Family Response

As I looked through this assignment, I tried using each response as a piece of a puzzle that I would use to put together to form a universal statement about families and their role in society. Though, after many minutes of staring at the sheet and unable to draw noteworthy connections, I realized that it is difficult / impossible to generalize about families, since most families can be so different. How is it possible to claim that all suburban fathers have a minute role in family framework and that “mothers are becoming more able to take on both roles?” While in fact, in modern society, family structures are so diverse. There are many families with fathers in the traditional patriarch role, who are in charge and who support the family financially. However, there are plenty of families who have the mother as the matriarch and bread winner, while the husband does the laundry and takes care of the kids. In some families, the father is the disciplinarian and in others it is the mother. There are families who are one cohesive unit with equal say for all family members, including the children. There are also children whose parents have separated and do not know the meaning of one family unit, but rather identify and interact with two different family units. Thus, because of all the possible differences in modern families, generalizations are hard to come by.

Even though modern family dynamics are so diverse, it is the dynamics within each individual family that shape and influence the children. In most cases, the parents’ values are presented to the children as correct; however, eventually as the children get older, they will accept or reject these values. This was seen so evidently in The Sound and the Fury where Quentin rejects his father’s pessimistic views on family honor and ends up committing suicide when he can’t reconcile his views with his father’s. Perhaps this is why psychoanalysis was so popular for a while. Delving into one’s earlier childhood experiences which evolve around family interactions was and still often is believed to provide the answer for an individual’s psychological issues.

Can one ever really escape one’s family and one’s upbringing?