Next week: Watching movie (important to take notes).

Course evaluation: Thursday, March 27th, 2014 Final exam: Tuesday, April 8th (2-5pm) at Gym A&B. Not comprehensive. Everything after midterm # 2. Ethnicity, gender, todays topic, next weeks, and 2 weeks away. Outline: The family as an agent of socialization and a social institution Marriage Housework and childcare responsibilities Love and intimacy

Parents can choose features of the baby? A single type of family has never existed. Solid, traditional family values. Thats what my two wives and I are teaching our children. What is a family? Relationships in which people live together with commitment, form an economic unit and care for any young, and consider their identity to be significantly attached to the group.

Changes to the Divorce Act in 1968 and 1985 allowed easier access to divorce. Marriage: A legally recognized and/ or socially approved arrangement between two or more individuals that carries certain obligations and usually involves sexual activity Church provides an aisle. Shows passage from unmarried life to married life. One life stage to another. Also where they carry you when you die. Convocation: Transition from undergraduate to graduate. Why do people get married? Love, sex, companionship, children Arranged marriages Housework and Childcare Responsibilities Over 60% of families are double income. Many women also have a second shift. Domestic work at home. Estimated to add up to one month more work a year. Single moms employed full time probably have greatest responsibility of all. Love and Intimacy Women tend to express their love verbally, men tend to express their love through nonverbal actions.

The family Agent of socialization and social institution Children begin to develop social identity, develop norms and values of their culture. Also a social institution. Social institution not the same thing as a group, or social group! Ex: Group is concrete. Institution is made up of rules. 2 generations ago, family had a mom, dad, boy and girl Now, increased rates of divorce, remarriage. Common-law relationships, single parent, samesex couples, etc. What is a family? Made up of a mom and dad? (Same-sex couples?) A nuclear or subnuclear unit? (Grandparents?) Related by bonds of blood and marriage? (Does not count for adopted children) New reproductive technologiesHow many parents can one child have? o Egg donor, surrogate mother, sperm donor, adoptive parents

Next week: The End of Suburbia (Oil Depletion and The Collapse of The American Dream)