Families in Social Systems and as Systems (11/14)

What are the Forces Moving away from the Traditional Family?

What are the Virtues and Vices of the Traditional Family?

What Is the Dynamic of a Sick Family?

Stigma and norms (again)

Norms always constitute a positive feedback loop: What many people do becomes normal; what is normal becomes normative.

But that explanation just changes the question to why what many people did changed.

What is the effect of increasing stigma without changing the conditions of the behavior?

How do norms change?

Behavior Norms+

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The B-H family is goneNeither structural differentiation nor the capitalist labor market are going to go away.And they involved powerful forces that continue to operate. We can’t go home again

Other social trends decreasing H-B Families

1. Life Expectancy2. Sexual revolution3. Social equality (organic solidarity,

companionate marriage)4. Education

In the last 20 years, economic forces (combined with parents desire not to give their children less than they got) have probably been the main driving force.

Laws, birth rate, time, sexual permissiveness

(again)Some of these changes are driven by very deep forces, and are unlikely to change.

Others are probably symptoms rather than driving forces.

The essential policy questions are not which can be changed by direct regulation (often none of them can, at least not constructively) but which can be altered structurally.

I.e. what is a pro-family policy?

Political disagreements about family policy

Often the “liberal” view of pro-family policy involves things like wage policies that seem utterly irrelevant to those who view the problem as normative.However, in all times economic forces and changes have driven many of the changes in the family.Failing to address these forces, while privileging certain forms of family may be counter-productive.

Recent forces on women working

• Probably the effect of women’s working depends not only on the family response, but also on whether it is constrained “push” or opportunity “pull” motivated.The driving economic forces of the recent transformation:

1. Many women have to work; wages have declined.

2. The increased contribution of spouses 3. due to increased labor force participation,  has

counterbalanced declining wages.

Wages have declined

Source Mischel and Bernstein The State of Working America 1994 p.117

    Many women have to work, if their children are to have the same chances they had.  While there are personal and cultural reasons (e.g. autonomy and self-development) many women wish to work, a powerful fact over the '70's 80's and 90's is that wages have declined.   The decline of unionization and government policy to make US companies more competitive have supported this decline, but it has had repercussions for the family.

Nonsupervisory workers are the bulk of the work force; there has been some recovery since 1994, but not a lot.

Increased contribution of spouses

Source: Mischel and Bernstein, The State of Working America p.62    

Families have tried to prevent the decline in wages from producing a decline in standard of living and life chances for their children.  The main way they have done so is by an increase in the number of hours worked and an increase in the proportion of spouses working.  Thus, from 1974 to 1992, the contribution of working wives went from about 1/4 to about 1/3 of the family income.  (This is a substantial increase.  If it were to go to 50%, then in the average family, the husband and wife would work the same number of hours and make the same amount of money.)

The 2 forces counterbalanced each

other

Source: Mischel and Bernstein The State of Working America 1994 p.29  

    That is, the net effect of the decline in wages and of the increase in spouses working and hours worked is that family income has fluctuated and even increased slightly since 1973.  This is due to the fact that the contribution of spouses has increased from about 1/4 to about 1/3, and therefore it led to there being fewer man-hours or woman-hours to devote to maintining the family.

Family Systems

The Family is an institution which is systemically interconnected with the rest of society.A family is a system with its own internal self-maintaining and self-reinforcing dynamics.Looking at family pathologies at both levels is an interesting case.

e.g. John Bradshaw

Theorist of family systems

A “guru” of the self-help movement e.g.

1. The Family (1988)

2. Homecoming: Reclaiming the Inner Child (1990)

3. The Dark Side of the Inner Child (1994)

4. Family Secrets: Path to Self-Acceptance (1995)

5. The Core of Spirituality (1996)

6. The Price of Nice (1997)

The concept of co-dependency*

If one person in a family is sick (e.g. is an addict) then the roles and hence the thinking and personality of everyone in the family will be distorted.

It is often argued that the distortion is:Self-maintaining and self-reinforcingSo that children who grow up in sick

families have sick families,Even if they are not themselves addicted.

Expansion of the concept of “Addiction*”

A self-reinforcing, mood-altering, destructive experience:

1. Besides alcohol, heroin, crack etc.2. Rage and violence3. Gambling4. Many kinds of food experiences5. Many kinds of sex experiences6. Many kinds of work experiences7. Many kind of religious experiences.

Distortions from addictions

Is it possible for dad to be an alcoholic without serious effects on his performance of the role of “dad?”

Probably not. The same goes for mom or children. The same goes for Heroin, crack, gambling or any

other addiction.

Examples: unreliability, honesty, absence, violence, earnings, consistency…

Distortions from co-dependency

Is it possible for the relatives of an addict to avoid major distortion of their roles and character?

Probably not. Adaptive behavior will be adaptation to a very

distorted situation. And the socialization will be pervasive.

This will be true of a great variety of addictions.

e.g. of Distortions from co-dependency

Dad

1. Unreliable

2. Dishonest

3. Impulsive

4. Violent

5. Spendthrift

6. Inconsistent

Mom

1. Over-extended

2. Suspicious

3. Controlling

4. Timid

5. Miserly

6. Rigid

Personality traits often associated with Growing

up with addictionsFear of abandonment

Controlling

Trouble maintaining boundaries

Dissociated from feelings

Reactive

Trust problems

Compulsive/addictive traits.

The concept of “enabling”

Adaptations to a crazy situation will usually help maintain that situation. E.g.

Often, until the co-dependent can let the addict “hit bottom” the addict cannot get well.

Dad is a bum Mom gets a job+

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The concept of “dysfunctional adaptation”

Adaptations to a crazy situation will often reinforce the situation. E.g.

Often, the co-dependent may have many traits that are dysfunctional and that help generate the behavior.

Many role traits are central character traits that are capable of complementary schismogenesis.

Dad goes into violent rages

Mom walks on eggshells and avoids anger

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The concept of a “Dysfunctional family”

It is a considerable and problematic extension to suppose: that most addictions are similar In their dysfunctional family adaptations that reinforce each other.

But it is probably a useful set of working hypotheses.Note that what is functional in one circumstance may be dysfunctional in others.