The Illusion of the Nuclear Family

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What is the "nuclear family"? Typically the term refers to a mother, father and 2.5 children household setup. The Christian Right especially would have you believe that this is the ideal environment for a child… but is it? They would have you believe that any child not raised by both a mother and father will be maladjusted, deprived, or even psychologically disturbed, and they use this excuse to decry gay marriage rights and single parents alike. On the issue of single parents it’s single women who are especially vilified, because how dare a woman raise children alone? Regardless, of course, of her situation, whether her husband may have divorced her or died or she’s raising the product of a rape which they encourage women to keep in the first place. On the front of gay marriage it’s all just a thinly veiled attempt at jutisfying their irrational abhorration of gays and the looming possibly of them obtaining equal rights that won’t effect anyone but the gay community itself.

But outside of gay parents and single mothers, the idea that the nuclear family is the only hope of raising a well-adjusted, productive member of society is an insult to the majority of households in the United States. Why? Because the nuclear family only makes up about a quarter of them. Is then anyone who was raised by gay parents, a single parent, seperated parents, their granparents, their elder sister or brother, their aunt and uncle, or even, yes, adoptive parents according to some of the proponents of the nuclear family, a maladjusted deliquent who suffered a deprived childhood? Given the numbers I’m sure some of you reading this must by now feel insulted. But never fear, for Sai is here, to tell you that the concept of the nuclear family being the only acceptable environment in which to raise a well-adjusted human being is complete and utter bullshit.

Take myself, for an example. I was raised in a nuclear family, a mother, a father, a brother, a cat and a dog (oh the cliche hurts doesn’t it?) until the age of 18. And I’m the Christian Right’s worst nightmare: A lesbian, Pagan, hedonistic, anti-Christian, outspoken, foul-mouthed, hard-liqour-drinking, beatnik, feminist Democratic Independant with slightly Marxist leanings. Of course many of you out there may see nothing wrong with any of that, but I’m certain the folks advocating my upbringing would be quite flustered to hear it.

Focus on Family, one of those modern, crafty hate groups that hides behind the word "Family" (I’ll write about that eventually) and misleading pretty talk to trick you into think they actually have a solid, rational point and aren’t just out to get everyone different from them, more or less reduces men and women to 1-dimensional stereotypes (while just barely masking their venomous contempt in their comments on gays in the opening paragraph) in order to "prove" that children "need" both a mother and father because they offer something two mothers and two fathers can’t provide. Because men and women have different child-rearing styles, apparently. Call me crazy but, wouldn’t different people in general have different child-rearing styles? Regardless of their gender? Focus on Family would have you believe that fathers give hard discipline and mothers give nuturing and that’s why you need both. Well I’ve seen plenty of hard-ass, ass-kicking mothers and sensitive touchy feely fathers so I call bullshit on that right there. 

I’ve also often heard it said that children need both a father figure and a mother figure so they can learn… well, what is expected of their gender. This idea is generally stated by the same people who believe in gender roles: very specific guidelines of how men are "supposed" to behave and how women are "supposed" to behave. While simultaneously claiming these roles and dispositions are biological and natural, they tell us that a child needs mother and father rolemodels to be examples for them to learn these roles. If these roles are truly natural dispositions, why on Earth would we have to learn them?

And you know, it’s a very modern invention that the father is called on in responsiblity in child-rearing anyway. You’ve seen the old cliches in old TV shows, and on mockeries of old TV shows on TV shows like Moral Orel, the father always behind a newspaper, never interacting with a child save for giving 2 minutes of sage advice or giving them the belt when they’re bad. In the 1950’s "family togetherness" as we know it today was probably a pretty foreign concept. Men and women were seperate. The women stayed home, cleaned and cooked, raised the kids and had tea with their girl friends. The fathers went to work, went to the bar with their guy friends, may have been around the house for breakfast and dinner, some downtime and sleep but that was about it. It was a sort of Grecian situation, where you came together for reproduction but spent most of your time and had most of your closest relationships with those of the same gender… only, you know. Without all the gay sex.

Oh who are we kidding? There was probably plenty of gay sex.

These people act like before modern times fathers never died or ran out on families, that men and women never divorced, or that children were always raised by their biological parents. When looking over the scope of history the sheer absurdity in blindly accepting this stance becomes abundantly clear.

The proponents of the nuclear family will have us believe the proof of its necessity is in children being traumatized by divorce. Well of course they’re traumatized by it, because popular society tells them it means their family is a complete failure and they’re now a freak. I propose that it’s not the absence but the perpetuation of the nuclear family that really screws kids up. 

 We all know what the nuclear family looks like: It looks like a cliché, a fond and fuzzy cliché evoked by episodes of "Leave It to Beaver" or "Ozzie and Harriet." These potent icons are faded and fictional, not to mention completely overwhelmed by general cultural consensus and demographic studies. Yet the "ideal" American family — a father and a mother, bound to each other by legal marriage, raising children bound to them by biology — is a stubborn relic, a national symbol that has yet to be retired as threadbare and somewhat unrealistic. - [source]

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Think about it: despite the nuclear family making up so little of actual households it is still heraled by Conservatives and perpetuated in the media and entertainment as the norm. Hell there was even complaints that a pregnant Midge doll didn’t have a wedding ring on her, despite the fact her husband and first child were clearly sold seperately as part of the "Happy Family" line. The thing is, with everything in society telling kids that the nuclear family is the indisputable norm, and with many groups perpetuating the idea that the nuclear family is the key to happiness then of course when a child’s family falls short of the idealistic, unrealistic, fairy tale of the nuclear family they themselves will feel like a failure.

This feeling of failure is intensified by the misguided advice that unhappily married couples should stay together for the children. Children may be naive, but they’re not blind, and if their parents want nothing to do with each other anymore they’re going to notice. So is it then better for them in a society that bombards them with imagry that all mother-father-child situations are pip pap happy as can be to have two parents who hate each other but stay together because divorce is too "traumatizing" for a child and apparently just the presense of a mother and father is all they need to be completely normal? When you think about it that way… it’s a pretty dumb concept, isn’t it?

A child-rearing setup of a married mother and father is not an automatic happiness trigger. For one, women are mostly likely to be murdered by their husbands than anyone else, what does that tell you? And the idea that just the presense of a biological mother and father in a child’s life is enough to ensure their well-adjuisted upbringing is a wholly irrisponsible one. Sure that family down the street may look pip pap happy, with the go-getter working dad, the Stepford wife, the baseball champ son and the darling daughter. But there’s no guarantee that dad isn’t coming home blind stinking drunk and beating the lot of them. There’s no guarantee that daddy isn’t just a little too close to his darling daughter. There’s no guarantee that wife isn’t cutting herself in misery or bracing herself for a beating that evening. And there’s no guarantee that the baseball champ isn’t going to get older and crash a car or knock up a cheerleader.

Hammering the idea into people’s heads that this arbitrary arrangement should lead them to instant happiness is not only messing the kids up, it’s messing everyone up. Because when they find themselves unhappy they have no idea what to do. When they think everyone else living like this is assuredly happy, they turn to thinking it’s some failing of theirs. Or their spouse. Or maybe even their children.

I firmly believe that as long as a child is not imbued with the idea that lack of a nuclear family means a failure of family they are much less likely to develop problems and pathologies. And for god’s sake, a single parent, an adoptive parent or parents, gay parents, aunt and uncles, hell even a coven or something are not automatically incompetent, inadequate, insufficent, or unqualified to raise a child. Oh but there are plenty of straight married couples who are. But who cares, right? They’re straight. They’re married. They not only have the absolute, God-approved right to have children, but they are expected to, even pressured to, and are the only ones who can raise them properly, just by being straight and married! Their personalities, their temperments, their attitudes, their ethics and their mental stability have absolutely no bearing on what kind of parents they will be, as long as they’re straight and married (and perhaps habitual church-goers) they’re perfect.

Sound like bullshit to you yet?

Last but certainly not least, there is no proof that being raised by a mother and father will make you a well-adjusted, productive citizen and being raised by anyone else will make you a maladjusted delinquent with psychological problems.

In fact, let’s take a look at some people in history who were raised by both a mother and father:
Adolf Hitler
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold - the Columbine High School shooters.
John Wayne Gacey - American serial killer.
Jeffery Dahmar - American serial killer. His parents didn’t divorce until he was 18. He dissected animals at an early age.
Jim Jones - Cult leader who perpetuated the infamous Jonestown mass suicide. Many of the followers were forced to drink poison.

Just to name a few. The above examples do a good job of showing that it doesn’t really matter if you’re raised by both a mother and father, you can turn out completely insane and muderous anyway. Many times these people turn out like this because of their parents (like Hitler or Gacey, I’d venture), other times it just seems to be a case of: If you’re going to grow up to be an insane psycho-killer, you’re going to grow up to be an insane psycho-killer.

But when it comes to brainwashing children into thinking the nuclear family is the only completely successful, normal, and acceptable family arrangement and the only normal way for a child to live, it’s not all bad out there in the media and in childrens’ entertainment. A few examples come to mind right off the top of my head, some more obvious than others:

Arnold

Lilo

Aang, Katara and Sokka

Okay I didn’t name them in order (start on the right), but you should know who they are! "Avatar: The Last Airbender" is a very popular show with both children and adults. You may think I’m stretching here but hear me out. Sure they live in a fantasy world, but the fact remains these are children who are almost entirely without parents. 12 year old Aang is from the tribe of the Air Nomads, appropriately dressed in a garb similiar to that of a Southern Shaolin monk as he was raised by monks in a temple. 14 year old Katara and her 15 year old brother Sokka are of the Water Tribe, their mother is mentioned to have been killed when they were young, their father is abroad fighting a war, the only family member at their home in the South Pole they have is their grandmother.

 

A fourth child (not pictured) who is introduced in Season 2 is a belligerent 12 year old girl named Toph who is blind and comes from a rich family in the Earth Kingdom. Secretly she’s an Earthbender (a martial artist with a mystical power over earth elements) and uses this power to "see" by vibrations, but her mother and father are very overprotective and treat her like she’s helpless. She actually runs away from home to join Aang, Katara and Sokka on their journey.

 

 

These positive depcitions of well-adjusted, sympathetic, heroic children who come from a background which defies the nuclear family are out there if you look for them, but the fact remains the nuclear family is an illusion continually perpetuated as the norm despite mounds of evidence to the contrary for the purpose of forcing a traditional ideal on society that never really existed in the first place. And all this results in is shattering the self-esteeme of children and individuals when their nuclear family, the supposed ideal, perfect, key to happiness, falls apart.

 

 

 

By the way, yes the kiddie crayon drawing looking illusrations were done by me.