The Nuclear Family is No Longer the Norm in Modern Britain :: Sociology

In this essay, I am going to be talking about nuclear families not being the norm anymore. A nuclear family is a family that consists of the mother, father and the child/children. A heterosexual relationship between the mother and father, which would be based on love and compassion. The mother’s role includes cooking for the family and looking after the children. The father’s role includes providing for the family and acting as a role model towards the children. The children are offspring of both the mother and the father. Years ago, nuclear families were the norm in Britain. It was required that the relationship between a couple should be armoured by marriage. Although this point isn’t really believed anymore, some people still follow it-e.g. -Christians believe that couples should get married before they have any sort of sexually relationship, or even children. If your family wasn’t nuclear, you were considered as different to the society. You would even be treated differently. Not having a nuclear family would be a single mother with children, or a single father with children (though in some cases the adult could be a widow/widower). Another way of not being a nuclear family would even be being single/not married! In those days they used the word spinster for single women. (The word is not really used today, as it can be offensive to single women, although some cultures still choose to use it.) Nowadays, nuclear families are NOT the norm AT ALL. In fact, there are so many different types of families. There are single parent families, adopted families (where the child/children has been adopted), foster families (where the child/children has been fostered), gay and lesbian families, reconstituted (otherwise known as stepfamilies) and many many more. Personally, I think that the reason why nuclear families are no longer the norm in modern Britain is because of the different ways of life people have and the different views to life that people have. For example, single people could decide to have a child and not