Families – Love & Connection
Some definitions.
A family is made up of a couple with or without children OR a lone parent with at least one child – who lives at the same address.
A household can be one person living alone, a family (or more than one) – or a group of unrelated people who all live together and share communal spaces.
Dependent children are Under 16s OR Under 18s still at college and living at home …. unless they are married/partnered or have a child (even if they still live there – they become a second family).
Some facts for the stats fans:
The number of people getting hitched in the UK is falling steadily.
Same-sex families have risen by 40% since 2015. (Gay weddings became legal the year before – could be connected?)
The number of lone-parent fathers is rising more quickly than lone-parent mothers.
The fastest-growing family type (still a small number though) is the multi-family household.
Sometimes 3 or more generations of the same family live together OR completely unrelated people.
There is a movement towards lone-parent mothers pooling resources to get a bigger, better house, and share expenses and childcare.
Genius.
Are we good so far?
Types of family (slightly different to households as a definition – we know there are lots more of those…)
– Nuclear family –
with two adults and any number of children living together.
The children might be biological, stepchildren or adopted.
– Extended family –
grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, either all living nearby or within the same household,
eg. if a married couple lives with either the husband or wife’s parents, the family changes from a nuclear to an extended household.
– Reconstituted family –
also known as a compound or stepfamily. A family where one or both adults have children from previous relationships living with them.
– Single-parent family –
consists of a parent not living with a partner, who has most of the day-to-day responsibilities for raising the children. The children will live with this single parent for the majority of the time but may still have contact with their other parent.
– Same-sex family –
since civil partnerships were legalised in 2005, the number of same-sex families has been growing (same-sex marriage was legalised in the UK in 2014). Same as homoparental family.
– Adoptive family –
This type of family refers to parents who go through the rigorous and extended adoption process child to become legal parents of a child,
– Blended Family –
a family comprising parent or parents with biological and adopted children.
(some people use ‘Blended Family’ to describe Compound families)
– Family of separated parents –
the parents share the parenting, by taking childcare in turns, either in the same (i.e. they take turns to live with, and care for the children in the family home) or separate houses.
– Homoparental family –
This type of family, the homoparental family, is characterised by having two homosexual parents with a child or children. Not sure it should have a separate category, but there you are.
Same as same-sex families.
– Older person family –
living together once their children become adults and leave the house, or who have not had children
– Foster family –
a little like a temporary adoption family.
These are cases in which some parents, for whatever reason, are not in a position to take care of their children for a time and must let another family take care of them.
Foster parents are heroes.
– Sibling household or sibling family –
When the parents cannot take care of their children so the older brother and sister take on the responsibility of the parent to keep the family together.
– With pets –
This type of family is more typical of Millennials or Generation Z And probably Alpha by the looks of things when they get there.
They make pets a fundamental part of their lives.
Some take it further and report viewing their pets almost as if they were their children.
‘Furbabies’, though … I am saying nothing.
Each to their own.
I do draw the line at going to dog birthday parties.
I have been invited.
That’s a hard no, and I love animals. (It feels kind of enabling, but I will meditate upon that)
So as we begin this one I wanted to be clear…
I am talking about ALL types of families.
And there are lots of them.
If I’ve missed yours let me know and I’ll add it.
So which definition describes your setup?
Have you been in other kinds of family setup(s)?