Family Boundries

In the reading Changing American Families, Judy Alutte depicts how family structure can vary according to social class, race, and gender. In this depiction, I found it interesting that she not only used examples from authors that would support her points but also used controversial text such as the Moynihan report to let us see that many people have this perspective on the structure of the family. As an academic writing, this was definitely not a page turner but it did make a point in helping the reader see how many factors can affect the way a family can be ran.

In more detail on the Moynihan report, my initial reaction to this essay was that is was based on ignorance and lacked support from other sources beyond the authors perspective. I also saw that this essay conveyed the essence of the times where women were inferior to men. So when suggested that men should be put back in "their place" only made sense according to the times. However, this does not necessarily mean it should be justified because if looked from current times I would say that this essay is incredibly flawed. Some flaws that are mentioned is if black women were so dominate and powerful to cause such a strain in the African American society than they you would see more black women in congress and see black women earning more than white men.

In addition, more research was done on low-income black neighborhoods by Carol Stack and found that the structure in the families were very well organized being based on both kin and non-kin parents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents to help each other out when responsibilities became to heavy for one. This structure may be looked on by those in middle-class nuclear families as disorganized and the wrong way to go about having a family, but in the perspective of these families this is very functional.

In my opinion, I believe this kind of mentality plays a huge role in America's society today. For example, the controversial issue of gay marriage is considered the destruction of the meaning of marriage, and it is if you only see if from that perspective. conversely, if it is decided to step out side of our beliefs and try to understand the other side we will see that not everyone fits under the same standard because we emulate the essence of diversity.