[Music] hello and welcome to my social studies classroom i am albert in chanali today we'll be looking at one of the topics from the c6 syllabus no other than the family at the end of today's lesson you should be able to explain the concept of family as it is used in the caribbean define the term family based on the study of sociology differentiate between households and families and compare different family types so are you ready now today we're looking at the concept of family in the caribbean in the caribbean we use the term family very loosely think about it everyone you meet or associate with who you consider to be a loved one you might call him your auntie or your uncle your friends you may describe them as your brothers and your sisters so in the caribbean we tend to use the term family very loosely and we're not so much concerned about how we are related to someone however for the purpose of our study we will look at the sociological definition of family now when i say sociological i mean that sociology is the study of human societies and human behavior now if you were to google what is a family chances are you will get a search result that tells you about the traditional definition of the family and a traditional definition of the family would be a group consisting of two parents and their children living together as a unit of course for those of us living in guyana and elsewhere in the caribbean we know that the term family is much more extensive than this traditional definition so what we're going to do now we are going to define the torm family based on a more extensive definition that is agreed by most sociologists now we can say that a family is a group of people who are related by blood marriage or adoption and these persons usually share a common household or residence and are dependent on each other so you are a family if you're related by blood marriage or adoption and in most cases you share the same household or residence and we are all dependent on each other now we will be looking at basic ways how families are formed there are two basic ways families are formed one by blood and two by marriage many of us are born into a family we're not married we're born into a family and this is called a con sanguine family yes big term but what it means is that the members are related by blood and this refers also to our kinship group if someone is your kin it means that you are related to them and you and members of your kin have the same ancestors you and your cousins are kin your same ancestor may be your grandparents your great-grandparents and so forth now you can also start a family by marrying someone and when you do that you form a conjugal family conjugal family has to do with marriage and if you have children as part of this conjugal family then it means that your children are part of a consanguine family as well as a conjugal family right because they're related to you by blood and they are a product of a marriage now have you ever heard the term conjugal yes when i think of conjugal i think of conjugal visit whereby inmates or prisoners are usually allowed to have a relative most likely a spouse visit them in jail or prison privately so when we use the term conjugal we may think of a conjugal visit now we're moving on to our next objective we are going to differentiate between a household and a family as human beings we end up in various household arrangements and these arrangements satisfy our various needs but this is what i want us to remember all families live in households but not all households are considered as families let me say that again all families live in households but not all household arrangements can be considered as families now you may be living in the same house but technically you are not considered as a family can you think of any such situation whereby you're living together in the same house but you're not considered as a family yes you're right i know some of you may be thinking about heading off to college or to further your studies after high school and you may find that you may need to rent a building or rent a room and you may have a roommate so you're living together in the same household but by definition you are not a family now we will be moving on into different family types families come in different forms different sizes different types and we will start by looking at the single parent family and as the name suggests this family consists of one parent only a mother or a father living with his or her child or children now although one parent is resident in the house this does not mean that the odd apparent does not contribute financially or share responsibilities for the child the parent in a single parent family is at times involved in a visiting relationship if the father is absent and therefore does not play his role the family is said to be matrifocal meaning the mother is the authority figure in the family and if the mother is absent and the father is present then we say that the family is patrifocal meaning the father takes up responsibilities and he is the authority figure can you think of some advantages or disadvantages of being a part of a single parent family now one advantage of being part of a single parent family is that children usually have less supervision and i know what you're wondering how can that be an advantage having less supervision as a child but guess what there are many families because both parents are present the children may feel over protected and as a result they do not learn how to be independent they have everything being done for them and usually they may not be able to gain certain skills that would enable them to be very productive and very independent so sometimes less supervision can mean that children grow and they develop personally and they acquire certain skills that make them very much independent and like i said children have less supervision can be an advantage it can also be a disadvantage and we see that when a single parent has no support and that single parent has to go out to work and the child is left unsupervised or to his or her own devices pono intended because right now we have many kids who are using their laptops their computers and in a sense it is replacing parenting and that can definitely be an issue now we will be moving on to the nuclear family and the nuclear family is composed of both the mother and father living with their child or children and authority in a nuclear family may lie with the mother and we will say that authority means that family is matriarchal in nature have you ever heard the torm matriarch the matriarch of a family is usually a female who is the authority figure could be a mother or a grandmother the one who makes all the decisions for the family now in some nuclear families authority lies with the father and we say that is a patriarchal situation and the father is considered to be the patriarch of the family and as the patriarch he makes all the decisions can you think of that situation yes i know some of you when you ask your mom a question she may say wait till your father come home or go ask your father go accidary that's because it is a patriarchal situation where the dad has the final say now in some nuclear families we can say responsibility are shared and that would be an equalitarian situation where both the mother and the father they agree on how to raise the children and they make decisions together so you see different kinds of situations can exist within a nuclear family the status and authority of parents within families may be also determined by those who provide family support or who we say is the bread winner of the whole so usually if the father is making the money and contributing financially in more in many cases he is considered to be the one who dispenses authority and if it's the mother working usually she may be the one who is the authority figure all right so we're looking at the advantages and disadvantages of being part of a nuclear family and one of the advantages of being part of a nuclear family is that you have your mom and dad who can be your role models you have both parents so you're able to have a male role model and a female role model in traditional societies girls and young children would learn how to be nurturing kind and caring from their mother and children will learn how to be strong independent and good decision makers from their fathers but now we see gender roles are changing and there's nothing wrong if your mom is very strong and resilient and making decisions you can learn from her and there's nothing wrong if your dad is kind and caring and nurturing it all works together for the good of the home now one of the disadvantage of the nuclear family is that although adults of both sexes may be present this does not mean they play a meaningful role in a child's life for example your mom may be a stay-at-home mom but your dad is working all the time and he may be very busy so many of the responsibilities would rest on your mom so that could be an issue as well if both parents are not taking up the responsibilities equally and now we're at our next family type which is the extended family and an extended family can be made up in one of two ways and the first way would be three or more generations living under one roof so if you are living with your grandparents and your parents that would be three generations your grandparents constitute one generation your parents are from another generation and you and your siblings are from the third generation now an extended family can also be formed by having two generations of the same family living together including parents and your child or children living with other members such as aunts uncles and cousins so if you're living with your parents and your dad has a brother or sister living with you and they have kids then that would be an extended family because two generations are living together traditionally speaking caribbean families live in extended family arrangements and this was often done for economic reasons it was quite expensive for families to go on their own so to conserve the resources and to gain financially they decided to live together on the one roof as an extended family now a very popular type of an extended family would be the joint family and the joint family is formed when adult children marry and bring their families to live in the same household as their parents and i'm sure you know this is very popular in guyana where children live with their parents even though they are married and you have their in-laws with them as well there are just several nuclear family units within the extended family and usually authority is often with the elders or grandparents who have the final say in making major decisions now we'll be looking at some advantages and disadvantages of the extended family when you have so many family members present what can be some benefits of that yes children can be well supervised if your mom or dad has to go out they won't leave you alone you have your granny your grandpa your aja or your aji to look after you in the home so you will be well supervised also everyone pitches in and shares the responsibility so the work becomes lighter now a disadvantage of the extended family would be that sometimes when you have so many adults in the home who are authority figures lines of authority can become blurred sometimes you don't know who to listen to because the adults may disagree on a decision and sometimes because an adult in the family is not your mother or not your father you may not want to listen or heed their advice so that can be an issue as well as it pertains to the extended family now the last family type we will be looking at is the reconstituted or reconstructed family and in guyana and in the caribbean we usually refer to this family as the stepped family or the blended family now in this family type two adults who have children from previous relationships come together with their respective children to form a family and they may or may not have a child or children together so in a sense it is a union of different family types this type of family definitely requires a high degree of compromise and consensus the two adult partners and their children may have been accustomed to different lifestyles they may have been living in different geographical locations so obviously when you're fusing these kinds of families it means that certain changes will take place and it is very important that parents navigate such decisions and dynamics as having children from different sides such as sharing a room or learning to relate with each other as brother and sister and also consideration must be given to the parents who are not part of the reconstructed family because all of them would take part in or should take part in decision making like we said a reconstituted family is also known as a blended family and here we have an image of a very famous blended family do you recognize these individuals yes that is jennifer lopez and alex rodriguez and they're part of a blended family jennifer lopez has two children from her previous marriage with singer mark anthony and alex rodriguez has two children from a previous marriage however they're all living together in one big happy family now and this is a good example of what a reconstituted family is and at this time i'll play you a song by alicia keys called blended family she's also part of a blended family and whether you're part of a single parent family a nuclear family an extended family or a blended family there's no one family type that is better than than another so i want you to know that all your family members they love you and as long as you're being treated well you don't have to worry about what family type you are in [Music] i think you're beautiful [Music] is [Music] mama [Music] but i swear [Music] what to do [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] is that's just what you do love babies it's all right it's all right it's now time for us to delve into some multiple choice questions yes i am here to test your knowledge on what we've just learned in our previous session on the family and the first multiple choice question for you is russell wilson and sierra raised their biological children along with sierra's son from a previous relationship what family type is this is it a an extended family is it b a single parent family is it c a reconstructed family or is it d a joint family what do you think russell wilson his wife sierra they raised their biological children together along with sierra's son from a previous relationship what do we call this family did you say see reconstructed family of course you did yes this is called a reconstructed family or a blended family because we have a fusion of families sierra was once a single parent looking after her son alone and now she is part of a wider family her and her son and this is what we call a reconstituted family because a child from a previous relationship is now in another family with siblings as well why did we not say extended family well we did not mention that sierra and russell wilson have their parents or grandparents living with them so it's not an extended family why did we say it's not a single parent family even though the boy the child um is sierra's son from a previous relationship um she's not raising him alone he has a dad figure in his life so it's not a single parent family and why is it not a joint family that is because a joint family is a version or a form of an extended family in a joint family you have adult children getting married and living with their parents and as we can see in this situation sierra and her husband are not living with either of their parents so that's all for today take care until next time