Page 408 - Essencials of Sociology

Diversity in U.S. Families 381

and then let them choose their own activities, while middle-class parents are more likely
to try to push their children into activities that they think will develop their thinking and
social skills.
Sociologist Melvin Kohn (1963, 1977; Kohn and Schooler 1969) also found that
the type of work that parents do has an impact on how they rear their children. Because
members of the working class are closely supervised on their jobs, where they are
expected to follow explicit rules, their concern is less with their children’s motivation
and more with their outward conformity. These parents are more apt to use physical
punishment—which brings about outward conformity without regard for internal atti-
tudes. Middle-class workers, in contrast, are expected to take more initiative on the job.
Consequently, middle-class parents have more concern that their children develop curi-
osity and self-expression. They are also more likely to withdraw privileges or affection
than to use physical punishment.

Family Transitions
The later stages of family life bring their own pleasures to be savored and problems to be
solved. Let’s look at two transitions—children staying home longer and adults adjusting
to widowhood.

Transitional Adulthood and the Not-So-Empty Nest. Adolescents, especially young
men, used to leave home after finishing high school. When the last child left home at
about age 17 to 19, the husband and wife were left with what was called an empty nest.
Today’s nest is not as empty as it used to be. With prolonged education and the higher
cost of establishing a household, U.S. children are leaving home later. Many stay home
during college, while others who strike out on their own find the cost or responsibil-
ity too great and return home. Much to their own disappointment, some even leave
and return to the parents’ home several times. As a result, 18 percent of all U.S. 25- to
29-year-olds are living with their parents. About 11 percent of this still-at-home group
have children (U.S. Census Bureau 2012:Table A2).
This major historical change in how people become adults, which we call transitional
adulthood, is playing out before our eyes. With the path to adulthood changing abruptly,
its contours—its roadmap—are still being worked out. Although “adultolescents” enjoy
the protection of home, they have to work out issues about privacy, authority, and
responsibilities—items that both the children and parents thought were resolved long
ago. You might want to look again at Figure 3.2 on page 92.
Widowhood. As you know, women are more likely than men to become widowed.
There are two reasons for this: On average, women live longer than men, and they usu-
ally marry men older than they are. For either women or men, the death of a spouse
tears at the self, clawing at identities that merged through the years. With the one who
had become an essential part of the self gone, the survivor, as in adolescence, once again
confronts the perplexing question “Who am I?”
The death of a spouse produces what is called the widowhood effect: The impact of
the death is so strong that surviving spouses tend to die earlier than expected. The wid-
owhood effect is not even across the board, however. It is stronger for men. “Excess
deaths,” as sociologists call them, are almost twice as high among widowed men as
among widowed women (Shor et al 2012). This seems to indicate that marriage brings
greater health benefits to elderly men.

Diversity in U.S. Families 12.4 Summarize research on
families: African American, Latino,
As we review some of the vast diversity of U.S. families, it is important to note that we Asian American, Native American,
are not comparing any of them to the American family. There is no such thing. Rather, one-parent, couples without
family life varies widely throughout the United States. In several contexts, we have seen children, blended, and gay and
how significant social class is in our lives. Its significance will continue to be evident as lesbian.
we examine diversity in U.S. families.