Sociological Perspective: When we talk about the "Normal" American family what do we mean? Who decides what the "Normal" American family is? How do images of the "Normal" American family affect those who do not live up to this ideology? What class/race usually fits the ideology of the "Normal" American family?
Analysis: The Gittins and Pyke readings discuss aspects of the "Normal" family. The Gittins reading discusses what is family and is it universal? She introduces the dominant functionalist paradigm that has been used to study families and Murdock's definition of families--common residence, economic co-operation, reproduction, and sexuality (two adults of each sex). When we think about the "normal" family from this perspective we understand that most families do not fit into this definition. Not all families share a common residence and not all individuals living in a common residence are "family." Also, reproduction for some families, is not the main goal when some couples are choosing not to have children. This is one way of looking at how not all families fit one definition of the "normal" family. Another discussion of the "Normal" family comes from Pyke's article when she discusses children from Korean and Vietnamese families. These children have clear expectations and images of what "family" is and their families do not match this image. Pyke discusses how these images are heavily influenced by the media and are not realistic however, these children of immigrants hold their parents to this unrealistic standard of what a "Normal" American family is.
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