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Your Name Your Instructor Your Class The due date The Passing of the Nuclear Family Leave it to Beaver, Donna Reed, and Dick Van Dyke. Anyone who either watches Nick at Night or is old enough to remember the original broadcast series will remember the family structure presented in these vintage television shows. In each of these shows, certain homogeneity exists. Dad gets up in the morning and goes to work; Mom stays home, keeps the household neat and organized, and fulfills her career role of Mom. Even the early 'alternative's hows such as the Munsters and the Addams Family still followed the traditional mold of working Dad, stay-at-home Mom. The nuclear family may have been alive and well on network TV in the 1960 s, but the family as we know it has dramatically changed.
The nuclear family no longer exists. We can look back on television history and gain insight into how the American family has evolved or devolved, some will say. In Leave it to Beaver, June Cleaver rarely appeared without her heels and pearls, hair perfectly done up. This two parent, two child family set the standard for the nuclear family. As real life changed, television families changed. The Munsters shared their home with Uncle Fester and Grandmamma, a bit of extended family.
By the time the Brady Bunch came along, television was exploring the possibility of an evolving family structure: two previously married individuals married each other, bringing together 6 step-children and a housekeeper. Still, the family was basically nuclear, and quite traditional with Mrs. Brady at home watching the children. Shirley Partridge of the Partridge Family changed television, and reflected societal change that was beginning. Though she was originally referred to as divorced, the network changed her status to widowed. She was one of the first working mothers on television.
At roughly the same time the TV show Julia, starring Diahann Carroll as a young widowed black nurse raising a child alone, also premiered. Both shows reflected the changing nature of the family that was occurring in society. In the early 1960 s, My Three Sons showed a widowed father raising three sons, and in 1969 The Courtship of Eddie's Father reflected the same family structure. However, it was not until 1975 when CBS television debuted One Day at a Time that the networks tacitly acknowledged that there were divorced women raising children without a husband, and doing it successfully (Browne, 2001: 744).
All of these shows are important cultural representatives because they reflected the general perceptions that society had of the concept of family at the time the shows debuted. Rotenberg and Winchell (2006: 557) pointed out that the TV view of the family, which included a picket fence and a Norman-Rockwell perception of life, was rapidly changing. By 1998, the authors state that only 26 % of the families in America were never-divorced couples with children. The authors remind us, however, that just because a family resembles a traditional, Rockwellesque family does not mean it is happy (pg. 558). Shields, (in Rotenberg and Winchell, 2006: 558 - 563) points out that the perception of family may have changed to member of 'mainstream's octet, but in reality the concept of family has varied from time and place. She points out that diverse forms of families have always existed, and probably always will.
She points out that geography, historical time frame, class, culture, and people's perceptions all impact the current definition of family (561). Shields pointed out that her biological family qualified for the term of "family" in the nuclear perception, but that in her neighborhood, they were but one of many families. The other families would not meet the definition of nuclear family, but they were families, nonetheless. Etzioni (in Rotenberg and Winchell, 2006: 564 - 565) points out that our current style of parenting, which involves keeping children on an electronic leash and interfacing with them five or six minutes a day, would certainly not qualify as being a parent or a part of a family in prior generations. For a vivid example, compare June Cleaver's role as mother to Catherine Willow's role as mother.
Though the term "June Cleaver" has become a humorous synonym for a perfect-type mom, few people even realize that Catherine Willows of CSI: Las Vegas even has a child on the show. Like Etzioni's examples, Willows parents nearly exclusively by cell phone. In fact, now that Willows' daughter has gradually matured from a precocious child to an older teen and is able to drive, we occasionally see her in person. Sadly, Willows may be the representative for a new generation of parent. Shulman (in Rotenberg and Winchell, 2006: 569 - 575) suggests that part of the reason that marriages fail and families seem to have changed over the last generations is our constant societal pressure to be it all, have it all, do it all. As a result, we strive for perfection, and to have the perfect mate in the perfect home with the perfect children.
The reality, however, is quite different. Constant cultural pressure to 'have it all' (571) has made people leave marriages and family structures that would have seemed comfortable and adequate two generations ago. Gradually, the nuclear family has ceased to exist as divorce and the quest for something better pervades society. We return now to the earlier discussion of television, both as a reflection of society and as an agent of social change. Though television may have initially been slow to respond to changing societal demographics (failure to show divorced parents and so forth), the reality is that as more and more shows present more and more "families" that fail to stand up to the nuclear definition, the view of family presented by the media impacts the reality of family. Taken together, the impact of society on television and the impact of television on society become interactive.
As Catherine Willows makes it seem more and more acceptable to parent via cell phone and see her child for three minutes a day, we accept that this is indeed okay. The more than our role models marry and divorce and remarry, the more it seems normal. Brad and Angelina, with their houseful of children, nevertheless represent the conceptualization of family to millions of Americans. Nuclear, they are not; family, they are.
Their version of family is just as operational as June Cleaver's, and it is more exciting and less constricting. Given the choice, most of us today would not choose to live in a June and Ward Cleaver kind of family, where Dad is required to bring home the salary and Mom is required to figure out how to live on it. Instead, most of us choose to live our lives cosseted in another, more realistic, non-nuclear version of family. Works Cited Browne, Pat. The Guide to United States Popular Culture.
Madison, Wisconsin: Bowling Green University, 2001. Etzioni, Amaiti, in Rotenberg, Annete, and Winchell, Donna. Elements of Argument. Bedford: St. Martin's, 2006: 564 - 565 Rotenberg, Annete, and Winchell, Donna.
Elements of Argument. Bedford: St. Martin's, 2006. Shields, Carol, in Rotenberg, Annete, and Winchell, Donna. Elements of Argument. Bedford: St.
Martin's, 2006: 558 - 563 Shulman, Polly, in Rotenberg, Annete, and Winchell, Donna. Elements of Argument. Bedford: St. Martin's, 2006: 569 - 575
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