The American Family

Belonging to a family is one bond almost everyone in the world shares, but family patterns vary from country to country. In some countries, for example, the grandparents are the family leaders. In other countries, many families live and work together as one on community farms. What are the families in the United States are?

The United States has many different types of families. Most American families are traditional ones. A traditional family is one in which both parents, also called spouses, are living and rearing their children together. There are also families headed by one parent or single-parent families. Apart from traditional and single-parent families there are also families with one stepparent. A stepmother or a stepfather is a person who joins a family by marrying a mother or a father.

Some families look even less like the typical traditional family. They may consist of a couple of one race who have adopted children of another race, or from another country. In many states single people may also adopt children or take foster children whose parents can not take care of them.

Families are very important to Americans and they show great concern about the family as an institution. But despite this fact about half of all marriages end in divorce when a wife and a husband legally end their marriage. These numbers are very high as they are in many industrialized countries. Though couples in the U.S. may still be getting divorced at fairly high rate, this doesn’t mean that they do not believe in marriage. It simply means that they are giving up being married to a particular individual. As a result most people remarry after getting a divorce. The number of divorces grew steadily in the U.S. for many years. Now, however, this number is decreasing. Unlike their parents, many single adult Americans today are waiting longer to get married. Some women and men are delaying marriage and family because they want to get education and start their career.

Families serve many functions. They provide a setting in which children can be born and reared. Families help to educate their members. Parents teach their children not only values – what they think is important but also different daily skills necessary for normal life as well as customs and traditions. Some families provide each member with a place to earn money. In the US, however, most people earn money outside home. The most important job for the family is to give emotional support and security.

It can hardly be denied that families give us sense of belonging, tradition, strength and purpose. And as one American expert, studying families says, “The things we need most deeply in our lives – love, communication, respect and good relationships – have their beginnings in the family.”

Patterns of Housing in Britain

Over half the people in Britain live in their own houses, about a third live in property rented from the local council and one eight live in privately-rented accommodation. The total number of dwellings is more than 22 million and houses are much more common than flats.

Although the number of houses built during the 1980s went down (especially in the public housing sector traditionally provided by local authorities) the number of people owning their personal homes has more than trebled in the last 35 years. Nowadays there are many tax incentives for people who want to buy houses of their own.

Buying a house is a large financial investment for many people. That is why the majority buy their homes with a mortgage loan from a building corporation or a bank. The loan is repaid in monthly instalments over a period of twenty years or more. Some people rent or buy accommodation through housing associations which provide a financial alternative to the mortgage system.

There are many different types of housing in Britain, ranging from the traditional thatched country cottages to flats in the centre of towns.

Terraced houses are usually found in inner cities. They can be anything up to 150 years old and were often built by industries to house their workers near the factories. Such houses are built in long rows where each house is attached to the ones on either side. The back of this type of house faces the back of another identical row of houses, so they are often known as “back to backs”.

Semi-detached houses have been built in large numbers since the 1930s when Britain's towns and cities expanded into suburbs. Each house is part of a pair and is joined on one side to its partner. Towns in Britain have areas which contain streets and streets of semis, often with well-kept gardens.

The detached house stands by itself, usually with a garden all around it. These houses are much more expensive than semis and are often owned by professional people. Most detached houses are to be found in affluent suburbs or in the green belt – a strip of protected open countryside around the city, where no industrial development is allowed.

Britain is famous for its country cottages which were often built on the country estates of wealthy landowners or around a village green. Such houses have low ceilings, wooden beams and sometimes a thatched roof.

In the 1960s local councils cleared a lot of slums in the inner city areas. The people were re-housed in tower blocks on the outskirts of the city or in the centre of the city. Tower blocks can vary from 3-5 storeys high up to 10-20 storeys high. Each storey contains five or six flats for families. In recent years local councils have tried to improve the areas around tower blocks by creating children's playgrounds and facilities for the community to use.