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What is a family?
Dictionary.com lists 15 definitions for the noun form of the word, most of them tied to marriage and children. Kind of goofy if you ask me.
Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law does a far better job of defining family to include:
1 : a group of individuals related by blood, marriage, or adoption
2 : a group of usually related individuals who live together under common household authority and esp. who have reciprocal duties to each other
It seems society just can't decide on a definition. We talk about it a lot - the importance of family - but it looks like we aren't always talking about the same thing when we say that.
Between 2003 and 2010, Indiana University sociologist Brian Powell conducted three surveys. There was a significant trend toward counting same-sex couples with children as family — from 54 percent of respondents in 2003 to 68 percent in 2010, and roughly one-third of survey respondents said they considered same-sex couples without children to be a family.
In the 2010 survey, 83 percent of those surveyed considered unmarried heterosexual couples with children as a family, yet when asked about unmarried straight couples without children, only 40 percent considered those couples a family.
There was one piece of data from this study that was a bit skewed by the media *gasp! Imagine that* :
There was (fake/uninformed) outrage! How could people count their pets as family members but not gay couples? It must be homophobia, right??
Well, Since only 40 percent of respondents considered heterosexual couples without children as family (just 7 percent more than consider same-sex couples without children to be a family), it's pretty fair to deduce that about 30 percent of survey respondents believe pets count as family, but neither gay nor heterosexual couples without kids count as family.
Yeah ... but then we'd have to address the beastiality crowd rather than the homophobic crowd and that would just be ... well ... weird! The homophobes are much easier targets because people believe they exist. No one wants to believe that people will love (literally) their pets like humans ...
Whatever. Don't get all, "But pets are part of the family" on me. I understand you love them. I understand they are companions. But they are pets, not people. Moving on ...
The GREAT news is that the sexual orientation gap is closing when defining families. The bad news is that most people don't consider you a family unless you have children, which means ... well, not much now, does it?
Out of curiosity, how do you define a family?
Dictionary.com lists 15 definitions for the noun form of the word, most of them tied to marriage and children. Kind of goofy if you ask me.
Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law does a far better job of defining family to include:
1 : a group of individuals related by blood, marriage, or adoption
2 : a group of usually related individuals who live together under common household authority and esp. who have reciprocal duties to each other
It seems society just can't decide on a definition. We talk about it a lot - the importance of family - but it looks like we aren't always talking about the same thing when we say that.
Between 2003 and 2010, Indiana University sociologist Brian Powell conducted three surveys. There was a significant trend toward counting same-sex couples with children as family — from 54 percent of respondents in 2003 to 68 percent in 2010, and roughly one-third of survey respondents said they considered same-sex couples without children to be a family.
In the 2010 survey, 83 percent of those surveyed considered unmarried heterosexual couples with children as a family, yet when asked about unmarried straight couples without children, only 40 percent considered those couples a family.
There was one piece of data from this study that was a bit skewed by the media *gasp! Imagine that* :
In 2006, when asked if gay couples and pets count as family, 30 percent of survey respondents said pets count but not gay couples.
There was (fake/uninformed) outrage! How could people count their pets as family members but not gay couples? It must be homophobia, right??
Well, Since only 40 percent of respondents considered heterosexual couples without children as family (just 7 percent more than consider same-sex couples without children to be a family), it's pretty fair to deduce that about 30 percent of survey respondents believe pets count as family, but neither gay nor heterosexual couples without kids count as family.
Yeah ... but then we'd have to address the beastiality crowd rather than the homophobic crowd and that would just be ... well ... weird! The homophobes are much easier targets because people believe they exist. No one wants to believe that people will love (literally) their pets like humans ...
Whatever. Don't get all, "But pets are part of the family" on me. I understand you love them. I understand they are companions. But they are pets, not people. Moving on ...
The GREAT news is that the sexual orientation gap is closing when defining families. The bad news is that most people don't consider you a family unless you have children, which means ... well, not much now, does it?
Out of curiosity, how do you define a family?
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If you want to read the entire story on this study you can find it [HERE]
A special thanks to @mrumblings for mentioning this on Twitter and to @greenshoes5 for tracking down the article for me!
~*~*~
If you want to read the entire story on this study you can find it [HERE]
A special thanks to @mrumblings for mentioning this on Twitter and to @greenshoes5 for tracking down the article for me!
~*~*~
6 comments:
I got here first?????
Lucky me...
A core-family is a group of people living as a unit. They share responsibilities, they share meals, they share cost of living.
The extended family are the relatives of those within the core group.
Pets are part of our lives. We cherish them and mourn them when they pass, but they are not part of the 'core-family'
See, and I did not even address sexual preference...because
IT DOES NOT MATTER
Family is a two or more people that live together or are closely associated through blood or legalese. (Or is that family ARE two or more ...)
I think it's kinda hard to exactly define a family. There are many variables. But one thing I do know is that you can't always define a family as a man, woman and 2.3 children. And we always know a family when we see one. How's that for being vague?
The "does not qualify as a family based on lack of children" BS totally pisses me off. Not just in a definitional way, but that society as a whole seems to buy into that. Yuck.
I like the definitions the other commenters have come up with, I second and third and fourth that!
When the Evil Twin and I got married, I let him know - in no uncertain terms - that we (the two of us) were a family. His mother was no longer the most important person in his life. My parents were not the center of my life, either. They were all still important, but on a different level. Now that we have children, they are most important. We must advocate for their best interest. Any group of people who cherish one another and share their lives are family.
I think I love this question.
Of course family is blood and marriage, but it is so much more. In the past few years my family has become all those who I open my heart to and chose embrace as family. For example my step-mom's family is as much my family as those I who share my dna and I have friends who I can count on as much as my family.
As a single person, I can see that family is more than husband and wife children. It is gay couples and friends. But I draw the line at pets. People are family. Pets are pets.
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