different types of familes with small definitions
Answers
Nuclear Family
Nuclear families, also known as elementary or traditional families, consist of two parents (usually married or common law) and their children. Nuclear families may have one or more children who are biological or adopted, but the main idea is that the parents are raising their kids together in the family home.
Single Parent
Single parent families consist of one parent with one or more kids. In these cases, the parent either never married, is widowed, or divorced. A paper by Ellwood, D.T., and Jencks, C. (2004) talks about how single-parent families have been on the rise since the 1960s when divorce rates started going up (and so did births happening out of wedlock). They suggest that these changes could be due to many different factors, from changing morals in society to increasing arguments over gender roles.
Extended Family
While most people in the U.S. would identify nuclear families as being the 'traditional' family type, in different cultures extended families are much more common and have been around for hundreds of years. Extended families are families with two or more adults who are related through blood or marriage, usually along with children.
Childless Family
Childless families are families with two parents who cannot have or don't want kids. In the world of family types and dynamics, these families are often forgotten or left out (even though you can still have a family without children). In the past, growing up, getting married, and having children was the norm, but in today's world, more people are choosing to postpone having children or deciding not to have any
Stepfamily
A stepfamily is when two separate families merge into one. This can go several different ways, like two divorced parents with one or more children blending families, or one divorced parent with kids marrying someone who has never been married and has no kids.
Like single-parent families, step-families are sometimes looked down upon by people who prefer the nuclear family dynamic, but they have become more common over the years. Like all these different family types, stepfamilies also have a unique set of strengths and weaknesses that they need to deal with.
Grandparent Family
The final family type and the least common of them all is the grandparent family. A grandparent family is when one or more grandparent is raising their grandchild or grandchildren. While uncommon, according to the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, grandparent-headed families are on the rise. They shared that, "Census data indicate that in the United States approximately 2.4 million grandparents are raising 4.5 million children."
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