information on what the families' think occurs, and then I will actually observe the daily events of a family and the relationships between parent and child. I predict that the families are going to vary in how they interact within their family. I also predict that it my observations will show it is important to have two "in-tact" parents when growing up.

Project

For my project I am going to use a naturalistic/participant observation. I want to evaluate how families interact with each other..who is the dominant person in the family? what are the children and parent relationships like? I plan to do this by evaluating my own family and my close friends family. I am going to focus on how it is important for two parents to be present and "in-tact" when raising children. Another focus point is going to be how all the members of family interact with each other to make their family work and run smoothly.

The Importance of Marriage in Today's Society

In my eyes, marriage is a gift that naturally occurs when two people fall in love and make the vows of being together for the rest of their lives in which they can build upon a community. Marriage is constantly evolving from what it was in  history to what people view marriage as now. Marriage has taken on both positive and negative connotations from society.  In  The Meanings of Marriage, the article focuses on how marriage needs to continue to be an "apt and cheerful" conversation between men and women in society today. A statement that stood out to me from this article was, "For marriage is one of the great mediators of individuality and community, revelation and reason, tradition and modernity. Marriage is at once a harbor of the self and a harbinger of the community, a symbol of divine love and a structure of reasoned consent, an enduring ancient mystery and a constantly modern invention."  I agree with this statement because I do think that marriage is something that creates a community and is something that is constantly evolving to conform to societies' beliefs and views on marriage. Marriage links the past to the future and brings people together in society. However, marriage and family life are in trouble today.  More and more children are being born into single parent environments or into families where either the mother or father is not nearly as present and involved as the other parent.  This is why it is clear that society has many different views on marriage and family life. 

Media View on Marriage and Family

There are many different portraits of family life shown in the media, specifically on television. This article The Perfect Family discusses how the media has created it's own view and ways to interpret family life on television. Watching Full House and seeing Uncle Jesse, Danny Tanner (Dad), and Uncle Joey, raising their daughters and nieces is one way to show an different view of how raising children and the ups and downs of that large task, especially with girls.  Television shows show the family dynamic and try to relate to normal families at home. Shows like Full House and George Lopez try to relate to normal families and try to show the decisions and hardships families face so people can relate. Normal families have parents that argue, siblings who do not always cooperate with each other and the family as a whole having a conflict. Shows make certain views and stereotypes of what roles certain family members have. For example, in the show I Love Lucy, Ricky (the husband) was a professional entertainer, and Lucy was a scattered, funny, stay at home wife. The couple first lived in the city and then moved to the suburbs where they would eventually start a family. It is important for people to realize that a family does argue and have times of disagreement  Therefore society should not let television shows and the media impact your view of family life.

 This is the show Full House and shows the two uncles and father, and the three daughters and nieces.












This is the show I Love Lucy and this is Lucy and her husband Ricky

The Effects of Married Parents on Children

In this article of Why Children Need Married Parents, I found some interesting results of why children are more successful when having two parents married when growing up. Children raised in an intact family environment are less prone to falling into the pressures of drugs, alcohol, and from not continuing one's education through to college. Children with intact parents are not as likely to get a divorce because of how their childhood was and what a child knows to be considered normal to them. I think that makes sense because I know a person who's parents have been divorced her whole life and marriage is not one of her key goals in life. Where as I have lived with both my parents and see marriage as a very important part of my future. Although I think that a person makes their own views and opinions on what marriage is and it's aspects, I do believe that your parent's relationships impacts your views. Living with both a mother and father at the same time gives a child the gender roles that he or she is supposed to conform to. The absence of either a mother or father in a child's daily life can effect how they are raised and what gender roles they play.