II.

Stages in the Family Cycle

3. Childbearing
Before the Industrial Revolution (and still in preindustrial societies), production was
based on human labor, so children were essential. This meant that having children was regarded
as a wife’s duty, and unreliable birth control technology made childbearing a regular event.
Industrialization transforms children, economically speaking, from an asset to a liability.
Children today rarely reach financial independence until after the age of twenty-one and the
expense of raising them can be staggering. Not surprisingly, then, family size has dropped
steadily during this century.
4. Aging
By about age sixty, most people have completed the major task of raising children. For
the remaining years of marriage, couples commonly face an “empty nest” because, just as at the
beginning of marriage, there are no children living at home.
While the departure of children requires adjustments, the marital relationship often
becomes closer and more satisfying. Perhaps the best characterization of a healthy marriage at
this age of life is companionship. Years of living together may have diminished a couple’s sexual
passion for each other, but mutual understanding and commitment, plus a common history, are
likely deepen and enrich their relationship.
Personal contact with children usually continues, since older adults live within a short
distance of at least one of their children. People’s income peak in late middle age, as the
expenses of childbearing diminish. Thus at this stage in family life, parenting may involve
helping children make large purchases (a car or a house) and, of course, periodically babysitting
the grandchildren.
Retirement brings further change to family life. If the wife has been a homemaker, the
husband’s retirement means the two spouses will be spending much more time together.
Although the husband’s presence is often a source of pleasure to both, it may dramatically
change wives’ established routines. Some wives find the presence of retired husbands an
intrusion.
III. Alternative Family Forms
The changes in the family are perhaps even more extensive than is generally realized. For
example, the family consisting of a husband who works and a wife who stays home to care for
their dependent children is no longer the norm. it exists in the fewer than one of every ten
households in the United States.
One Parent Families.
Is a family that contains of one parent and his or her children living together
Also known as SINGLE PARENT
 The single-parent family is now emerging as the most common alternative to the nuclear
unit in modern industrialized societies. Many unmarried women are now sexually active
and most do not regularly practice birth control. Thirty years ago, unmarried mothers,
either enter a “shotgun” wedding with the father or gave their babies away for adoption.
Today, fewer women are willing to enter such marriages and those who have illegitimate
babies keep and raise them.
Most of these families are headed by women. These women are either divorced women
earn less than their former husbands and unwed mothers mostly those who have little
education and few marketable skills, which condemns them to bouncing from one
minimum-wage job no another.
Families without Children
Families with two parents who cannot have or don't want kids.
These unique families include working couples who may have pets or enjoy taking on
other people's kids (like nieces and nephew) for the day occasionally rather than having
their own. They could also be adventurous couples who don't feel like kids would be a
good fit for their lifestyle.
This type of family ended with an adoption.
Blended families
also called a “step family”
A family unit where one or both parents have children from a previous relationship, but
they have combined to form a new family.
Cohabitation
Sharing of a household by an unmarried couple.
This practice is common in college and university campuses, where perhaps one-fourth of
student cohabit at some time.
They are often involved in a romantic or sexually intimate relationship on a long-term or
permanent basis.
Gay Male and Lesbian Couples
Homosexual marriage
Also raise children
Singlehood
Choose to remain single.
Defined as the state of being unmarried.
No romantic partner.