Contents
Mom-dad-son-dog. Mom-grandmother-daughter. Grandmother-grandfather-dad-son. Which of these family configurations is considered normal? Any, experts say. Since the concept of “norm” is not applicable to the modern family.
When Canadian writer Douglas Copeland published No Normal Families in 2001, he hardly claimed to be scientific generalizations. Rather, to paraphrase Tolstoy, he meant that every family is “abnormal in its own way.” But today the title of the novel is increasingly taken quite literally. We live in an era when the concept of the norm to the family is almost inapplicable. Even according to official statistics, for many years in Russia more than half of marriages ended in divorce*. The same tendencies are shown, for example, by the American statistics. For moralists, this is a reason to moan about the decline of morals and call for a tenfold increase in state fees for divorce (as if financial considerations could revive a broken family). For demographers, the numbers rather confirm their notion that the “normal family” in its traditional sense no longer exists.
One plus one?
And in fact: how often do you see large friendly families of at least three generations? Mostly in TV commercials. “Behind this decrease in the family, apparently, lies the movement towards the so-called “nuclear” or “nuclear” family, inherent in a certain stage of the development of society. Sociologists understand the nuclear family as the smallest possible family: it is a parental couple and a child. In such a family, there is no older generation, brothers, sisters, aunts, and so on … For the current urban family, the desire to separate from other generations is indicative. The limit to which its development is striving is a family of three,” noted sociologist Yuri Levada back in the late 1960s**.
But since then the picture has changed. Today’s demographers tend to consider mother and child as the core of the family. (More precisely, a parent and a child, because there are also examples when this parent is a father.) All other “actors” – be it the second parent, brothers, sisters, grandparents – are no longer required. As, however, and marriage. It no longer makes any practical sense – especially if the partners live in the city, both work, build a career.
The reasons for this evolution (or degradation – that’s how you look at it) are obvious. The European model of traditional marriage was not least based on economic necessity. And after women got the opportunity to earn money, this foundation was undermined. Social philosophers at the end of the XNUMXth century proudly proclaimed that the family was henceforth based solely on love. But then it turned out that love does not always last forever.
Read more:
- What is your role in the family?
forced relationship
There is an obvious logic to the concept of parent and child as the core of the family: these two are connected by a relationship that is not determined by choice. Moms (or dads), with all their desire, do not choose children. And to the same extent, the child is not free to choose his parents. It is about the “forcedness” of family ties that clinical psychologist Maryse Vaillant writes: “Even if love inspired you to create a family and have a child, you will be obliged to communicate with the parents of your former or current partner, because they are the grandfather and grandmother of your child. The family, in all its forms, is built around duty (we have obligatory family ties that force us to see relatives) and the fundamental prohibition of incest. Thus, the family initially limits. Therefore, “for a modern person, the family is both a means of getting rid of spiritual discomfort and its source,” sums up Maryse Vaillant. Is it not for this reason that the era of individualism, with its priority of freedom, became the era of the destruction of the traditional family?
Interestingly, from the point of view of demographers, a childless couple probably can no longer be considered a family today. After all, a couple is created precisely as a result of a choice that can be reconsidered. So the criterion of mandatory family ties and relationships ceases to work here. But only until the baby is born. His birth changes the nature of ties. And yesterday’s (beloved or hated) mother-in-law becomes the grandmother of your daughter or son – do you feel the difference?
The availability of divorce and the increase in the number of remarriages has led to the emergence of a new phenomenon – the “binuclear family”, notes systemic family psychotherapist Anna Varga ****. It occurs when partners have children in the same marriage, get divorced, then give birth to new ones … but maintain good relations with former relatives, continue to communicate and raise children together.
Variety of species
Long before current demographic trends emerged, the pioneer of family counseling, psychotherapist Virginia Satir, wrote that the happiness of a family does not depend on its type.
“The form, type of family does not at all determine the relationship in it. The type of family poses certain tasks and problems, but the processes that take place in it and the ways to solve difficult situations entirely depend on how people relate to each other, how adults communicate with each other, how the child develops and turns it into a harmonious full-fledged family. personality, and here the main role is played by self-esteem, rules, the system of relations in the family … If all families live in the same houses, have the same number of children, the same level of income and perform the same amount of work, then the needs of some people will be satisfied, and no others”.
V. Satir “You and your family” (EKSMO-press, 2000).
Roles and performers
But if the center of the family is not the couple, but the child, what does he (and therefore the family as a whole) need for well-being? To provide a family financially today even one adult is able, but what about emotional well-being? After all, the parental family plays a major role in shaping the personality of each of us. First, a loving and caring mother instills in the child the confidence that the world is not the worst place and you can count on support in it. Then the father, by the very fact of his existence, makes it clear that there are others in the world, that the mother is not the undivided property of the child. Do the same processes take place in a family with only one parent? Or two, but of the same sex – this situation is also possible. “The role of the father in the conflict caused by the Oedipus complex is that he saves the child from merging with the mother,” explains psychoanalyst Svetlana Fedorova. – The child sees that there are relationships between parents in which he is not included. This situation is possible regardless of the gender of the parents, if the couple has a division of roles into female and male.
Non-standard configurations in themselves do not threaten the mental development of children. “A good family is one in which they know how to overcome crises and do not rely on outdated models,” says anthropologist and psychoanalyst Olivier Douville. “Children identify themselves not with the sexual identity of their parents and not with the sexual relationship between them. They identify with the parent “superego”, a psychic entity that Freud likens to our inner world. That is what makes a child.”
On the other hand, psychologists know a lot of sad stories about how in absolutely “normal”-looking families one of the parents resorts to psychological or physical violence, beats and humiliates other family members, denying them the right to their own feelings and desires. Which once again proves that there are no normal families. There are only good and bad.
Love, truth and other terms
What kind of family can be called good from the point of view of a child? Its most obvious sign is love. If parents are able to give it to a child, then he, becoming an adult, will be able to give it to others – for psychology this is an axiom. But love alone is not enough. Svetlana Fedorova draws attention to the fact that children need to know the history of their birth. This is doubly important in families where one of the parents is absent. “Fantasies about origins are needed to shape our identity,” she emphasizes. We need to identify ourselves with each parent. And if one of them is not in the family, you can’t ignore him or invent implausible explanations.”
In order for a child to feel good in the world, family values should not conflict with universal, universal human values. “When forming an identity, a child relies on his parents, on their laws, prohibitions, on the principles established within the family and on how this cell is integrated into society,” explains Olivier Douville. “A family that proclaims, “We live by our own laws,” deprives its members of their identity, dooms them to emotional imprisonment and does not allow them to separate.”
Read more:
- Now there are three of us: how to save a family after the birth of a child?
The Importance of Branch
Separation from the parental family is another key point. Simplifying the possibility of breakups, allowing children to grow up is perhaps the most difficult test for parents. But absolutely inevitable. “It all starts when a child takes the first step,” says Svetlana Fedorova. – At this moment, he himself determines the distance between himself and the other. This is a victory as he becomes independent. But for someone or someone who was always there, was one with the child, this is a huge loss. Others will follow: first word, first class, first love. And with each of these events, the child will move away from the parental family. “Parents should cope with these disappointments themselves, and not shift them onto the shoulders of their children,” notes Svetlana Fedorova. – Do not ask them questions that cannot be answered, such as “Do you really love this girl / boy, singing teacher or boxing coach more than me?”
Read more:
- I am learning to understand my family
What’s next?
In the main, experts are unanimous – the family is less and less regulated by social norms and in this sense, before our eyes, is losing “normality”. Marriage, as Anna Varga argues, “ceases to be by far the most preferred way of life.” And those who still dream of a family can choose one of many options for themselves, bearing in mind that family “boundaries will become more and more blurred and permeable”*****. And all these diverse families, which may include a dozen members of the clan, or may be reduced to a minimal pair, will continue to be strong and fragile, happy and not very, good and not quite. Discovering a new meaning for family, building new connections, inventing new traditions – isn’t that an inspiring task?
* According to the Federal State Statistics Service, gks.ru
** Y. Levada “Works” (Publisher Karpov E.V., 2011).
*** “Encyclopedia of Family Life”, ed. Maryse Vaillant (Encyclopédie de la vie de famille, Editions de la Martinière, 2004).
**** Systemic Psychotherapy of Married Couples, ed. Anna Vargi (Cogito Center, 2012).
***** There.