The Family Life Cycle (6 stages)
1. Leaving home and becoming a single adult: “launching”
2. Forming a new family
3. Becoming Parents
4. Raising Adolescents
5. Family at Mid-Life
6. Family in Later-Life
Cultural Influences on Marriage
Arranged Marriage: Arranged marriage is not forced, but the parents chose the spouse for their child.
Age: Different regions and cultures have a different idea of an ideal age to get married.
Traits: Generally, people in different regions and cultures have an idea of ideal traits of a spouse. For example, in North America we tend to value physical traits.
Religion/Government: The church and state combine to legalise marriages. Religion tends to provide models of behaviour, especially for parental roles.
Marriage Trends:
- There is an increasing rate of divorce in Canada. - The ‘traditional family’ (mom, dad and the kids) is slowly declining
- Financial and household tasks are being shared more evenly
- Canadians are now waiting longer to get married and have children
Single Adults
- 41% of adults in their late twenties live with their parents. This has a lot to do with the economy – since the grown up children can afford little luxuries or cannot find a job or are in debt, they stay at home with their parents.
- Advantages: saving money, having time to make decisions about living on their own
- Disadvantages: The children may have less of a self-identity and find it hard to live alone when the time comes.
Couples Living Apart
- 8% of couples over 20 live apart
- older adults also choose to live apart: maybe see as a way to maintain the home as their family base, could be to care for a child or aging parent
- brings a feeling of respect for each other autonomy by maintaining separate house holds
- attribute less importance to having children & to relational stability to happiness
Cohabiting Adults
DEF: couples living together in a sexual relationship without being married
- 1970 – 1974: cohabitation was 17% of all first unions in Canada
- 1990 – 1995: cohabitation raised to 57% of all first unions
- Quebec has 80% of the cohabitation
- between 1981 – 1995 couples cohabiting tripled to over 1 million
- found more in younger couples then older ones: more are in Quebecois, and in divorced middle aged persons in new relationships
(Statistics Canada, 2003)
- A lot of couples see it as an ongoing lifestyle not a precursor to marriage and helps avoid official aspects of marriage
- Person in cohabiting relationships tend to be more equal (Weinberg, 2006) and have less stigma to ending a relationship then being married
- Problems; Disapproval of parents/ family members which creates emotional strain
Creates difficulty owning property jointly no clear legal rights on the dissolution of the relationship (Seltzer, 2004; Whitehead & Popenoe, 2005)
- More children being raised in common law unions:
- No national Canadian statistics – but smaller studies show that there is a higher dissolution rate (50%)
- Women whose first union was common-law were twice as likely to experience dissolution than those whose first union was marriage
- Newly married couples who cohabited before marriage had a higher rates of premarital violence than those who didn’t
- Researchers have not found that cohabitation leads to greater marital happiness & success – either no difference or not good for marriage
Divorced Adults
- Divorce rates are increasing
- Statistics are confusing or misleading
- If rate continues, 1:4 couples will experience divorce before their 30th wedding anniversary
- Usually occurs in the first 5 – 10 years of marriage
- Men increase alcohol consumption after experiencing a divorce
- Divorced people have an increased chance of psychological & physical problems
- Changes in household income, social supports, presence and number of children living in the home, employment status, history of depression, age, and educational attainment are all factors that can affect how an individual after a marriage fails
- Separated and divorced men & women have higher psychiatric disorders, clinical depression, alcoholism, and psychosomatic problems then married persons
- Increasing evidence about how stressful events reduce the immune systems capabilities
- Women suffer more economically from divorces then men where men suffer more from depression after a divorce then women
- Custody is seen as the most stressful aspect of divorce
- Lack of trust in new relationships is a very common mind set for previously divorced individuals
- Could have had spouse who supported/restricted them from their problems
- 6 common pathways out of divorce: (Hetherington and Kelly, 2002)
1. The enhancers
2. The good enough
3. The seekers
4. The libertines
5. The competent loners
6. The defeated
Recommended strategies;
- Opportunity for personal growth
- Be aware of the decisions you make (work, lovers, children) could have permanent consequences
- Focus on future not past
- Capitalize on your strengths
- Do not expect success and happiness in everything you do
Remarried Adults
- Averagely divorced adults remarry in 4 years, men sooner than women
- Verity of blend families, custodial, noncustodial, and step parents might have all been married or divorced
- Parents might have residential children, and large family network
- The couple must define and strengthen the marriage, and renegotiate the biological parent- child relationships and establish stepparent – stepchild and step sibling relationships
- Blending families can be difficult due to complex histories and only 1/3 of the blended family couples stay married
- difficulty comes from when adults remarry for financial reasons instead of love, child rearing or too reduce loneliness
- can repeat patterns and behaviour that cause first marriage to end
- has more stress in child rearing then parents who have never been divorced
Lone Parent Adults
- 1 in 5 (19%) of children live in a lone-parent household (Statistics Canada, 2003)
- ¾ of single parents live with just their children and no other relative
- Most lone parents are women and have a more fragile economic well-being then male lone parents
- Men often have more social support then women and make up 192,275 of the total lone parents
- A large number of women in their mid-30’s are choosing to raise children as lone parents either through Vitro fertilization or Adoption
Gay and Lesbian parents
-Research has found that gay & lesbian couples are similar to heterosexual couples in their satisfactions, loves, joys, and conflicts
- All couples need to find balance that is acceptable to both partners in terms of romantic love, affection, how much autonomy is acceptable, and how egalitarian the relationship will be (Kurdek, 1995)
- Lesbians place a high priority on equality in the relationship
- Stereotypes such as one partner being more masculine and one being more feminine are rarely true
- Only small parts of the gay and lesbian population have a large number of sexual partners that most prefer long-term committed relationships
- One main difference from heterosexual to homosexual couples is the obstacles to end a relationship (Peplau & Beal, 2002) -Same-sex marriages are lawful in Canada but laws surrounding divorce of same-sex couples are still unclear
- More homosexual couples are creating families that include children:
- These children suffer no socialization or mental health differences
- A lot of the children have a heterosexual orientation as well
Child Free Families
- Decisions about parenthood and marital status are becoming les interdependent
-Approx. 7% of heterosexual couples choose to be child free for a variety of reasons such as:
- Medical conditions
-Dislike children
- Economic realities
- Religious reason
- Environmental reasons
- 10% of single adults do not expect to have children
- Canadians that believe being married or in a relationship are not important to their personal happiness are more likely to remain child free (Stobert& Kemeny, 2003)
1. Leaving home and becoming a single adult: “launching”
2. Forming a new family
3. Becoming Parents
4. Raising Adolescents
5. Family at Mid-Life
6. Family in Later-Life
Cultural Influences on Marriage
Arranged Marriage: Arranged marriage is not forced, but the parents chose the spouse for their child.
Age: Different regions and cultures have a different idea of an ideal age to get married.
Traits: Generally, people in different regions and cultures have an idea of ideal traits of a spouse. For example, in North America we tend to value physical traits.
Religion/Government: The church and state combine to legalise marriages. Religion tends to provide models of behaviour, especially for parental roles.
Marriage Trends:
- There is an increasing rate of divorce in Canada. - The ‘traditional family’ (mom, dad and the kids) is slowly declining
- Financial and household tasks are being shared more evenly
- Canadians are now waiting longer to get married and have children
Single Adults
- 41% of adults in their late twenties live with their parents. This has a lot to do with the economy – since the grown up children can afford little luxuries or cannot find a job or are in debt, they stay at home with their parents.
- Advantages: saving money, having time to make decisions about living on their own
- Disadvantages: The children may have less of a self-identity and find it hard to live alone when the time comes.
Couples Living Apart
- 8% of couples over 20 live apart
- older adults also choose to live apart: maybe see as a way to maintain the home as their family base, could be to care for a child or aging parent
- brings a feeling of respect for each other autonomy by maintaining separate house holds
- attribute less importance to having children & to relational stability to happiness
Cohabiting Adults
DEF: couples living together in a sexual relationship without being married
- 1970 – 1974: cohabitation was 17% of all first unions in Canada
- 1990 – 1995: cohabitation raised to 57% of all first unions
- Quebec has 80% of the cohabitation
- between 1981 – 1995 couples cohabiting tripled to over 1 million
- found more in younger couples then older ones: more are in Quebecois, and in divorced middle aged persons in new relationships
(Statistics Canada, 2003)
- A lot of couples see it as an ongoing lifestyle not a precursor to marriage and helps avoid official aspects of marriage
- Person in cohabiting relationships tend to be more equal (Weinberg, 2006) and have less stigma to ending a relationship then being married
- Problems; Disapproval of parents/ family members which creates emotional strain
Creates difficulty owning property jointly no clear legal rights on the dissolution of the relationship (Seltzer, 2004; Whitehead & Popenoe, 2005)
- More children being raised in common law unions:
- No national Canadian statistics – but smaller studies show that there is a higher dissolution rate (50%)
- Women whose first union was common-law were twice as likely to experience dissolution than those whose first union was marriage
- Newly married couples who cohabited before marriage had a higher rates of premarital violence than those who didn’t
- Researchers have not found that cohabitation leads to greater marital happiness & success – either no difference or not good for marriage
Divorced Adults
- Divorce rates are increasing
- Statistics are confusing or misleading
- If rate continues, 1:4 couples will experience divorce before their 30th wedding anniversary
- Usually occurs in the first 5 – 10 years of marriage
- Men increase alcohol consumption after experiencing a divorce
- Divorced people have an increased chance of psychological & physical problems
- Changes in household income, social supports, presence and number of children living in the home, employment status, history of depression, age, and educational attainment are all factors that can affect how an individual after a marriage fails
- Separated and divorced men & women have higher psychiatric disorders, clinical depression, alcoholism, and psychosomatic problems then married persons
- Increasing evidence about how stressful events reduce the immune systems capabilities
- Women suffer more economically from divorces then men where men suffer more from depression after a divorce then women
- Custody is seen as the most stressful aspect of divorce
- Lack of trust in new relationships is a very common mind set for previously divorced individuals
- Could have had spouse who supported/restricted them from their problems
- 6 common pathways out of divorce: (Hetherington and Kelly, 2002)
1. The enhancers
2. The good enough
3. The seekers
4. The libertines
5. The competent loners
6. The defeated
Recommended strategies;
- Opportunity for personal growth
- Be aware of the decisions you make (work, lovers, children) could have permanent consequences
- Focus on future not past
- Capitalize on your strengths
- Do not expect success and happiness in everything you do
Remarried Adults
- Averagely divorced adults remarry in 4 years, men sooner than women
- Verity of blend families, custodial, noncustodial, and step parents might have all been married or divorced
- Parents might have residential children, and large family network
- The couple must define and strengthen the marriage, and renegotiate the biological parent- child relationships and establish stepparent – stepchild and step sibling relationships
- Blending families can be difficult due to complex histories and only 1/3 of the blended family couples stay married
- difficulty comes from when adults remarry for financial reasons instead of love, child rearing or too reduce loneliness
- can repeat patterns and behaviour that cause first marriage to end
- has more stress in child rearing then parents who have never been divorced
Lone Parent Adults
- 1 in 5 (19%) of children live in a lone-parent household (Statistics Canada, 2003)
- ¾ of single parents live with just their children and no other relative
- Most lone parents are women and have a more fragile economic well-being then male lone parents
- Men often have more social support then women and make up 192,275 of the total lone parents
- A large number of women in their mid-30’s are choosing to raise children as lone parents either through Vitro fertilization or Adoption
Gay and Lesbian parents
-Research has found that gay & lesbian couples are similar to heterosexual couples in their satisfactions, loves, joys, and conflicts
- All couples need to find balance that is acceptable to both partners in terms of romantic love, affection, how much autonomy is acceptable, and how egalitarian the relationship will be (Kurdek, 1995)
- Lesbians place a high priority on equality in the relationship
- Stereotypes such as one partner being more masculine and one being more feminine are rarely true
- Only small parts of the gay and lesbian population have a large number of sexual partners that most prefer long-term committed relationships
- One main difference from heterosexual to homosexual couples is the obstacles to end a relationship (Peplau & Beal, 2002) -Same-sex marriages are lawful in Canada but laws surrounding divorce of same-sex couples are still unclear
- More homosexual couples are creating families that include children:
- These children suffer no socialization or mental health differences
- A lot of the children have a heterosexual orientation as well
Child Free Families
- Decisions about parenthood and marital status are becoming les interdependent
-Approx. 7% of heterosexual couples choose to be child free for a variety of reasons such as:
- Medical conditions
-Dislike children
- Economic realities
- Religious reason
- Environmental reasons
- 10% of single adults do not expect to have children
- Canadians that believe being married or in a relationship are not important to their personal happiness are more likely to remain child free (Stobert& Kemeny, 2003)