FINAL EXAM

“Familial Archetypes: The Ideal and the Dysfunctional”
Families in America vary from your archetypical, well off “Brady bunch” family, to the single mother with three kids family that struggles to put food on the table, and everywhere in between. Mary Pipher believes that these millions of families throughout America could be placed into one of two descriptions: the idealized or the dysfunctional. The idealized families are outlets of love and happiness. When I think of this idea, I imagine the kids get a bowl of ice cream just before bedtime then run off to brush their teeth and hop in bed to have the father tuck them in and read a bed time story. Pipher suggests this ideal of a type of family was most prominent during the 1950’s, for this was shortly after the Great Depression and World War II. Following these devastating events, “there’s no place like home”(and family) was probably running through the minds of many. On the other hand, in the dysfunctional family; your family is basically the enemy. All family members do amongst each other is argue and bicker, never getting along or enjoying one another in any way. Pipher feels that the 1990’s was the era where this type of attitude towards family thrived. I can, for the most part agree with what Mary Pipher has to say on families. I agree that American families can essentially be placed in to one of these two categories. I believe that the structure of the family and the parents’ upbringing of their children is a key factor in which category the family will fall under. Ultimately, the parents are the people who start the family and they then have the power to form and structure it as they will.

To illustrate my view on this subject, I am going to compare the structure of my family with a good friend of mine’s. The friend will remain anonymous. My family would fall under the ideal family category. Growing up, I lived in one house my whole life and was raised with my younger brother and older sister by both my mom and dad, who were together at the time. I was always taught respect for my parents and siblings, and would be sure to get a spanking if I stepped out of line. Along with respect and discipline, I learned many other valuable lessons and morals from my parents. Basically, my home life was very structured; I did not in any way grow up on my own, always having my parents guiding hand leading the way. But don’t get me wrong; it was not perfect. There were countless times, especially in my adolescent days, where my parents or siblings and I clashed heads. Arguments even got pretty heated sometimes, yet something instilled in me from a young age always taught me to respect my parents. It was this healthy nourishment that my siblings and I received growing up that defines the kind of family we are today. Had my parents not kept a watchful eye on us as we grew up and taught us those good morals and values, and disciplining whenever necessary I am sure our family would not be the same outlet of love, happiness, and friendship that it is today. Lack of discipline, love, morals, values, or any combination of the above puts a family at risk of being “dysfunctional”.

I sympathize for my friend for they have had nowhere near the upbringing that they deserve. She was raised (if you could call it that) by her father up until early adolescence. Being a typical “hick”, her father fell rather short in teaching her love and respect and morals, however did quite the job at teaching her to have a foul mouth and burp and spit and so on. Amongst other horrible things he did, her dad drank constantly and gave his daughter no where near the attention she needed and deserved. After living with her father for her whole life up to adolescence, my good friend moved from Oregon to Washington to live with her mother where she spent years moving from apartment to apartment, even being homeless for a while. With constantly switching residences also came constant switching of schools and during all this time, her mother was there for her. The problem was, she was there as a friend, not so much as a mother. Today, my friend, her sister, mom, and step-father have finally settled into a permanent residence in a town-house apartment. Her mom and step-father both work jobs and she and her sister both go to school. The family is almost starting to sound ideal, yet it is far from it. If I were to go visit on any given day, some things I am very likely to see there might include obscenities flying around like a flock of wild geese aimed at each other, the tv, inanimate objects, or whatever. Its possible that the whole place might reek of marijuana from my friend and her step dad toking it up together. A few times my friend has even called me to come pick her up because she can’t stand her family and hates it in that place. The home life and familial relationships within my friend’s family are just as Pipher describes a “dysfunctional family”.

When I ponder “why?” her family the way it is, I come to the conclusion mentioned before. What my friend lacked was a structured and disciplined upbringing from either one of her parents. Nobody was there to teach respect for family members; no one taught the importance of loving one another and having close familial ties. There was a definite lack of discipline from childhood all the way through adolescence. And look at the effect: The family is chaotic. Members are constantly at each other’s throats, swearing is more common than turkey on thanksgiving; drugs are talked about, and even taken freely with no retribution. There is no real sense of a family bond. This is the dysfunctional family Mary Pipher describes.

Now if you think about it, any American family can really fall into either the category of ideal, or dysfunctional. It is without a doubt that either of these categories can be accomplished to different degrees. Maybe just one family member is a loose cannon and wants to sever their familial ties. Or maybe a family simply does not argue and bicker much, but the individual members are more busy living their own lives apart from one another to have an idealistic closeness in their relationship. Small variations like these to the two main categories Mary Pipher suggests describes all families are the only exceptions I see to her statement.

Variations of the idealistic family of the 1950’s and the dysfunctional family of the 1990’s still define American families to this day. I have concluded that the involvement of the parents in the forming of their families through raising their kids with love and discipline; instilling in them to have good morals and respect is absolutely vital in defining what category the family will fall under. I am not too ignorant to admit that there are surely other influences that factor in to how a family may act, yet I feel that the most power lies in the parents; the people who decided to start a family of their own in the first place.