1.3. The family today

Task 1. Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow.

What exactly is a family? The traditional idea of a nuclear family, meaning two married adults who live together and take care of their children, is becoming less and less common in the industrialized world. In the United States, for example, only about one quarter of all families have this structure. In fact, there have been such far-reaching social changes over the past century that the word family is becoming hard to define.

The concept of family has to take into account such social changes as industrialization, increased geographical mobility, and women's progress toward gaining equal rights. Other considerations include increases in single-parent families, cohabitation (people living together without getting married), divorced couples who marry other people, and other increasingly accepted alternative family structures.

1. What is meant by a "traditional nuclear family"?

2. Why is the word family hard to define today?

3. What changes have affected family structure over the past century?

4. Has your own family been affected by the social changes mentioned in the passage? If so, how?

5. How would you define the word family today?

Task 2. You are going to read a text “The Family Today”. Before doing it, look at the graphs in this text (Figures 1 to 3) and read the words that explain them.

Describe the graphs. What changes in the family unit do they reflect?

Task 3. Read the text and translate it in the written form.

The family today

The traditional image of the average family in the United States shows Mom taking care of her two kids and a house in the suburbs while Dad drives off to work. In fact, such a family is relatively rare today, both in the United States and in many other countries. Meanwhile, new forms of the family unit have become increasingly common.

Figure 1. Percentage of married

women in the workforce.

Two-career families¹

Where a family does consist of husband, wife, and children, it is less and less common for the wife to stay at home. Recently in the United States, there has been a tremendous increase in the numbers of married women who work outside the home - from 32 percent in 1960 to 62 percent in 1998 (see Figure 1).

Figure 2. Percentage of

single-parent families.

The employment of married women has increased family income significantly, but research indicates that this economic gain does not necessarily bring happiness. Where husbands fully support their wives' employment by doing their share of cleaning and child care, the couples are usually happy in their marriages. Where husbands expect their wives to do all the housework as well as their jobs, there is frequently conflict.

Single-parent families

With increased divorce, there has been a huge rise in the number of children growing up in households with just one parent. From 1970 to 1998, the proportion of single-parent families in the United States more than doubled - increasing from 13 to 31 percent. A large majority (82 percent) of such families are headed by women. It has been estimated that more than half of all children born today live for some time with only their mothers before they reach age 18.

Most of these families live below or near the poverty level. Com­pared with two-parent families, female-headed families are more likely to experience unemployment, lack of social support, problems at school, and so on. These problems do not result from the absence of a father but from factors that can also affect two-parent families, for example, low income and poor living conditions.

Another factor in the rise of single-parent families is the increase in the number of never-married women having children. In 1982, 15.1 percent of never-married women between 18 and 44 had children. In 1992, the figure was 23.7 percent.

Figure 3. Percentage of never-married women

aged 18 to 44 who have children.

Stepfamilies¹

Because of the high rates of divorce and remarriage, stepfamilies have also become quite common. They number some 7.3 million and account for 16 percent of all married couples with children under age 18. Because women usually win custody (that is, care and guardian­ship) of children in divorce cases, most stepfamilies consist of moth­ers, their biological children, and stepfathers.

The happiness of stepfamilies depends largely on how well the stepfather gets along with the children. It can be difficult to be a stepfather. Stepfathers are likely to have problems with discipline. If a stepfather tells his 12-year-old stepson that he should not watch an R-rated movie, he may reply: "My dad lets me watch them. Besides, it's Mom's television set".

Conflicts are most likely with teenagers. Teenagers are trying hard to break free of adult control. They may accept parental discipline only out of love and respect, which they may not have for their stepfathers. During an argument, teenagers are likely to shout at their step­fathers: "You're not my real father!" While most fami­lies are relatively free of serious problems, conflict with stepchildren is one of the main reasons that second marriages fail at a higher rate than first marriages.

Task 4. Understanding the main idea of the whole text is an important reading skill. Re-read the introductory paragraph (par. 1) and headings of "The Family Today." Read sentences a-d below. Then choose the sentence that best states the main idea of the text.

1. In the United States, the number of traditional family units is decreasing and new forms of family units are becoming more common.

2. In the United States, traditional families do not have the problems that other types of family units do.

3. Stepfamilies are increasingly common in the United States, but are likely to have many problems.

4. Two-career families, single-parent families, and stepfamilies are the main types of family units in the United States.

Task 5. It is important to develop strategies for dealing with difficult or unfa­miliar vocabulary in the texts you read. Strategies you might use are:

• finding the definition within the text;

• looking at the context (that is, the words and sentences that come before and after the unknown word) for clues to the word's meaning;

• using knowledge of a related word.

Find these words in the text. Decide which strategies to use for each word, and write a brief definition next to each one.

Word	Definition
significantly (par.3)
conflict (par.3)
households (par.4)
poverty (par.5)
custody (par.7)
discipline (par.8)

Discuss the meanings of the words with your classmates. Compare the different strategies you used.

Task 6. Textbooks often include texts (like this one) about changes over a period of time. Some common ways to describe changes over time are shown in the tables below:

has become/became

less (and less) somewhat relatively fairly increasingly more (and more) quite

frequent unusual common

there has been a / there was a

tremendous huge significant

increase decrease rise

in

(has) increased (has) decreased has gone up (or down) / went up (or down)

greatly significantly a little by a small / large amount

(has) almost (has) more than

halved doubled tripled

1. Find examples of some of these language patterns in the text.

2. Use the language patterns to write two to three sentences about each of the graphs in the text. Do not copy sentences from the text. Compare your sentences with a partner.

The percentage of married women in the workforce almost doubled between and 1998. (Figure 1.1)

Task 7. When you read you should be doing more than simply taking in the words on the page. To understand a text well and to remember what you have read, you need to read actively – that is, constantly think and ask questions about what you are reading.

Re-read these paragraphs from the text, and read the questions in the thought bubbles. Discuss the answers to the questions with your classmates.

How common are two-career families in my country? in other countries?

What are the positive and negative effects for women? for men? for children?

Two-career families

Where a family does consist of husband, wife, and children, it is less and less common for the wife to stay at home. Recently in the United States, there has been a tremendous increase in the number of married women who work outside the home - from 32 per­cent in 1960 to 62 percent in 1998.

Do most couples share these things in my country? in other countries?

The employment of married women has increased family income significantly, but research indicates that this economic gain does not necessarily bring happiness. Where husbands fully support their wives' employment by doing their share of cleaning and child care, the couples are usually happy in their marriages. Where husbands expect their wives to do all the housework as well as their jobs, there is fre­quently conflict.

Do most couples in the U.S. share cleaning and child care?

Choose one other part of the text to re-read, for example:

• Single-parent families

• Never-married women who are having children

• Stepfamilies

Work in a pair or in a group of three and make up 3 or 4 questions about the extract you have read. Discuss the questions with your group mates.

Task 8. Paraphrase the underlined vocabulary units in the text in the written form. Make up 5 fresh-context sentences with the word combinations you like most.

Task 9. Translate into English using vocabulary from the text “The Family Today”.

Традиционный образ среднестатистической российской семьи – это папа, мама и несколько детей. Семья Вячеслава и Елены, в которой, можно сказать, никогда не было серьезных проблем, до недавнего времени соответствовала этим представлениям. Они счастливо жили в браке. Однако все начало меняться, когда Елена решила поменять работу домохозяйки на работу вне дома. Без сомнения, это значительно увеличило семейный доход, однако увеличение материального дохода не принесло счастья. Елена целыми днями пропадала на работе, взвалив все обязанности по дому и воспитанию детей на свою маму. Вечерами она то и дело говорила о работе, не обращая внимания на проблемы своей семьи, отчего часто возникали конфликты. В результате, ситуация стала настолько тяжелой, что муж завел разговор о разводе. Елене такая перспектива показалась абсолютно безрадостной. Ей сразу вспомнились подруги, ставшие матерями-одиночками (многие из них после развода жили на грани бедности из-за отсутствия работы и социальной поддержки) или вышедшие замуж повторно и испытывающие сложности из-за того, что отчимы не могли найти общий язык с их детьми. К тому же, их с Владиславом старший сын, казалось, мечтал избавиться от контроля со стороны родителей, поэтому развод родителей мог иметь для него далеко идущие последствия. А вдруг Владислав получит опеку над детьми при разводе? Ну уж нет. По всей видимости, Елене ничего не оставалось, кроме как бросить работу на полный рабочий день и стать удаленным работником. Так она смогла совмещать работу и заботу о семье, и все остались довольны.

Task 10. Write a summary of the text “The Family Today”.

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