Family Violence

Violence in the family is often identified as violence between family members, particularly between spouses. Physical abuse, such as punching, kicking or other methods of physical pain, sexual violence, such as rape and other sexual forced acts, threats and intimidation involving physical or sexual abuse and emotional abuse, including injuring one’s sense of self-worth through word or behaviour. Summary of News Article
The article talks of a prominent business man, a self-described anti-violence activist Shen Tong, who was busted for beating his wife. According to Tong, the whole thing started in their dining room when they started arguing. They had both been drinking. He claims that the wife tripled and fell as she tried to walk away from the argument.

Comparison with Textbook Content

To include unmarried, cohabitating, and same-sex couples, family sociologists have created the term intimate partner violence (IPV). Women are the primary victims of intimate partner violence. IPV often starts as emotional abuse and then escalates to other forms or combinations of abuse. From the above article, we can acknowledge Shen Tong’s action as an act of domestic violence both emotional abuse and physical harm to his wife.

Theoretical Perspective of Family

The theoretical perspective of the family this article bring about is the conflict sociology. According to the theory, IPV affects women at greater rates than men because women often take the passive role in relationships and may become emotionally dependent on their partner. Perpetrators of IPV work to establish and maintain such dependence in order to hold power and control over their victims, making them feel stupid, crazy, or ugly— in some way worthless. One focus of critical sociology therefore is to highlight the political-economic context of the inequalities of power in family life. Most men would suppress their wife under exercise of their superiority of women which result into violence.

Conclusion

In conclusion, IPV has significant long-term effects on individual victims and on society. Studies have shown that IPV damage extends beyond the direct physical or emotional wounds. Extended IPV has been linked to unemployment among victims, as many have difficulty finding or holding employment. Additionally, nearly all women who report serious domestic problems exhibit symptoms of major depression. Female victims of IPV are also more likely to abuse alcohol or drugs, suffer from eating disorders, and attempt suicide.

Divorce

The sole ground for a divorce is a family breakdown. While more young people are choosing to postpone or opt out of marriage, those who enter into the union do so with the expectation that it will last. A great deal of marital problems can be related to stress, especially financial stress. This is connected to factors such as age and education level that correlate with low incomes.

Summary of News Article

The article tries to summarize some of the causes of family divorce. It attributes financial challenges and opportunities to the increasing rates of divorce. The article spells that most family breakages take place at old age at 50 years old or more. The main challenge at this age is less money for spouses after retirement.

Comparison with Textbook Content

The contents of the article comply with the classroom reading in that it outlines financial challenges as the major cause of family divorce. Similarly, most cases of divorce are observed at old age above 50 years of age. The addition of children to a marriage creates added financial and emotional stress. As people get older, they may find that their values and life goals no longer match up with those of their spouse.

Theoretical Perspective of Family

According to the functionalism theory of sociology, in each society, although the structure of the family varies, the family performs the four basic functions of sexual, reproduction, education, and economic responsibilities. This article mainly discusses the economic roles of the family. The parents are to provide for the family. As family responsibilities increases with introduction of children, income becomes less causing financial stress which provokes a divorce.

Conclusion

Divorce is thought to have a cyclical pattern. Children of divorced parents are 40 percent more likely to divorce than children of married parents. This might result from being socialized to a mindset that a broken marriage can be replaced rather than repaired. The article clearly outlines that beyond the thoughtfully normal cause of divorce, domestic violence, divorce is has majorly been attributed to financial challenges in the old age.

Childcare

One of the most stressful questions that most parents have to ask themselves is ‘who is going to take care of my child.’ Proximity to parents makes a difference in a child’s well-being. However, nowadays most children are brought up at day care centers and receive too little parental care. Below is one of news article on the challenges of working parents in providing good childcare.

Summary of News Article

A narration of how one of the working mothers, Megan Carpenter lost her 3 months year old child while she was receiving childcare services from one of the day care centers. The article talks of the short deadline of maternity leave after which Megan was supposed to report back to work. Having no alternative she had to search extensively and widely for day care school center where her child would take care of, but her search was not matched. The husband was working too and therefore could not be of much help in providing care to the child. The only chance they got for their child was a daycare school in which the child died.

Comparison with Textbook Content

The role of childcare in a family lies upon all the parent. Parents have equal responsibilities to take care of the child and bring up an upright child. Maternal care to a child is of fundamental importance in promoting the health of the child and ensuring good behavior.

Theoretical Perspective of Family

Functionalism theory on the family explains the key role of the family. In each family, there is a division of labor that consists of instrumental and expressive roles. Men tend to assume the instrumental roles in the family, which typically involve work outside of the family that provides financial support and establishes family status. Women tend to assume the expressive roles, which typically involve work inside of the family, which provides emotional support and physical care for children.

Conclusion

The best care for a child can only be from the mother of that child. Although it is a collective responsibility for both parents, the load leans more heavily on the mother. However due to the need to meet raising financial needs, mothers are working and have to look for an alternative to their babies. Infant care centers should improve their services to ensure quality childcare services and high survival rate of newborns. Even as the child grow, parents have the responsibility of nurturing a well-mannered citizen.

Homosexuality

Homosexuality can simply be defined as same-sex coupling specifically the male-male couples. Same-sex (male-male) coupling is in the increase as a result of, the change in the marriage laws, growing social acceptance of homosexuality, and subsequent increase in willingness to report it. While there is some concern from socially conservative groups, especially in the United States, regarding the well-being of children who grow up in male-male households, research reports that same-sex parents are as effective as opposite-sex parents.

Summary of News Article

The article was published in June 13, 2017 and is entitled ‘Born this way’. It outlines how the gay movement subscribe to the slogan in fighting for both political change and cultural acceptance of the gay relationships. The gay rights advocates used it to make the case for legal equality. The argument is that people are born gay, and that is not something they can choose or change and denying them rights is wrong. However, the LGBTQ community challenge this by saying that it only benefits those that feel their sexuality is fixed rather than fluid. The article also gives a scientific view on human sexuality by stating that combination of genes and early exposure to sex hormones shapes ‘gay brains’. Finally, it states that biology and culture interact to shape our sexual orientation.

Comparison with Textbook Content

According to the course book, homosexuality is as a result of interaction of both the cultural and the biological aspects of human life. Both domains are interdependent and all the culture in the world alone cannot shape human sexuality independent of any kind of body to influence our actions and reactions. Similarly, the human bony can’t work independent of the cultural aspect to shape sexuality. The book focuses on explaining homosexuality as a result of human interaction that bring about behavioral change more than biological influence.

Theoretical Perspective of Family

The symbolic interactionism theory can be suitably applied to the context of the article. Interactionist can explain homosexuality as a social behavior that arise in the society and is subject to interpretation. A family is viewed as a symbol but not an objective concrete reality. This is to stress that a gay family is possible and will still qualify to be a family. The rules and expectations that coordinate the behavior of family members are products of social processes and joint agreement, even if the agreements are tacit or implicit. Therefore according to this theory, same-sex family is meaningful and acceptable as any other family all that matters is the family roles of the members.

Conclusion

More research needs to be done and added on sociological theories to help explain how the body matters in the development of human personality and behavior. The slogan, ‘born this way’ as used by gay rights advocates is nothing inevitable about our lives based on DNA. Most aspects of human experiences are actually bio psychosocial i.e. biological, psychological and social with all these influencing each other.

Families in Later Life

Aging comes with many challenges. The loss of independence is one potential part of the process, as are diminished physical ability and age discrimination. The term senescence refers to the aging process, including biological, emotional, intellectual, social, and spiritual changes.

Summary of News Article

The most common types of challenges facing families in the old age include vision loss, dementia or health problems that amount to disability. However, the aged nowadays do not depend on the care that came from relatives but rather obtain care from retirement or nursing homes. The article outlines the role technology play in making life better for the elderly. Technology lend a helping hand to those who provide care to the aged.

Comparison with Textbook Content

One of the problems facing the elderly is ageism. Ageism is discrimination (when someone acts on a prejudice) based on age. Ageist attitudes and biases based on stereotypes reduce elderly people to inferior or limited positions. When ageism is reflected in the workplace, in healthcare, and in assisted-living facilities, the effects of discrimination can be more severe. Ageism can make older people fear losing a job, feel dismissed by a doctor, or feel a lack of power and control in their daily living situations.

The other problem facing the aged is mistreatment and abuse. Elder abuse describes when a caretaker intentionally deprives an older person of care or harms the person in his or her charge. Caregivers may be family members, relatives, friends, health professionals, or employees of senior housing or nursing care. In a 2009 study on the topic led by Dr. Ron Acierno, the team of researchers identified five major categories of elder abuse: 1) physical abuse, such as hitting or shaking, 2) sexual abuse including rape and coerced nudity, 3) psychological or emotional abuse, such as verbal harassment or humiliation, 4) neglect or failure to provide adequate care, and 5) financial abuse or exploitation (Acierno, 2010).

Theoretical Perspective of Family

Structural functionalists argue that each age performs a specific function in society. Much of the focus in this approach is on how the elderly, as a group, cope with the functional transition of roles as they move into the senior stage of life. Functionalists find that people with better resources who stay active in other roles adjust better to old age. According to continuity theory, the elderly do not drastically change their lifestyles, behaviors, or identities. They make specific choices to maintain consistency in internal personality structures and beliefs, and external structures (e.g., relationships), remaining active and involved throughout their elder years. The focus of this approach is to examine how the elderly attempt to maintain social equilibrium and stability by making future decisions on the basis of already developed social roles (Atchley, 1971).

Conclusion

In early societies, the elderly were respected and revered. Many preindustrial societies observed gerontocracy, a type of social structure wherein the power is held by a society’s oldest members. In some countries today, the elderly still have influence and power and their vast knowledge is respected. In many modern nations, however, industrialization contributed to the diminished social standing of the elderly. Today wealth, power, and prestige are also held by those in younger age brackets. Rapid advancements in technology and media have required new skillsets that older members of the workforce are less likely to have. The old therefore have to plan their retirement early enough so that they can take care of themselves on retirement.

HIV/AIDs

HIV/AIDs is an epidemic that is eating up many families in the society. A number of families have broken up and so many children have ended up being parentless. Below is an article that discusses one of the aspect of the disease.

Summary of News Article

The article presents the declining rate of HIV/AIDs deaths attributed to the success of antiretroviral drug in prolonging the life of the infected. A comparison show decline in levels of infection as less women and girls are infected compared to the number of men. The difference is associated to the early diagnosis in women and their willingness to take any prescribed medicine than men. Despite the decline in death rates, the number of new HIV/AIDs infections are increasing and this call for active campaigns against the disease.

Comparison with Textbook Content

HIV/AIDs is a concern in the society and issues to do with family. The major cause of the disease is highlighted to exposure to risky environments that are vulnerable to the infection. Morals and good behavior is believed to control the rate of infection of the disease. Parents and teachers in school while upbringing the children are charged with the role of creating awareness on the ways of avoiding the infection and the danger of the epidemic.

Theoretical Perspective of Family

Functionalists talk of the basic roles and functions of each member in the family. This theory can be applied to give the specific roles that parents need to play to protect themselves from the infection as well as their children. Parents have a role in bringing up morally upright individuals who can take care of themselves. Interactionism’s theory explains how we can view the infected in the society as we interact with them and how we can help them feel part of the society. This automatically reduce stigma and prolong the life of the infected.

Conclusion

Proper knowledge of sociological principles and theories can go a long way in helping tackle the epidemic in the society. Understanding the social needs of the infected is a way of giving moral and emotional support to even live longer. Controlled morals also is a weapon to fight HIV/AIDs infection.

Disciplining Children

.Child disciplining may come in several forms, the most common being neglect, followed by physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological maltreatment, and medical neglect. Children are among the most helpless victims as child disciplining may sometimes turn into child abuse.

Summary of News Article

The article describe the dangers associated with disciplining a child by smacking. Smacking children has been associated with a number of unintended outcomes such as health problems, lower cognitive abilities and the risk of taking physical abuse as a norm in later life. Spanking or smacking children also result ore aggressive and poorly behaved children. The article concludes that there is no any improvement in behavior that has been as a result of spanking.

Comparison with Textbook Content

There are so many other options of disciplining a child with the least option being corporal punishment. A child’s behavior and discipline is best shaped by environmental influences. Good morals and virtues can be adopted from the society as the child grows. Similarly, indiscipline can be as a result of interaction with bad people in the society.

Theoretical Perspective of Family

The best theory to describe the news article is the symbolic functionalism the Once children are produced, the family plays a vital role in training them for adult life. As the primary agent of socialization and enculturation, the family teaches young children the ways of thinking and behaving that follow social and cultural norms, values, beliefs, and attitudes. Parents teach their children manners and civility. A well-mannered child reflects a well-mannered parenting.

Conclusion

The article give a good reason for using alternative way to discipline children. Methods of disciplining that have harmful effect on the later life of a child should be strictly avoided. Parents should focus on nurturing self-disciplined children and counsel them with love.

References

https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/family-finance/articles/2017-04-20/gray-divorce-the-financial-challenges-and-opportunities

nypost.com/2017/10/04/millionare-anti-violence-activist-busted-for-beating-his-wife/

https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21725284-dispatch-battle-front-some-good-news-and-some-bad-fight-against?zid=318&ah=ac379c09c1c3fb67e0e8fd1964d5247f

https://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21724747-latest-technology-even-more-beneficial-old-young-new

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/new-study-reveals-long-term-impacts-of smacking-children/news-story/1d9cd66ef864f33feb38de4dd3e4-da41

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/01/03/506448993/child-care-scarcity-has-very-real-consequences-for-working-families

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/06/16/born-way-many-lgtb-community-its-way-mare-complex/395035001/