Eunice / Opinion: Changing Family Structure

I agree with the writer’s view that the family as a social institution has been undergoing change. Over the years, families have come from being traditional to modern, causing the structure and functions to change.

Firstly, the responsibility of parents to educate their own children has been shifted to other sources. Also known as shifting the parental and the educational functions of the family to external agencies, modern parents do not educate their children as much as how traditional parents used to. Parents nowadays leave most of the educating responsibility to schools, expecting nurseries and kindergartens to teach their children the right moral values from young. It is part of the school’s responsibility to teach the children well, but its main responsibility is to impart knowledge to them and hence, parents still ought to focus on equipping their children with the right values. Parents are also the ones who have full control over their children; therefore it is important that they play their role in educating their children well.

This brings us to the next question: Why do modern parents shift such a heavy responsibility to outside sources? This is due to the change in the economic function of families. Members of a traditional family have different roles to play – fathers go out to work to gain income while mothers stay at home to manage the household chores and look after their children. However, in a modern family, mothers are increasingly going out to work, especially in the Western countries and developed countries. This is due to the higher standard of living, which requires higher income for a family to get by. Parents therefore leave their children under the care of domestic workers, causing a change in the economic function of families.

Thirdly, the reproductive function of the family has also changed drastically over the years. Traditional families would choose to have more children as they are manpower that can help in the primary industry. However, modern families are rather small and reproduction rates have been low because of the increased cost of raising a child. Children in Western countries and developed countries are seen as economic liabilities and therefore, couples in these areas choose not to have children. This will lead to severe problems in these countries such as an ageing population. The writer mentioned that “it is impossible to take away this reproductive function of the family as the very survival of the human race is based on regulation” and I strongly believe in this sentence.

There are also other functions that have changed in families throughout the years, such as the sexual regulation function, the productive functions, the socialization function, the ascription function and the recreational function.