Nuclear Families In America

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Sometimes in life, it just hasn't been your day, your week, your month or even your year. Maybe your job’s a joke, you're broke or your love life’s DOA. When it really feels like you’ve been stuck in second gear, you can always count on knowing that they’ll be there for you, yes even when the rain starts to pour. I would not be surprised if you sang any of that due to the fact that was some of the lyrics from the theme song to the infamous 90’s sitcom Friends, a show that despite being off the air for fourteen years still finds itself being an integral part of American culture. Friends, which aired and was set in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, is a show that even in today’s day and age, many people in America can relate to because it helps …show more content…
A traditional nuclear family consists of a married heterosexual couple and their biological or adopted children. Throughout American popular culture the image of the stereotypical or traditional nuclear family was mom, dad and two or three children creating the ideal family unit. However, as we enter deeper into the new millenia this idea of the ideal nuclear family structure is becoming less the norm. From same sex marriages to single parent households, America’s nuclear family seems to be de-evolving. Figure 1 shows the shift in parenting structures in 1980 to 2014 where you can see two parents in their first marriage went from 73% of families to 46% (The American Family Today, 2015). Along with the decrease in children living with two parents in their first marriage, there has been an increase in parents in a second marriage, single parenting as well as the concept of cohabiting parents becoming a trend. The percentage of same sex couples becoming parents has also seen a steady increase since the early 2000’s with same sex couples being four times as likely to adopt as straight couples (Angier, Natalie, 2013). This shift away from an American cultural norm is mirrored in Ross’s family structure. In season one of Friends, Ross divorces Carol, his wife of about six years, after she comes out as gay. Shortly after the pair separates Carol discovers she is pregnant with Ross’s child. Carol goes on to give birth to Ben and marry her partner Susan. Later in season 8 Ross also had a daughter with fellow main character Rachel whom he already had a divorce with after drunkenly marrying her in Las Vegas after getting a divorce from his second wife Emily. Throughout the show we see Ross as a single father twice, we see a same sex marriage as well as three difference marriages for one person. Ross’s family
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