Hareven, T.
Continuity and Change in American Family Life
--> historical evidence now shows that there never has been in American
society an era when coresidence of three generations in the same
household was the dominant pattern
--> given the high mortality rate in preindustrial societies, most
parents could not have expected to overlap with thier grandchildren
--> boarders and apprentices often lived with families constituting
an extended family but this is not the 3 generation household Americans
seem to long for from the past
--> Families continued even after the practice of masters having
apprentices reside in thier households had disappeared
--> boarding or lodging with urban familes was an important form of
exchange between generations
-- live as boarders in the households of older people whose own children
had left home.
--> increasing availability of housing since the 1920s and the rise
of values of privacy in family life have lead to the phasing out of
boarding and lodging, except among black families
--> the most important change in American family life has not been
the breakdown of a three-generational family but rather the retreat
of the familiy into its private household and the withdrawl of
nonrelatives from the family's abode
--> the number of households containing only one member has been
increasing steadily since the 1920s
-- 19th century -- single residence was almost unheard of
-- now high percentage of aging widows living by themselves
--> what has been lost over the past two centruies is not the great
extended family, but the flexibility of the family that enabled
households to expand when necessary and to take people in to live
in surrogate family settings rather than in isolation.
Kin Relations
--> myth - assumption that industialization broke up traditional
kinship ties and destroyed the organic interdependence between the
family and the community.
-- historical research has shown -- industrialization, rather than
breaking up traditional family strucutres, has lead to the
redefinition of family functions.
-- migration to industrial communities did not break up traditional
kinship ties; rather, families use these ties to facilitate their
own transitions into industrial life and to adapt to new living
conditions and life-styles
-- chain migration -- one at a time to new place- helped to maintain
family ties in both communities
-- used connections already established by other relatives to get
them hired into jobs
-- kinship networks also formed an important part of the fiber of
urban neighborhoods
-- brought both support and coherence to neighborhoods
-- kin have ceased to be the major source of social security, and
some of the functions of mutual assistance formerly found
among kin have been replaced by public programs
-- industrialization didn't bring about major changes in the structure
of the family but it did produce changes in the functions of
the family and in the values governing family life.
-- surrendered to other social institutions functions which were
previously concentrated within it
CHANGING FAMILY FUNCTIONS AND VALUES
--> during the preindustrial period the family not only reared children
but also served as a workshop, a school, a church, and a welfare agency
--> roles of parenting were congruent with social and economic roles
-- children where considered members of the work force and were seen
as economic assets.
-- childhood was treated as a brief preparatory period terminated
by apprenticeship and the commencement of work gererally
-- adolescence was virtually unknown as a distinct stage of life.
--> family life not clearly separated from work life
--> child care was part of a general effort of household production
rather than a woman's exclusive preoccupation; children were viewed
not merely as objects of nature but as productive members of the family
from an early age
-- other relatives living nearby also participated in this function
(sort of similar to blacks in that community raising children
-- sort of)
--> housework was inseparable from domestic industries or agricultural
work, and it was valued, therefore as an economic asset
--> since children constituted part of the labor force, motherhood,
too, was valued for its economic contributions and not only for its
nurturing tasks
--> under impact of industrialization, functions were transferred
to agencies and institutions outside the family
-- functions of social welfare were transferred from the family to
asylums and reformatories
-- today the vital functions of the family include childbearing, child
rearing and socialization
--> separating work from family - involved a more rigourous separation
of husbands from wives and fathers from children in the course of
the workday
-- men to work outside home, women at home, children at school (in
working-class families women also working outside the home and
often on different shifts than the men)
--> under the impact of industrialization, in middle-class families
housework lost its economic and productive value
-- since it was not paid for, and since it no longer lead to the
production of visible goods, it lost its place in the occupational
hierarchy
--> it is now becoming clear that preindustrial family patterns
persisted over longer time perieods in rural and in urban working-class
families
--> in working class families, even though the process of
industrialization offered women opportunities for independent work
outside their homes, women continued to function as an integral part
of the family's productive effort.
-- even when they worked in factories, single working women were bound
by family obligations and contributed most of their earnings
to their parents
-- a woman's work was considered part of the family's economic effort,
not an independent career
THE ROLE OF WOMEN
--> among middle-class families, on the other hand, industrialization
had a more dramatic impact on gender roles:
-- the separation between the home and the workplace that followed
in the wake of industrialization lead to the glorification of
the home as a domestic retreat from the outside world
-- with this came the recognition of childhood as a distinct stage
of life
-- urban middle-class families developed into private, domestic,
and child-centered retreats from the world of work and politics
-- home as a therapeutic refuge from the outside world
-- revise expectations of parenthood
-- clear division of labor replaced the old economic ooperation, and
the wife's efforts concentrated on homemaking and child rearing
-- with men leaving the home to work elsewhere, time invested in
fatherhood was concentrated primarily on leisure hours
--> the cult of domesticity that emerged in the 19th century as a
major part of the ideology of family life in America has dominated
perceptions of women's roles until very recently and has shaped
prevailing assumptions governing family life
--Consequences:
--> the insistence that confinement of women's main activities to
the domestic sphere
--> the misguided assumpation that mothers' work in the labor market
would be harmful to the family and to society
--
although the ideology of domesticity originated in urban
middle-class families, it was gradually adopted as the dominat
model for family life in the entire society.
-- survival was the bottom line in families in earlier time periods
-- from this perspective marriage and parenthood were not merely love
relationships but partnerships governed by family economic
and social needs.
-- in this respect, the experience of working-class families in the
19th century and of ethnic families in the more recent past
was drastically diferent from that of midddle-class
families, in which sentimentality emerged as the dominant
base of family relationships
--> over the past several decades American families have been
experiencing an increasing emphasis on individual priorities and
preferences over collective family needs.
-- This individualization of family relations has also led to an
exaggerated emphasis on emotional nurture, intimacy, and privacy
as the mjor base of family relations.
-- It has contributed considerably to the liberation of individuals,
but it has also eroded the reslilience of the family and its
ability to withstand crisis
-- it has contributed to a greateer separation among family members
and expecially to the isolation of older people
Reading 3
Gordon, L.
The Politics and History of Family Violence
--> the ebb-and-flow pattern of concern about family violence over
the last century suggests that its incidence has not changed as much
as its visibility
--> Central argument: family violence has been historically and
politically constructed
-- the very definition of what consstitutes unacceptable domestic
violence, and appropriate responses to it, developed and then
varied according to political moods and the force of certain
political movements
-- violence among family members arises from family conflicts which
are not only historically influenced but political in themselves,
in the sense of that word as having to do with power relations.
Family violence ususally arises out of ppwer struggles in which
individuals are contesting real resources and benefits.
--> Another major argument: family violence cannot be understood
outside the context of the overall politics of the family
-- for at least 150 years there have been periods of fear that "the
family" was in decline; and these fears have tended to escalate
in periods of social stress
--> concern with family violence usually grew when feminism was strong
and ebbed when feminism was weak
--> political attitudes have determined the very meanings of family
violence
-- its definitions have changed substantially since it first appeared
as a social problem. Most of the discussion of family violence
today assumes that what makes it problematic and requires social
action is self-evident. Yet what was considered apanking a
centruy ago might be considered abusive today, and the standards
for what constitutes child neglect have changed greatly.
TYPES OF FAMILY VIOLENCE
--> cruelty to children / child abuse
--> child neglect
--> sexual abuse
--> wife-beating
--> main premise: that family violence is a problem inseparable from
the family norms of a whole society or from th overall political
conflicts in that society.
--> it is a changing historical and cultural issue, not a biological
or sociobiological universal
--> in periods without much feminist influence family violence
problems are redefined in ways less threatening to myth of the harmony
of the normative family.
Skolnick, Arlene.
The Life Course Revolution
--> Dying before reaching old age has become a rare event; about 3/4
of all people die after their 65th birthday
-- in 1850 only 2% lived past 65
-- for us today, dying is placed in old age and symbolizes the close
of a long life
-- in the past -- "in the midst of life we are in death"
--> simple changes in mortality have ahd profound effects on family
life:
-- encouraged stronger emotional bonds between parents and children
-- lengthened the duration of marriage and parent-child relationships
-- made grandparenthood an expectable stage of the life course, and
increased the number of grandparents whom children actually know
-- first era when most of the parent-child relationship takes place
after the child becomes an adult
-- family disruption was commonplace
--> current discussions of divorce rarely take into account the almost
constant family disruption children experienced in "the
good old days."
-- in 1900, 1 out of 4 children under the age of 15 lost a parent;
1 out of 62 lost both
-- in 1976 -- 1 out of 20 and 1 out of 1,800, respectively
--> in statistical terms, it looks like divorce has restroed a level
of instability to marriage that had existed earlier due
to the high mortality rate.
-- death of a child is no longer a sad but nomral hazard of parenthood
-- now it is a devastating , life-shattering loss from which
a parent may never fully recover
-- declining fertility rates -- don't need to have as many kids to
compensate for their early deaths
-- combination of longer lives and fewer, more closely spaced children
created a stsill-lengthening empty-nest stage in the
family.
-- this in turn has encouraged a compassionate style of marriage since
husband and wife can expect to live together for many years
after their children have moved out
-- a couple today is more likely to celebrate a 40th wedding anniversary
than were couples around the turn of the century
THE NEW STAGES OF LIFE
1. The Favorite Age
--> childhood was discovered or invented in the 17th and 19th
centuries, with the emergence of the private, domestic,
companionate family and formal schooling
--> childhood as we know it today is a relatively recent cultural
invention
-- our ideas about children, child-rearing practices, and the
conditions of children's lives are dramatically different
from those of earlier centuries. (so goes it for
adolescence)
--> adolescence arose with the industrial revolution and the founding
of mass education systems, particularly the large public high
school.
--> adolescence and family
-- along with the increasing array of options to choose from, rapid
social change was making one generation's experience
increasingly different from that of the next
-- the structure and emotional atmosphere of middle class family life
was changing also, creating a more intimate and emotionally
intense family life.
-- adolescents lived at home until they mearried, and depended more
completely, and for a longer time, on their parents than
in the past.
-- family conflict in general may have been intensified by the peculiar
combination of teeagers' increased dependence on parents
and increased autonomy in making htei own life choices
-- conceptualize adolescence as a time of storm and stress
-- the youth problem - whether the lower-class problem of delinquency,
or the identity crises and other paychological
problems of middle-class youth - has continued to
haunt American and other modern societies since this
declaration of adolescence as a time of storm and
stress
-- although sexual activity and emperiemntng with drugs and alcohol
have become common among middle-class young people, drug
use has actually declined in recent years
- disturbing as these practices are for parents and other adults,
they apparently do not interfree with normal
development for most adolescents.
- "our society has passed from a period which was ignorant of
adolescence to a period in which adolescence is the favorite
age. We now want to come to it early and linger in it as
long as possible." -- Phillipe Aries
2. The discovery of Adulthood
--> notion of mid-life crisis recapituatles the strom-and-stress
conception of adolscence
--> the choices made at 21 no longer fit at 40 or 50 - the world has
changed; parents, children, and spouses have changed; working
life has changed.
--> middle age is the first perieod in which most people today confront
death, illness, and physical decline
--> is is also an uneasy age because of the increased importance of
seuality in modern life
-- in mid-life, people confront the decline of their physical
attractiveness, if not of their sexuality
--> some argue mid-life crisis is nothing new -- we just used to call
it unhappiness
3. The New Aging
--> meaning of old age has changed - its boundries are still unclear
--> we have the "young old" or "new elders" - people who seem to be
more middle aged than old
--> and we have the "oldest old" -- people over 85 which is the fasting
growing population in the US
-- costs of old age here - chronic disease and disability
--> people living so long that they could be a grandparent and yet
they are still taking care of their parents instead of
grandchildren
Coontz, S.
The Way We Wish We Were
-- "traditional family" is an ahistorical amalgam of structures,
values, and behaviors that never coexisted in the same time and place.
-- the first family revolved emotionally around the mother-child axix,
leaving the husban-wife relationship stilted and formal
-- the second focused on an eroticized couple relationship demanding
that mothers curb emotional "over investment" in their children
THE ELUSIVE TRADITIONAL FAMILY
-- colonial families were hardly stable: High mortality rates meant
that the average length of marriage was less than a dozen years
-- 1/3 to 1/2 of all children lost at least one parent bfore the age
of 21; in the South, more than 1/2 of all children aged
thirteen or under had lost at least one parent
-- Victorian family -- (which arose in the 1830s and 40s) - a new
division of labor by age and sex emerged among the middle class.
-- women's roles were redefined in terms of domesticity rather than
production, men wer labeled "breadwinners", children were
said to need time to play, and gentle maternal guidance
supplanted the patriarchal authoritarianism of the past
-- describes only middle class families
-- for working class families domesticity was not an option (they
were working 12 hour days in factories/workshops)
-- Great Extended Family -- have never been the norm in American society
-- the highest figure for extended-family household ever recorded
in American History is 20% (contrary to popular myth that
the industrial revolution destroyed this family, these all
time highs were recorded between 1850 and 1885 which was
during the most intensive period of the industrial
revolution)
-- Children -- labors
-- children made up 23.7% of the 36,415 workers in southern textile
mills around the turn of the century
-- by the end of the 19th century, reformers were advocating a
restricted, exclusive nuclear unit in which women and
children were divorced from the world of work
-- the Great Depression
-- silver lining -- social importance of kin and family ties
-- with housing starts down by more than 90%, approximately 1/6 of
urban families had to "double up" in apartments.
-- 3 generation households increased
-- recreation outside the home were cut back or confined to the kinship
network
-- one newspaper reporter said -- "Many a family that has lost its
car has found its soul."
THE COMPLEXITIES OF ASSESSING FAMILY TRENDS
-- myth - that modern American have lost touch with extended kinship
networks or have let parent-child bonds lapse.
-- but more Americans than ever before have grandparents alive, and
the ties between grandparents and grandchildren have become
stronger over past 50 years
-- studies of marital satisfaction reveal that more couples reported
their marriages to be happy in the late 1970s than did so in
their second marriages believe them to be much happier than their
first ones.
-- some are arguing that marriage is becoming less permanent but more
satisfying
-- part of the difficulty in making simple generalizations about what
is happening to marriage is that there has been a
polarization of experiences.
-- marriages are much more likely to end in divorce
-- but marriages that do last are described by their participants
as happieer than those in the past and are far more
likley to confer such happiness over many years
-- polarization going on in Fatherhood as well
-- some argue that fathers are deserting their children, while others
celebrate the new commitment of fathers to childrearing.
-- Frank Furstenberg - emerging "good dad-bad dad" complex: Many
fathers spend more time with their children than ever before
and feel more free to be affectionate with them; others,
however, feel more free simply to walk out on their families.
-- these kinds of ambiguities should make us leery of hard-and-fast
pronouncements about what's happening to the American family
-- in some cases we simply don't know what our figures actually mean
-- Prior to 1900s --
-- Civic festivals and 4th of July parades were more important
occasions for celebration and strong emotion than family
holidays, such as Thanksgiving or Christmas. Christmas
was more of a time to attend parties and dancing than for
celebrating family solidarity.
-- only in the 20th century did the family come to be the center of
festive attention and emotional intensity
-- today, such emotional investment in the family may be waning again.
-- this could be interpreted as a reestablishment of balance between
family life and other social ties
-- on the other hand, such a trend may have different reults today
than in earlier time, because in many cases the
extrafamilial institutions and customs that used to
socialize individuals and provide them with a range
of emotional alternatives to family life no longer
exist
WILD CLAIMS AND PHONY FORECASTS
-- poll after poll reveals that men and women are starved for time
-- the percentage of women sho say they would prefer to stay home
with their children if they could afford to do so rose from 33%
in 1986 to 56% in 1990
-- what these polls reveal is women's growing dissatisfaction with
the failure of employers, schools, and government to pioneer
arrangements that make it possibel to combine work and
family life
NEGOTIATING THROUGH THE EXTREMES
-- Americans report high levels of satisfaction with their own
families, but they experss a prevasive fear that other people's
familes are falling apart.
-- this doesn't mean that people are hopelessly confused
-- these feelings reflect people's gut-level understaning that hte
"crisis of the family" is more complex than is often aserted
by political demagogues or others with an ax to grind.
-- while values are important to Americans, most do not support the
sort of scapegoating that occurs when all family problems are
blamed on "bad values"
-- the problem is not to berate people for abandoning past family
values, nor to exhort them to adopt better values in the future
-- the problem is to build the institutions and social support
networks that allow people to act on their best values rather
than their worst ones.
Reading 6
Schor, Julie.
Overwork in the Household
-- for many with two jobs -- so-called working mothers -- the burden
is enormous.
- in addition to the 40-plus hours of work a week a full-time woman
employee puts in on the job, different studies estimate that
she does anywhere from 25-45 hours in the home.
-- long hours of the housewife have a variety of causes
1 - the continual upgrading of standards of performance
2 - commerical alternatives to private provision were stymied at an
early stage of development
3 - since housework was never professionalized, it has not benefited
from specialization
-- although in recent years household hours have begun to fall,
progress has been hampered by a culture and a technology of domestic
labo that is far more difficult, labor-intensive, and inefficient
than it needs to be.
-- to the question "do you work?" housewives were expected to answer
"No" but feminist movement has attempted to overcome her economic
invisibility by saying "yes" housewives work, they just don't get
paid for it.
-- In 1800, women whose work consisted largely in caring for their
families without pay were widely considered productive workers.
-- by 1900, however, they had been formally relegated to the census
category of "dependents' that included infants, young children,
the sick and the elderly.
-- the dominant discourse characterized women as "supported" by their
husbands.
-- the services produced in the American home are typically economic
services -- transportation of people, caretaking, accounting, home
and car maintenance -- valuable economic activities that could be
purchased outside the home
-- some have argued that taking care of children is not work it is
a meaningful and pleasurable part of life.
-- So it is -- but the fact that we can enjoy our labor or find it
satisfying does not mean that it is not work.
THE CONSTANCY OF HOUSEWIVE'S HOURS
-- in 1910, she was doing about 52 hours a week.
-- 50 or 60 years later, the figure wasn't much different
Defining Family
For many years sociologists used George Murdock's definition of
"family" as a benchmark.
-- defined family as "a social group characterized by a common
residence, economic cooperation and reproduction [including]
adults of both sexes, at least tow of whom maintain a socially
approved sexual relationship, and one or more children, own or
adopted, of the sexually cohabiting adults."
-- this is a very narrow definition that leaves out a lot of group
relationships that are thought of as being families today.
-- because this definition is so narrow, sociologist, feminists,
social scientists in general, and lawmakers have begun to think
about the social grouping we have in our society today that
resemble "families" but do not fit this definition.
SOCIOLOGISTS
Families are "made up of people who have lived together over an extended
period of time, or intend to do so. They are connected by legal
contract or emotional commitment or both. Finally, they may care
for one or more dependent relatives, children, handicapped, or aged
adults.
They are small groups that spend a lot of time together. There are
large differences in strength, age, and power between them. Some
family members can more easily control the other members, in a variety
of ways. After all, members depend on each other for economic and
non-economic services.
In families sexual relations are permitted and expected between
certain members but forbidden between other members.
Effective families keep their members under surveillance against all
kinds of internal and external danger.
-- older members are supposed to keep children away from drugs,
alcohol, and other forms of harm.
-- Spouses are supposed to protect one another.
-- parents are supposed to protect their children, and vice versa
-- in reality, family members often fail to do their duty; however,
the cultural expectations are clear on these matters
An essential quality families are supposed to provide is an emotional
commitment.
-- intimacy, close, satisfying relationships
-- promote children's upbringing and schooling,
-- enhance their members' material well-being and health
-- and raise members' self-esteem and mental adjustment
However, as we know, a family relationship is no guarantee of emotional
commitment.
-- Families and family members aren't always there for you when you
need them to be but we expect them to be there
-- family conflict occurs
-- family violence occurs / child abuse
** this definition seems to encompass both the Functionalist Conflict
perspectives on family
-- Functionalist focus on the functions a family provides for
individuals:
-- Conflict Perspective - focuses on the power struggles within
families
FEMINISTS CRITIQUE OF DEFINITION OF FAMILY
diversity - extensive social class, race, and ethnic variation in
family and household experiences
a. the ideology of the monolithic family has been used to sustain
racial-ethnic as well as gender oppression
Feminists have challenged beliefs that family arrangements are
biological in any direct or immutable way; instead, they argue
that families are socially and historically constructed.
Recognize and emphasize varying experiences of family life
- Feminists argue because particular families and households take
shape around structures of gender and age, women, men,
girls, and boys do not have the same experiences
- this internal differentiation of family experiences has been denied
by various conceptualizations that recur in writings
on the family:
1. some studies assume a harmony of interests among all family members
2. some studies do not consider the systematic relevance of gender
and age
3. nongendered language often masks specific gender assumptions
4. "family" is sometimes tacitly equated with "mother," neglecting
the presence of varied family members and their
relations with one another
B. Motherhood as Ideology and as Varied Experience
1. feminist argue that motherhood has been glorified as women's chief
vocation and central definition -- feminist challenge this
ideology of motherhood
a. feminist have emphasized the right of all women, whether or not
they are mothers, to engage in activities beyond
motherhood - hence, efforts to bring women into an
equal position in the labor force and to diminish their
ideological encapsulation by the family
b. feminists have demystified motherhood
1. by documenting examples of unfavorable conditions of childbirth
as it has been organized by the predominantly
male medical profession
2. by challenging the division of labor that isolates mothers as
full-time parents and separates fathers from
children
3. Recognize racial variations in motherhood -- Black Women and
Motherhood - Patricia Hill Collins
a. bloodmothers, othermothers, community othermothers
b. controlling images of mammy, matriarch, the welfare mother
4. Fatherhood
a. some fathers spending more time now caring for children than in
the past
b. however, national census data show that from 1960 to 1980 there
was an overall decline in the average number of years
men spent in households living with children
c. frequent absence of men from care of children
d. feminist call for the reconstruction of fatherhood, as well as
motherhood
C. Challenge family as a place of refuge
1. romanticized conceptions of motherhood reinforce an image of the
family as a refuge, when in fact for the vast majority of
women, the home is a place of considerable work
a. Hochschild - "second shift" - there is a "leisure gap" btw the
majority of women and men at home just as there is
a wage gap in the workplace
b. feminists have cited these patterns with a sense of injustice,
arguing that a "politics of housework," fraught with
male privilege, places an unfair burden on women and
should be changed.
c. 1970s feminists put forth a more conflictual portrayal of relations
btw wives and husbands, parents and children
1) housework as exploited labor that maintains and reinforces the
wage labor force, to benefit both capitalist and
men
2) the power of men over women is still evident in the inequitable
distribution of housework & child care, in
patterns of communication btw husbands and
wives, in the process of decision-making, and
in extreme form, in patterns of physical and
sexual abuse
DEFINING FAMILY AND THE LAW
{from Reading #38 -- Rosen -- What Is a Family? Nature, Culture, and
the Law}
-- until recently, the only family relationships given legal or jural
recognition were those based upon blood ties, marriage, or adoption.
-- but the new forms of domestic relationships, especially domestic
relationships between gay and lesbian partners, have forced courts
to decide whether traditional legal concepts of family relations
should be extended to include new relationships that otherwise have
no basis in law.
-- Rosen presents 3 cases in which New York courts had to rule on
-- First case: Braschi v. Stahl Associates Co. (1989)
the question was whether Braschi would be able to remain as a tenant
in the apartment he had shared with his domestic partner for
more than ten years. At issue was the Court's interpretation
of New York City Rent and Eviction regulations which provided
that upon the death of a tenant in a rent controlled apartment,
the landlord may not dispossess "either the surviving spouse
of the deceased tenant or some other family member of the deceased
tenant's family who has been living with the tenant." Court
specifically focused on the term family -- not spouse.
-- the Court argued that the term "family" should not be "rigidly
restricted to those people who have formalized their relationship
by obtaining, for instance, a marriage certificate or adoption
order.
-- the intended protection against sudden eviction should not rest
on genetics or legal distinctions but should find is
foundation in the reality of family life
-- in this case the Court is defining family from a cultural view
as "a group of people united by certain convictions or common
affiliation" or as a "collective body of persons who live
in one house under one head or management"
-- the Court applied family law to new family arrangements
The concepts/terms Spouse and Parents are not easily dealt with in
the court system either (especially when dealing with a lesbian or
homosexual couple)
Case where Spouse was in question
-- denied recognizing life-partner as equivalent to spouse
-- denied the surviving partner any inheritance rights in the deceased
partner's estate because their "marriage" was not legally
recognized
-- in this case, other laws (non-family) laws were applied to give
the surviving partner financial relief but without recognizing
them as a "married couple"
Case where Parent was in question
-- two lesbians parenting a child they decided to have when they were
still a couple (artificial insemination)
-- they split and the non-biological mother wanted visitation rights
-- court denied these visitation rights based on the fact that she
was not a biological parent to this child
-- here the Court totally rejected family law concepts in reference
to new family arrangements