SOC103H1 Chapter Notes - Chapter all: Nuclear Family, Neoconservatism, Moral Panic
Does “The Family” Exist?
Introduction
• Despite the growing family diversity in Canada, the nuclear family structure remains
fixed in our collective imagination as the most desired family form
• Everything is impacted by our nuclear family assumption
• Canadian family diversity is often read as family decline
Situating the ‘Traditional’ Family
• Many of Canada’s “new” family forms have always existed, but done so in the
margins
Male breadwinner model: separated home and work along gender lines, and a restructuring of
many households to include only the husband, wife, and their biological children (coincided with
industrialization)
• Moral panic occurred due to:
o Rising divorce rates
o Falling fertility rates
o Aggregate number of middle-class women in the paid workforce
• The media and professionals did much to reinforce the idea that women’s proper
place with in the home
• 1950s have been discursively constructed as the golden era of the traditional family
o Often families suffered in silence because airing dirty laundry was considered
shameful
Legacy of Privileging the Nuclear Family
• Neo-conservative narratives bemoaning family decline have infused Canadian politics
o The rhetoric of strengthening nuclear families and the traditional values of
marriage was the foundation of the Family Coalition Party’s platform in 2007
• Idealizing the traditional family reinforces the fallacy that families operate as
independent, self-contained units that satisfy the needs of their members
o Evidence is contrary
▪ Marriage does not guarantee stability
▪ Paid work by both parents is a necessity
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