The Nuclear Family

The nuclear family is a topic that I personally always found to be a unique issue for all families. In my family, my mom is actually the "bread winner" while my dad was usually the one that was home in time to run me to practice or wherever I needed to go. Both my parents are very hardworking, my father is a diesel mechanic (often working 60 hours a week doing hard manual labor) while my mother recently retired from her human resources position at a bank up on the Main Line outside Philly (commuting 2 hours each way 4 times a week) so it would not really be possible to say one parent works harder than the other. The important part is that both of them did everything they could do give me everything I could want, and I am not just talking about money. If your parents don't work enough, you wont have enough to get by, but if they work too much, children miss out on important developmental interaction and instillment of family values. Since my mom had such a far commute, she was not home until later during the week, and as a result, my dad and I spent a lot of time together and although he did not make as much money as my mom, the irreplaceable knowledge and interaction he gave me was something I don't think a lot of families think about. The article posted talks about disparity of income and preprogrammed roles in society, when the most important thing parents can do for their kids is to actually be parents and teach them the things they cannot learn at school or buy in a store. Viewing one parent as more productive than the other in the professional world is part of what fosters societies view of gender roles being so specific. What we learn starts at home, and many of us grow up to be like our parents, intentional or not. If a child grows up with a father who pays the bills and a mother who does not contribute to the income of the family, that child will be more likely to grow up believing the role of women in society is to remain domestic and take care of the home. Then when the child grows up and experiences life other than the way it was learned to him, he will feel as if he is not doing a good job. Now as previously stated, every family acts differently and all people learn things in different ways, but the things we learn as children are the most ingrained in our minds. Society cannot move forward and progress without changing the things closest to peoples hearts and minds. If a child grows up in a home with both parents contributing to the income equally while both parents also contribute to the home culture equally, the child will have the best chance of growing up and viewing all people equally. Another point of this article that I find interesting is when men do not know how to perform the most simple household tasks like dressing a child. Maybe this is just me speaking from my life, but who dressed you when you were a kid? How did they do it? How do you dress yourself? And at the very least todays society has access to the internet to figure it out.