Problems That Families Face in Canada Essay

Introduction A Family is a group of people who resides in a household, which consists of several different types of families. Most problems such as divorce, abuse, alcohol or drug related problems and child abuse usually are the main dilemmas faced by Canadian families. If these problems keeps reoccurring to families in Canada the question we will have to ask ourselves will families keep on rapidly decreasing because of these present problems faced by Canadian families? In my opinion that’s why I wanted to embrace this topic because if these problems continue in the society we actually see a great change in the family structure in Canada. Also I want to touch on how child related such as adoption, teenage pregnancy and other problems are major issue of why there is a negative in change in the family structure. Usually in cases like these in terms of family problems I would not go off my own assumption I would also obtain perspectives from the Functionalist, Conflict. Feminist and Interacti onists Types of Families We realize that a family is relationship in where live together with a commitment to form an economic unit consider the group of critical to their identity and other reasons. Certain types of families would be Kinship A social network of people based on common ancestry, marriage or adoption is the basis of family structure. (Kendall, Nygaard and Thompson 2011) The extended Family A unit compasses of relatives in addition to parents and children all of who live in the same household. (Kendall, Nygaard and Thompson 2011) The nuclear Family Then we see after the years when industrialization was that nuclear family was created This is basically a unit is composed of one or two parents and his/ her / their dependent who live apart from the relative. (Kendall, Nygaard and Thompson 2011) Single parent family A family that only has one parent running the household. Most of them in Canada being the female running the household and becoming the breadwinner. (Kendall, Nygaard and Thompson 2011) Perspective on the changing family In each social problem we realized that couldn’t lean to our understanding of why certain problems are happening in the society we must definitely include the opinion from the sociological aspects from the Interactionist, Feminist, Conflict and Functionalist. Basically from the Interactionist point of view is that communication is an important part of understanding family roles which each member play in the household. (Kendall, Nygaard and Thompson 2011) They basically analyzed how each member of the family act out their roles and react to the parts played by others so we see that the family tend to develop through interactions between each other. (Kendall, Nygaard and Thompson 2011) What the interactionists are saying that most problems in the families are cause by women becoming more individualized and society emphasizing romantic love, which is mainly as unrealistic expectations. (Kendall, Nygaard and Thompson 2011) From the feminist theory they believed that males are more dominant than female way before capitalism and ownership of properties became an economic system. (Kendall, Nygaard and Thompson 2011) In more studies of the feminist they said that men labeled themselves as the â€Å" bread winners† because they are the superiors and woman were the inferior ones. (Kendall, Nygaard and Thompson 2011) Also because of this inequality this lead to spousal abuse in terms the rates of spousal homicide has decreased but as of course female deaths higher are than males concerning this fact. (Kendall, Nygaard and Thompson 2011) Also the conflict theorists think the same as the feminist what they think is that families are basically sources of social inequality and conflict over values and access to resources. (Kendall, Nygaard and Thompson 2011) Also one of the main reasons is that conflict theorist say that women and children are basically owned by the male figure and they are almost like factory workers. (Kendall, Nygaard and Thompson 2011) From the functionalist perspective they basically stress the importance of family and maintaining stability of the society and the well being of people. They are saying that family sort bring an identity to an individual such as providing economic and psychological support, providing a social status for that member and socializing and educating children. (Kendall, Nygaard and Thompson 2011) Child related Problems Child related problems in Canada is one of ways of why probably families change in some way as you can see these related can harmful effects on kids on the society today. We see certain problems of why certain kids have a certain negative behaviors because these certain dilemmas can bring on depression and anxious behaviors, also some problems such as maybe adoption and abuse can prevent a child from healing from stress related depressions I feel these play a part in the way kids behave and they way family structure shaken up to some of these child related problems. Parental Absence in this situation that can change a family structure. In certain parts of Canada it shown mostly mothers were more present because analyst proved that 78% of the woman that were married and living with a partner but 22% of the family were taken care by women of most of the time but Canada does have some, but not too many homes, where the dad is the only parent in the house. (Serbin, Temchiff, Cooperman, S tack, Ledingham and Scwartzman 2010) I feel that most families need two parents in the home because a dad would provide financial support, security and in my case lectures and lessons and you would need a mother for TLC (tender loving care). In which the child miss any of these growing up the child might be missing certain values in life for example: if a son grew without a dad you see that sometimes the boy might grow up sort of â€Å"soft† because there was no manly figure present. Adoption is definitely one of the related problems to a child. Adoption is a legal process through which the rights and duties of parenting are transferred from a child’s biological and/or legal parents to new legal parents. (Kendall, Nygaard and Thompson 2011) It is a present problem because the hardest to do as family who adopted a child is actually breaking the news to the kid that not that kids real parents and that can be very frustrating for a young child. (Serbin, Temchiff, Cooperman, Stack, Ledingham and Scwartzman 201 0) Another big problem would also be drug/ alcohol abuse. We see that in the society that many young kids our experiencing drugs at a early age such as marijuana and mainly alcohol substances. These drugs if taken at a early can maybe affect the child either physically or mentally. Kids that basically do drugs and alcohol at a constant mainly has poor averages in school and they tend get into a lot of trouble this is where in terms the parenting comes in to play about parents teaching kids not do drugs. (Serbin, Temchiff, Cooperman, Stack, Ledingham and Scwartzman 2010) In Canada One of the huge issues are mainly teen pregnancies. Over the years teen pregnancy has grown tremendously in the ranks and most pregnancies happen to teenage girls in bigger cities such as Halifax, Quebec and Newfoundland. We see that teen pregnancy bring out two themes which is poverty and lack of employment opportunity because according to social analyst teenage mother are unskilled at parenting and mostly to drop out of school and mainly not having enough social support. . (Kendall, Nygaard and Thompson 2011) Parent related Problem In facing social problems we have to realize not only children face problems but also adults face many problems as the leaders of the household. Domestic violence basically more mothers and kids face this problem because they are mostly the victims. (Dufour, Clement , Chamberland and Dubeau 2011) Mother are mostly hurt injured, raped or assaulted by their husbands or somebody else and also the kids can be affected by this as well. (Dufour, Clement , Chamberland and Dubeau 2011) Spousal violence is a part of Domestic violence where the man brings violence towards his wife in certain cases she can end up in hospital or even dead because most of the percentages are women. Men are less likely to be victims of spousal violence. (Kendall, Nygaard and Thompson 2011) Divorce is another problem that parents may go through, Divorce is a legal process of dissolving marriage which permits the former spouse to remarry if choose to do so. (Kendall, Nygaard and Thompson 2011) The reason divorce sometimes is fro many such as religion for example: your lover is probably an atheist and you believe in God so that leads to some sort confusion and divorce can happen through status of job where the women in a dual earner home makes more than husband that can lead to some huge confusion and divorce. Final thoughts In my final thought I believe that most of these issues that change the family structure such as teen pregnancy divorce and alcohol and drug related issues is, in my opinion, mainly caused by poverty. In Canada we have a lot social classes upper, middle and lower class but in terms of poverty we have two types of poverty which is Absolute and relative poverty in where absolute poverty is when a family doesn’t have the income to provide the basic human necessities such as food water and shelter. Relative poverty is almost the middle class family who can definitely afford the basic needs but they cannot afford all menial things for their children such as education and insurance. Also from poverty children is being malnourished because they should be eating healthier because families that are not financially strong purchase unhealthier foods. Also another stress for parents because they could not get certain jobs because they lacked higher education from their earlier days they have to take low entry jobs with low benefits. I have experienced poverty as a child a growing up as adolescent when I moved into in grandmother’s neighborhood it was the worst neighborhood. My brothers and I were surrounded by drugs, poverty and bad friends also we suffered child abuse where my grandmother would just beat us sometimes just for going out side but here in Canada you can arrest your parents for disciplining but not where I was from you just took beating and move on. I felt my brothers and I experienced a lot of social problems mainly because of poverty I felt if we where better financial wise I think our lives a whole lot better. Bibliography Kendall, Diana., Vicki L. Nygaard and Edward G. Thompson 2011 . Social Problems in a Diverse Society. 3rd Canadian edition. This was our textbook for this year the writer basically explained social problems that people face in Canada Dufour, Sarah, Marie- Eve Clement, Claire Chamberland and Diane Dubeau 2011 â€Å"Child Abuse Disciplinary Context: A Typology of Family.† Journal of Family Violence The objectives of this study were to identify and validate types of violent family environments based on child abuse in a disciplinary context. The study is original in that it simultaneously takes into account the cognitive and behavioral dimensions of the parental role as it relates to the degree of family violence in a child’s life. Serbin, Lisa A., Caroline E. Temchiff, Jessica M. Cooperman, Dale M. Stack, Jane Ledingham. Alex E. Schwatzman 2010. Predicting family and other disadvantage conditions for child rearing from childhood aggression and social withdrawal: A30 year longitudinal study