socw 647 social work and families lecture no. 3

1. SOCW 647 Social Work And Families Lecture No. 3

3. Interpersonal conflicts Interpersonal conflicts that develop within a family may signal the family’s inability to negotiate a particular life cycle passage or transition point, here the family is thought to have become “ stuck “ between stages of the life cycle and in need of reorganizing in order to better accommodate to the changing needs of its members. Contemporary middle class American society expects adolescents to behave differently from adults, young adults, economic circumstances permitting, are encouraged to develop independence and autonomy. Developmental competencies in inner-city environment may call for survivor skills that the larger society may find inappropriate. Different times, such as periods of war often require different survival skills. Newly married couples must develop a process for gaining greater closeness and interdependence, the nature of their involvement with one another inevitably changes once they have a child. Parents must remain involved with young children in a way that would be smothering for adolescents (Minuchin, Lee and Simon, 1996). Life cycle concepts generalizations should be seen within the context of particular class, culture and historical period. Young Native Americans seek to escape from poverty, find a lack of opportunity on the reservation, frequently move to urban areas, weakening ties to traditional kinship network of Native American family life and its customary stages of development ( Sue and Sue 1999 )\

4. Eco systemic work Eco systemic work with Latino families ( Falicov 1998 ) contends family therapy encounter is really an engagement between the therapist’s and the family’s cultural and personal constructions about family life. Predictable marker events, phases of families i.e. marriage, birth of a first child, children leaving home, death of grandparents, each stage precipitated by particular life events ( Zilbach 1989 ) family stage marker. These passages may occur due to change in family composition i.e. birth of twins, perhaps due to major shift in autonomy, family members start kindergarten, entering adolescence, moving away from home. External factors may also stress family, demand, new adaptations, a move to a new community, a change in career, coping with natural disaster, change in economic interest.

5. Most families will experience a normal developmental process of change Most families will experience a normal developmental process of change ( See Table 2.2 Goldenberg text ) Some families will experience destabilization as its members struggle to accommodate change. An example of this is the father and mother who develop violent disagreements about how late their teenage daughter may stay out on Saturday night and what friends she may be with), stress will be evident. One or more family members may become symptomatic (the daughter may become angry and withdrawn; the mother becomes depressed, the father feels isolated and alone, and the parent’s marriage deteriorates). The more rigid the family’s interactive system and pattern, the less likely the members will be able to negotiate differences, the more the family will struggle against and be stressed by the need to change, and the more likely symptoms will develop within the family.

6. ( Zilbach 1989 ) ( Zilbach 1989 ) notes , during each stage, family development proceeds through family task development, and family characteristics of the previous period are carried over into the next stage. If the carrying out of any particular set of tasks is incomplete, impeded, or disturbed, then development is delayed or suspended and these difficulties are carried out into the subsequent stages of family development. For example, parents may experience fears of separating from a young child and allowing that child to move out of the immediate family to day care, preschool or kindergarten. That same fear, unresolved, may later cause conflict between parents and the child in adolescence as separation again becomes a family issue when the adolescent seeks greater freedom and self-direction; still later, it may delay separation from the family as a young adult.

7. Family changes Family changes can be harmonious or they can become disruptive. A family may be confronted by unexpected catastrophic events ( serious financial reverses, a terrorist attack, death of a young child by drowning, random drive-by shooting ) Such crises disrupt the family’s normal developmental flow and inevitably produce relationship changes within the family system. ( Neugarten-1976) points out the inappropriate and unanticipated timing of a major event may be particularly traumatic precisely because it upsets the sequence and disturbs the rhythm of the expected course of life. Neugarten cites the death of a parent during one’s childhood, teenage marriage, and a first marriage postponed until late in life, or a child born to parents in midlife. Hoffman ( 1988) particularly points out to those events that affect family membership- events representing family gains ( children acquired through marriage ) or family losses ( separation of parents, death ).

8. Some families Some families will develop effective collaborative ways of coping with adversity and hardship- what Walsh (1999b) calls relational resilience, may emerge hardier from crises or persistent stresses or the demands for life cycle transitional changes. A childless couple may postpone having children for fear of the child restricting mobility, increasing responsibility, interrupting sleep, constricting their social life or they may welcome parent hood to strengthen the family and to invest in its future. The discontinuous changes brought about by remarriage may result in disequlibrium, role confusion, heightened conflict in the new family, or they may provide a second chance to form a more mature stable relationship.

9. Carter and McGoldrick ( 1980 ) Carter and McGoldrick ( 1980 ) broadened the life cycle concept to include a multidimensional , multicultural, multigenerational perspective., further expands the concept to include individual, family and sociocultural perspectives. Two wage earners families versus one wage earner, ( stay at home parent with children) and its home life needs to be factored into the consideration of family development besides high divorce rates, single parent adoptions, children born to teenagers who are unmarried, or born later in life to older women, unmarried couples, gays, lesbians and transgender people and numerous single stepfamily arrangements Have complicated the oversimplified picture of normal family development.

10. Structural position Structural position: Here the position is argued that problems develop within a family with a dysfunctional structure when the family encounters a transition point but lacks the flexibility to adapt to the changing conditions. For example a young husband and wife who have not achieved sufficient separation from their parents to be able to establish their own independent marital unit may experience considerable distress, confusion and conflict as they enter the next phase of their family life- the birth and rearing of their own children.

11. Strategists ( Jay Haley 1979 ) Strategists ( Jay Haley 1979 ) Jay Haley argues that some families may need therapeutic help ti solving problems evoked by a young adult member ready to leave home and embark on a more independent life. Haley views individual symptomatology as arising from an interruption of the family’s normal developmental process. He is likely to direct his efforts at helping the family as a whole resolve the impasse that they are experiencing as a group.

12. Barnhill and Longo 1978 ) Barnhill and Longo 1978 ) contend that families can become fixated and arrested at a certain level of development and thus fail to make the necessary transition at the appropriate time. Barnhill and Longo suggest that symptoms appearing in any family member ( for example adolescent delinquent behavior ) are evidence that the immediate family life task has not been mastered. Anxiety and distress are thought to be at their maximum at transition points as the family tries to cope, rebalance, realign and restore stability.

13. McGoldrick and Carter (2003 ) McGoldrick and Carter (2003 ) encompassing, intergenerational view of the family, impact of multiple stressors on a family’s ability to navigate transitions. There are vertical and horizontal stressors. Vertical Stressors include any biological heritage, genetic make-up, temperament and possible congenital disabilities within the family. Any racism, sexism, poverty, homophobic attitudes as well as family prejudices and patterns of relating carried over from previous generations add to these vertical stressors. Horizontal stressors describe the events experienced by the family as it moves forward through time, coping with changes and transitions of the life cycle, various predictable developmental stresses as well as the unexpected, traumatic; such as an untimely death, birth of a handicapped child, serious accident, migration, Traumatic Experiences- terrorism, war, economic depression, natural disasters, social polices.

14. Any horizontal axis Any horizontal axis stress like the revelation of a teenage girl’s pregnancy or the “coming out “of a homosexual adolescent boy can cause great disruption to a family whose vertical axis is already intensely stressed ( excessive family concerns about appearance of moral rectitude ). In general, the greater the anxiety inherited from the previous generations at any transition point, ( anxieties over being parents and raising children, passed on by a woman’s parents ) the more anxiety producing and maladaptive this point will be for that young mother expecting her first child. When horizontal ( or developmental ) stresses intersect with vertical ( or transgenerational ) stresses, there is a quantum leap in anxiety in the system. Concurrent external stresses- death, illness, financial setbacks, moving to a new and unfamiliar community- as family progresses through its life cycle adds to the stress.

15. With immigration, With immigration, there is the challenge of undocumented individuals learning to survive in a strange environment; dislocation process is filled with duress alongside hope for a better future. Family elders may lose status within a family as a result of assimilating more slowly to the language and lifestyle of the new land than do their adolescent family members. For example a parent who was an engineer in the old country or teacher in the old country may be able to find work only in lower-status jobs as a construction worker or manicurist. The reasons for migration (war, famine, political, religious persecution ) are often significant along with problems of employment, housing, language, xenophobia, and discrimination may be traumatic and affect life cycle development. Wong and Mock (1997) describe role reversals in Asian-American families where children gain quicker proficiency of English than their parents, undermining traditional cultural norms of parental authority. Falicov (1998) cross-cultural dilemmas as Latino families try to make sense of adapting to American life and raise children according to the style of the dominant culture. Mexican-American families, migration may be more than a one-time event. Illegal border crossings may be frequent due to previous unsuccessful attempts. They may be deported again and will try again for re-entry., or simply leave returning as work is available. This on-going and prolonged process includes parent-child separations, parents attempt to immigrate ahead of their children, or in other cases send their children ahead; in either case , the breaking of ties within the nuclear family may have long-term negative consequences ( Santisteban, Muir-Malcolm, Mitrani And Szapocnik, 2002 ).

16. Combrinck Graham (1988 Combrinck Graham (1988) believes that family life through time is cyclical, or more accurately proceeds in a spiral. There are certain times when family members are tightly involved with one another, i.e. when a child is born or serious illness with a family member, as centripetal periods. At other times (starting school, beginning a career) , individual moves take precedence, and centrifugal periods occur.. Combrinck Graham contends that three –generational families are likely to alternate centripetal and centrifugal states( keeping family members together and pushing them apart )

17. Brenlin ( 1988) Brenlin ( 1988) states that family development occurs as gradual oscillations ( or micortransitions ) between stages as the family makes its way to the next developmental level., it involves multiple simultaneous transitions in as various members are undergoing differing degrees of interlocking life changes. Laszloffy ( 2002 ) finds two problems with traditional family development: She states that not all families , regardless of composition and culture, develop in the same order, ignoring the infinite variations possible between families. She also argues that the life cycle approach is biased towards a single generation ( such as launching a family member ) and fails to attend to the intergenerational and interactional complexities of families( launching a and reciprocal leave staging ).

18. In middle-class families In middle-class families separation from parents is made more difficult due to longer periods of education, prolonged financial dependency, inopportune economic conditions, delayed marriages due to career demands, fear of sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS, general acceptance of later marriages and apprehension about the longevity of marriage, or fear that marriage will not work at all make a commitment to a new relationship more tenuous. White middle and upper class women especially are likely to live away from family and be on their own before marrying, putting off marriage until they complete their education and launch careers. Working class people can find themselves marrying sooner, often viewing marriage as a sign of defining themselves as adults (Rank 2000 ). They may move from a family home to a marriage without having experienced living alone and being economically self-sufficient. This can be true for some members of some religious groups i.e. Orthodox Jews, Christian Fundamentalists.

19. ( Ludtke 1997 ) ( Ludtke 1997 ) Some poorer African-American women may find little reason to delay having children due to experiencing fewer prospects for pursuing education or a subsequent career, and may sincerely doubt that their socioeconomic opportunities will ever improve. Independence to inter-dependence, what Gerson (1995 ) called coupling., whether in heterosexual marriage or cohabitation or same-sex pairing. With marriage there is a change in the two established systems and the development of a subsystem. (New couple), primary allegiance to one another, secondary allegiance to families of origin. Sometimes early marriages may represent a cultural norm for some (e.g. some Latinos ) or an effort to escape their families of origin and create the family they never had ( McGoldrick 1999 ) Or fear of intimacy and commitment may delay marriage for many men and women, for older women with careers, there maybe fear of loosing independence once married.

20. Napier ( 2000 ) Napier ( 2000 ) states that marriage involves learning to be separate and together, to allocate power, to pool financial and emotional resources, to shape a sexual life, to share intimate as well as mundane feelings, and most challenging, to raise the next generation . It also involves negotiating levels of emotional intimacy, working out power arrangements, deciding whether to have children and when, determining the degree of connection to their extended families and friends.

21. Family traditions Family traditions to retain, abandon or modify. We have two separate cultures with differing customs, values, rituals, beliefs, gender roles, prejudices, aspirations and experiences. Part of the paradigms have to be retained to that each person maintains a sense of self; the two paradigms must be reconciled in order for the couple to have a life together. New transactional patterns emerge: accommodations or tacit agreements to disagree. Connection can be fraught with hesitations: reluctance to abandon the life lived as a single person,maintaining separate bank accounts, taking separate vacations, pursuing weekend activities with friends or with separate families of origin rather than spending time together. Learning to cooperate and compromise over differences takes a long time, sometimes never achieved.

22. The arrival of children The commitment of husband and wife, or significant committed partners to become parents presents a significant transition in a family’s life, changing forever the roles of mates who are childless. Gerson ( 1995 ) husbands and wives who become parents become part of a supra-system , they take care of the younger generation, , parental siblings uncles and aunts ,nieces and nephews also move up in the system. A vertical realignment occurs for the new family and extended family. Husband and wife need to redefine and re-distribute household and child-care duties, decide possibly how they will earn a living with one breadwinner for a period of time, and determine how to resume sexual and social activities. ( Kaslow, Smith and Croft 2000 )

23. Older parents Older parents have to accommodate young children in an already established or perhaps fixed pattern of relationships, often without being able to call upon elderly grandparents for support. Hines (1999 ) observes that the birth of children harkens a young couple’s need to connect ( or reconnect ) to the extended family network, perhaps for occasional child care and almost certainly for emotional if not financial support.

24. With adolescence With adolescence, there is restructuring of the family process to allow the teenager more independence. The task can become more challenging for immigrant families, as the adolescent normal striving for self-directed behavior is accelerated through assimilation into mainstream American society. For some poorer African-American, Latino or Asian families, adolescents can be expected to fulfill adult caretaking roles for younger siblings, or to contribute financially to the home, yet to remain obedient and respectful of parents ( Preto 1999 ). In such cases, becoming independent may not have the same family value as it may have for Anglo-American middle –class groups. Rule changing, limit setting, role renegotiations are all necessary..

25. All of this can occur All of this can occur during mid-life transitions for parents, where questioning choices of careers can occur with questioning of marital partners. For some women its a the first opportunity to pursue a career without child-care responsibilities. There can also be the reality and responsibility of caring for aging parents, grandparents,necessitating role reversals between parents and now-dependent grandparents. Once again with some Latino families children can remain in the home until they are married or are in their early twenties ( Santisteban,Muir-Malcolm,Mitrani 2002)

26. Reorganizing Generational Boundaries Couples will now reassess their relationship to one another now that the children are gone. I.e. chance to travel or pursue other interests not before financially feasible. Marital strains covered over while children were raised may emerge. Some feelings of depression and loneliness may emerge. A major transitional point for a middle-aged adult will be the death of elderly parents. Donald Williamson (1991 ) older hierarchical boundaries are replaced by a greater peer relationship between generations, particularly when children reach the age of forty and older.. Elderly deal with dependency upon children, possibly relinquishing power and status, coming to terms with illness, limitations and death. Retirement and widowhood Retirement can mean more than a loss of income, it can include loss of identity, status, purpose and losing being an important part of the community, family relationships must be renegotiated. A grandparent’s death may be the young child’s first encounter with separation and loss. may be a reminder to parents of their own mortality.

27. Divorce Approximately, one million divorces occur in the United States., divorce has a powerful effect on all members of the family (Simon 1996) families can survive divorce better if there is a commitment towards co-parenting by both spouses. Divorce can be marked by stress, ambivalence, self-doubt and uncertainty.

28. Single parent led families Now in the United States, one parent households now represent one in four households with children under the age of eighteen. A divorced person ( 84 % percent women, 16 % percent men ) with child custody An unmarried mother with planned or unplanned child An older unmarried biological mother with a planned or unplanned child A single person, male or female, gay or straight, who adopts a child An unmarried woman, gay or straight, who chooses impregnation through donor Insemination. A widow or widower with children or stepchildren

29. Joint legal custody of children Joint legal custody of children is becoming more common, members of extended families, grandparents, aunts, uncles continue to play key roles ( Everett and Volgy Everett 2000 ) Half of all African-American children live with single parents ( Fine, McKerney and Chung 1992 ) and informal adoptions ( relatives of friends care for children ) have a long history. Single parent families now represent the fastest growing family type in the United States ( Cox 1996 ) Close to twenty million children under eighteen live with one parent Heatherington, Isabella and Bridges ( 1998 ), theyt also predicit that 50-60 percent of children born in the 1990’s will at some point live with single parents.

30. Divorced mothers Divorced mothers with physical custody of children deal with no only lowered economic status but also with grief, self-blame, loneliness and an inadequate support system.

31. Single fathers with children Single fathers with children will also experience financial pressures. Frequently, they extend to family members, girlfriends and ex-spouses to help with child care. (Anderson 2003 ) notes that single fathers, in contrast to single mothers, are viewed as noble for their parenting efforts.

32. The Bi-nuclear family ( Ahrons and Rodgers 1987 ) Children may reside with one parent, but both parents have equal access to them. Former marital partners have to be willing to cooperate here, have relatively equal and consistent parenting skills, and be able to work together without old animosities. Carter and McGoldrick (1999) consider divorce a disruption or “detour “or dislocation regarding the family life cycle. Thus, divorce adds another family life cycle stage, families regroup and try to deal with physical and emotional losses

33. Remarried families Single life is short lived for divorced people: the median interval for remarriage for previously divorced men is 2.3 years, for women its 2.5 years. About thirty percent of all divorced persons remarry within twelve months of getting divorced ( Ganong And Coleman 1994 ) There are eleven million remarried households in the United States, one out of three Americans today is a step-parent, stepchild, step-sibling or some member of a step-family. Different households, different rules, different responsibilities. Integration from a former household to an integrated step-family household ( Visher, Visher and Palsy 2003 )

34. Rivalries Rivalries between step-children can occur as well as between biological mother and step-mother.. Here involves disorganization, reorganization, sometimes relocation and reassigning of roles ( Berger 2000 )

35. Gay and Lesbian Families They learn to cope with living with stresses due to stigmatization within society. Prolonged unmarried status leads others to consider them erroneously as not fully functioning adults. Some families are childless, others have been formed after unsuccessful heterosexual marriages. Some parents may find comfort that their child is in a stable relationship, less likely to run the risk of indiscriminate sexual encounters. Other parents may be distressed since they can no longer ignore or perhaps deny their child’s same-sex commitment. ( Fulmer 1999) argues that young lesbians are apt to bond earlier into stable couple hood than do gay men, because their identity is expressed as part of a partnership, they may be more likely than gay men to present themselves as a couple to their families. Many couples chose adopting a child and for some lesbian couples, artificial insemination or utilizing a surrogate becomes the mode of choice for having children.

36. Still experience marginalization Still experience marginalization by the greater heterosexual society, possess limited civil and legal rights, frequently face accusations of immorality , must deal with unwelcome and unsafe environments and the threat of violent assault ( Laird 2003 ) In some states, it is unlawful for gay and lesbian couples to adopt., while other states will allow it. Adams and Benson (2005 ) if adoption occurs previously rejecting family members may more readily accept their new role ( grandparents, aunts, uncles , perhaps having children makes the adopting couple seem more like a mainstream family.

37. (2000 ) census (2000 ) census revealed over a half a million same-sex unmarried households in the United States spread across all counties. In the United States. ( US Census Bureau 2003 ). Estimates that there are one to three million gay fathers ( Silverstein And Quartironi 1996 ) and one to five million lesbian mothers who have given birth to children ( Gartrell 1996). Same sex couples who have children through donor insemination or through surrogate mothers; there may be twelve to fifteen million children residing in homes with gay parents in the United States (Goldenberg and Goldenberg 2005). Nearly a quarter of all gay and lesbian couples are raising children (Adams and Benson 2005).

38. There is the challenge There is the challenge of figuring out how to help their child fit into the mainstream with his or her peers while maintaining the parent’s sexual identity. (Carlson 1996 ). There is no evidence that gay or lesbian adults are less fit parents than their heterosexual counterparts ( Gartrell, Deck, Rodas, Peyser and Banks 2005 ). Children of same-sex relationships rejecting their parent’s lifestyle may be especially fraught with conflict. The negative impact of marginalization, social disapproval, and discrimination by the majority culture should not be underestimated and has many effects similar to those experienced by other minority groups ( Snow 2004 ).

39. Family therapists, Family therapists, particularly structuralists ( Salvador Minuchin ) and strategists ( Jay Haley, Chloe Madannes ) are especially interested in how families navigate transitional periods between stages. As Chloe Madannes says: “Family Therapy is screwball comedy in need of a plot twist.