Chapter 7: Family

I. Introduction
*Sasha, an example of parents protecting their child’s sex identity to empower the child’s
choices, and the public response to this.
*Why study the family:
*Family is not just the location of interpersonal relationships. It also is a social
institution that genders its members, and is organized along gendered lines.
*One cannot study gender in communication without studying communication in
and about family. The construction and performance of gender/sex happens in
public discourse about family and in individual families.
*Family is usually the first and one of the most influential sources of information
about gender, and is the primary place where many people are taught women and
men are essentially different and, hence, should have different and/or unequal
roles.
*Goal of chapter: In this chapter we explore how cultural gender/sex expectations
constrain families.
*To do so, we must address two myths:
1) That there is one normal nuclear family model
2) That the threat to this model means the US family is in crisis

II. Definitions and cultural myths:

A. Family:
*The concept of family is difficult to define, as there is no set structure, purpose, or
communicative meaning-making process that defines family (Segrin & Flora, 2011).
*The structures shift across time and cultures, and the functions families provide as
well as the meanings created are diverse (Karraker & Grochowski, 2012).
*Because family is not a fixed concept, it requires a fluid description (Hoover, Clark &
Alters, 2004).
*How educators and researchers define family influences what types of families are
studied and further legitimized.
*Thus, we adopt a definition of family that takes into account the structure, purpose,
and communicative processes involved in families:
Any group of people united by ties of marriage, blood, or adoption, or any sexually
expressive relationship, in which (1) the adults cooperate financially for their mutual
support, (2) the people are committed to one another in an intimate interpersonal
relationship, (3) the members see their individual identities as importantly attached to
the group, and (4) the group has an identity of its own. (DeGenova, Stinnett, & Stinnett,
2011, p. 5)

*“Families and gender are so intertwined that it is impossible to understand one without
reference to the other. Families are not merely influenced by gender; rather, families are
organized by gender” (Haddock, Zimmerman, & Lyness, 2003, p. 304).
B. Roles, Gender roles:

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 *Roles played in many families: mother, father, daughter, son, sister, brother,
grandmother, grandfather, aunt, uncle, in-laws.
*These roles are sex marked and designate responsibilities, expectations, and power.
*The phrase gender/sex roles refer to binary gender social expectations based on a
person’s sex (Ryle, 2012).
1. Myth #1 Nuclear family:
*The nuclear family presumes a self-supporting, independent unit (excluding
extended family), composed of two heterosexual parents legally married performing
separate masculine and feminine family roles. For nuclear families, the male is the
primary wage earner and the female is the primary homemaker.
*The nuclear family is considered the embodiment of a healthy family and the
foundation of society (Ruane & Cerulo, 2008; Walsh, 2012).
*In reality, though, the nuclear family has never been the most common family
structure and any family structure is susceptible to being unhealthy.
*Said to have emerged in the Industrial Revolution when productivity, paying jobs,
and white men left the home and white women were encouraged to embrace a cult of
domesticity.

NEW INFORMATION: Members of the U.S. congress in the 1990s used the
rhetoric of the nuclear family in debates over welfare reform, positioning the
nuclear family as the ideal to which other family structures are compared
negatively.

*The nuclear family and its rigid gender roles did not become more firmly planted
into U.S. ideology until the 1950s. Rapid economic growth and popular media
representations enabled and normalized the male wage earner.

NEW INFORMATION: A pervasive and largely unchallenged place people learn

what family means is through television situation comedy programs. The fact that
family has been the primary context for situation comedies for half a century
speaks to the power of family as a central social institution. Most of these shows
have focused on heterosexual married couples with children. Researchers have
documents how White middle-class father as breadwinner and wife as homemaker
norms of the 1950s were sold and spread as the ideal across social classes through
comedic family situations that real families often watched together. Shows such
as The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriot, The Danny Thomas Show: Make Room
for Daddy, Father Knows Best, and Leave it to Beaver portrayed financially
successful fathers who were always calm and rational, helping to solve family
crises and teach the children moral lessons. He was adored by his homemaker
wife and children (Butsch, 2003). In a review of the most popular family sit coms
from 1946-1990, Richard Butsch found from the 1970s forward, depictions of the
middle class family became less-stereotypical with women working outside the
home, divorces, step-family structures, fathers doing more care-taking, single-
parents and egalitarian spousal relations. Interestingly, at the same time, more
marital conflicts are portrayed (Douglas, 2003). The number of shows about
work-class families and families of color has remained limited. The Jeffersons

2
 (1970s-1980s) and The Cosby Show (1980s-1990s) were two unusual examples of
upper-class African American Families. Over all, researchers conclude family
situation comedies have tended to empower men’s roles in families and
marginalize women’s to primarily caretaking roles (even if they have careers,
Butsch, 2003; Douglas, 2003). These observations about family portrayals in
television comedy do not mean the media causes families to behave in particular
gendered fashions, but as is discussed in Chapter 11 “Media,” images do matter.
They can help create, maintain, and/or support change in other social institutions.
Further research is needed to examine gender/sex identity portrayals in today’s
situation comedies.

*Even in non-U.S. cultures, the ideal of the nuclear family is growing more
pervasive, increasingly influencing more cultures (Ingoldsby & Smith, 2006).
*Another major contributor to maintaining the nuclear family myth is
heteronormativity.
*Heteronormativity encompasses legal, cultural, organizational and
interpersonal practices that reinforce unquestioned assumptions about gender/sex.
These include . . . the presumptions that there are only two sexes; that it is
“normal” or “natural” for people of different sexes to be attracted to one another;
that these attractions may be publicly displayed and celebrated; that social
institutions such as marriage and the family are appropriately organized around
different-sex pairings; that same-sex couples are (if not “deviant”) a “variation
on” or an “alternative to” the heterosexual couple. (Kitzinger, 2005, p. 478)
*In addition, the “socially approved economic and sexual union” represented by
heteronormative romance and heterosexual marriage is the cornerstone of the
traditional nuclear family (Ruane & Cerulo, 2008, p. 215).
*Heteronormativity or compulsory heterosexuality affects other forms of
relationships, too.
-e.g. devaluing and/or stereotyping platonic friendships

NEW INFORMATION: Baumgarte & Nelson (2009), found among

college students, participants were just as likely to prefer same sex and
other sex close friendships. The study also found women and men who
preferred close friendships with someone of another sex were just as likely
to want to share activities and talk with that person.
Baumgarte, R., & Nelson, D. W. (2009). Preference for same- versus
cross-sex friendships. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 39,
901-917.

NEW INFORMATION: Wright (2006) reports that sex/gender

differences in friendship disappear when one studies close, rather than
casual, friendships.
Wright, Paul H. (2006). Toward an expanded orientation to the
comparative study of women’s and men’s same-sex friendships. In
Daniel J. Canary & Kathryn Dindia (Eds.), Sex differences and

3
 similarities in communication (2nd ed., pp. 37-58). Mahwah, NJ:
Erlbaum.

NEW INFORMATION: Monsour (2006) argues the continued battle over

which sex/gender has the most intimate same-sex friendships is
condescending to both friendship types. It reinforces stereotypic two-
culture notions of gender/sex, again ignoring diverse experiences due to
race, age, and class, and reinforcing the cultural emphasis on heterosexual
romantic relationships.
Monsour, Michael. (2006). Communication and gender among adult
friends. In Bonnie J. Dow & Julia T. Wood (Eds.), The Sage
handbook of gender in communication (pp. 75-90). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.

-e.g.s, creating cultural gender role scripts of dating expectations (Metts,

2006):
-Regardless of sexual orientation, men place priority on a date’s physical
attractiveness and women on personality
-Women should make themselves attractive to men
-Men should take the lead in initiating first activities, from dates, to saying
“I love you,” to sexual relations
-Women should take the lead in relationship maintenance
-Sexual relations are an expected part of relational progression, but they
need not wait for a verbal expression of love.
Metts, Sandra. (2006). Gendered communication in dating relationships.
In Bonnie J. Dow & Julia T. Wood (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of
gender in communication (pp. 25–40). Thousand Oaks, CA:
SAGE.

*Other illustrations of the pressure particularly on girls and women to find

a husband (heteronormativity or compulsory heterosexuality):
-Fairytales (Cinderella, Snow White)
-Girls fantasies of a “White Wedding” and its costs
- The Debutante Ball from African American culture and Quince
from Latin, Purity Balls, from US conservative Christian

NEW INFORMATION: The double-standard of men having more

freedom to be sexually active still exists. Men, regardless of their sexual-
orientation, are more likely to have sex with persons they are not attracted
to and have no emotional involvement with. In sum, they consistently
report fewer sexual restraints than women studied (Metts, 2006).

2. The Myth that the US family is in decline.

*In the early 1990s U.S. politicians and clergy repeatedly used the slogan family
values, in which family means nuclear family (Cloud, 1998). The slogan referred to a
heterosexual married couple and multiple children living together in a home guided

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by conservative Christian principles and blamed increasing diversity of family
structures for the decline of the family. Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan used
“family values” in the 1992 presidential election to advance a “cultural war . . . for
the soul of America” (para. 37).

NEW INFROMATION: In her analysis of how the slogan of “family

values” was deployed in the 1992 presidential election, communication
studies professor Dana Cloud argues that it was used to scapegoat poor
Americans and Black men for social problems, while it also appealed to a
gendered utopian narrative. Even though it appealed to a transcendental
notion of the ideal family, the slogan targeted actual families for blame,
“especially those headed by single parents, racial minorities, and the poor”
(Cloud, 1998, p. 387). The end result was that social problems induced by
economic inequality and structural racism were ignored in favor of
personalized explanations of individual hardship and failure.

NEW INFORMATION: In 2004, President Bush proposed a “Marriage

Initiative” to be overseen by the Dept. of Health and Human Services. A
changed version of this was proposed by Bush administration in August
2005, called “Healthy Families Initiative.” Both targeted educating the
poor, arguing marriage would help stabilize the poor. Critics argued
divorce happens across class lines, the poor should not be blamed.

NEW INFORMATION: The NOH8 is an international non-profit that

uses a silent protest method being held on campuses across the U.S. and
abroad to promote marriage, gender and human equality through
education, advocacy, social media, and visual protest”
(http://www.noh8campaign.com/article/about). The campaign was
developed in response to Proposition 8 passed in California, in 2008,
amending the state Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. The defeat
provoked a groundswell of initiatives, NOH8 is one of the most widely
known. Students can go on-line to post their own stories or learn how to
host a protest on their campus.

*In contrast to the myth that the family as a social institution is in decay, we argue the
institution of the family is in transition:
-Most U.S. people want to marry, including same-sex couples seeking legal
marriages. But, as of 2011 only 51% of people 18+ are married, down from 72%
in 1960 (Cohn, Passel, Wang, & Livingston, 2011).
-More people are cohabitating instead of marriage (10%, LBGTQ and
heterosexual), cohabiting before marriage, marrying later in life (26 for women,
28 for men), not marrying just because of pregnancy (Gibson-Davis, 2011), and
staying single (LBGTQ and heterosexual) (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010).
*Although the divorce rate is higher than it was before no-fault divorce laws were
enacted in the 1970s, the rates have decreased starting in 2010 to 1.89 new
marriages to 1 divorce, compared to 2.05 to 1 in 2000.

5
 -The 2 to 1 U.S. divorce ratio commonly used is misinterpreted. It means
in a given year, for every two new marriages, one will fail. The ratio does
not include previously existing marriages. Furthermore, the ratio for first
time marriages decreased a bit (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention,
2005; “Fifty Percent”, 2012).
*Families are adapting to increased economic demands, standards of living, and
more flexible gender/sex expectations. These very transitions enable families to
thrive (Gerson, 2010).

III. Communication in families

A. Parent-child communication
*One of the primary functions of the family is the teaching and maintaining of
cultural norms, including gender norms and roles.
* Even before children are born, parents influence their children’s gender identity
(Kane, 2009).
*Social Learning and Modeling
*Children are most likely to model behaviors of persons they admire, and they
will model behaviors they are rewarded for.
*Children learn gender/sex identities not only by watching their parents, but
also by interacting with them.
*While most gender teaching may be less conscious, sociologist Emily Kane
(2006) found it may be quite conscious. The parents believed their choices would
help steer their children in gendered and sexually-oriented ways the parents
preferred, and that gender is not simply a matter of allowing some natural identity
to emerge.

NEW INFORMATION: Family studies professor Kyle Kostelecky says, “[w]e

spend more time as parents trying to create clear gender roles which are actually
destructive” (personal correspondence, Fall 2005) than trying to create more
flexible gender roles that are libratory and responsive to each person’s
individuality and lived experience.

NEW INFORMATION: Inequalities are created in systematic ways.

One of the first things children tend to learn is the relative value placed on boy
and girl children. While differential treatment of boys is certainly less marked
than it used to be, the underlying bias may still be present, depending on the
ethnic, religious, and social class of the family.
Children face double-standards, such as sons having more freedom than
daughters, later curfew hours, and less monitoring of his peers. (Although these
practices appear necessary given that girls are less safe in this culture, such rules
do not actually challenge the conditions that deny their safety. Also, if it is the
case that girls are not safe because of boys’ actions, it might seem more
reasonable to restrict the boys’ activities rather than the girls.)
In addition, boys traditionally carry on the family name and are expected to make
more money, be more successful in careers, be stronger, be more aggressive, etc.

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 In countries such as China (with its one-child policy), orphanages are filled with
girls, not boys. In poorer areas of India where resources are scarce, girls tend to
receive less food, less education, and less medical care than boys. The trend also
happens in poorer geographic areas and cultures within wealthy countries.
Wherever there is poverty, gender disparity tends to be magnified.

*Social learning does not have to always induce compliance with binary gender roles.
Learning is contextual (Addis, Mansfield, & Syzdek, 2010). 1) The intersection
between race and gender/sex is an important influence on parenting style. Black
feminist scholar Patricia Hill Collins (1994) describes an alternative form of
motherhood evident among those who must prepare children to face
discrimination.

NEW INFORMATION: Communication scholar Mari Boor Tonn (1996), in her

study of labor activist Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, describes how militant
motherhood uses “assertive, even aggressive, modes of presentation. Militant
mothers not only confront their children’s enemy, but must also train their
children to do likewise if the threat they face is ongoing and systematic” (p. 5).

EXTENDED INFORMATION: Parents belonging to marginalized groups not

only act as agents, but also seek to develop agency in their children. When
parenthood is constrained by having to prepare children to face discrimination,
mothers and fathers may be less likely to coddle children. In addition to concern
about social acceptance, parents of oppressed ethnic/racial groups must also be
concerned about their children’s survival.
Hill Collins (1994) points out that much thinking about mothering assumes a form
of “affective nurturing,” in which the private and public spheres are clearly
demarked, and women are the soothers in the private while men provide in the
public (p. 58). However, this fails to explain the experiences of women of color,
who “have performed motherwork that challenges social constructions of work
and family as separate spheres, of male and female gender roles as similarly
dichotomized, and of the search for autonomy as the guiding human quest” (p.
59).

2) Morman and Floyd (2006a, 2006b) report fathers today are generally more
affectionate with sons than fathers in previous generations and that both parties
value physical affection in the relationship, at least until adolescence.
*Parenting seems to encourage some adults to become more restrictive in their
own gender performance. But not all (Ehrensaft, 2011): In the feedback loop
between parent and child [interaction and influence], the transgender or gender
nonconforming child may be shaping the parent far more than the parent is
shaping the child (p. 536).
B. Sibling communication: Children, too, play an active role in constructing
gendered/sexed identities in the family (Ehrensaft, 2011; Kane, 2012; Malpas & Lev,
2011).

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 -Gender schema theory says children acquire a gender identity between ages 2-3.
From there on, they may use that identity to selectively choose stimuli that seem
consistent with this identity.
-Siblings’ birth order seems to influence gender identities, with younger siblings
modeling older siblings’ gendered behaviors.
-Girls who have older brothers have been found to show more masculine
identities than girls without siblings or with other sisters.
-Boys with older sisters have been found to show more feminine identities than
those without or those with older brothers (Eliot, 2009a).
C. Marital communication
*Heterosexual marital communication is the most studied type of relationship.

*Domestic Labor: The issue of domestic labor recurs in discussions of gender/sex in

family communication because domestic labor not only produces household goods
and services, it also produces gender (Coltrane, 1989; Hochschild, 2003; Shelton &
John, 1996).
-Historically, men’s gender role was to be a good financial provider. But, as more
wives entered the paid labor force from the 1950s on, the necessary, unpaid and
often unrecognized duties at home fell into question.
Gender/sex distribution of household work is closer to balanced than ever before.
(women 22 hours, men 17, both with full time paid jobs outside the home)
*Conflict communication:
-popular self-help, reveals communication problems in marriage are to be feared
(instead of seen as a normal result of interdependent lives).
-Because the advice targets women, it positions women as responsible for
addressing marital problems.
-These expectations are largely based on assumptions of binary innate gender
differences. The book title that has made this assumption most vivid is Men Are
from Mars, Women Are from Venus by John Gray (1992).

NEW EXAMPLE: See “Dr. John Gray of Mars Venus coaching talks about Stress in
the sexes.” Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-mUpHjWyOY

NEW EXAMPLE: See “4 Rules for Teaching Your Son to Keep House.” Retrieved
from: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Boys-Doing-Chores-Teaching-Your-Son-to-Cook

*Demand/Withdrawal Pattern: The stereotype of heterosexual couples’ conflict is

that the wife demands and the husband withdraws.
-By definition, the partner who most wants a change demands through
complaints, criticisms or other forms of pressure, and the one who does not want
change resists by withdrawing in some way (Papp, Kouros, & Cummings, 2009).
One behavior triggers the other and vice versa.
-Researchers have found wives tend to demand (i.e., for closeness), and husbands
tend to withdraw (i.e., for independence) (Christensen, Eldridge, Catta-Preta, Lim,
& Santagata, 2006; Walker, 1999; Gottman, 1994).
-These findings have been linked to traditional gender roles.

8
 -The two-culture theory suggests the woman demands because her relationship
orientation is toward talk and the man withdraws because he is socialized to
value unilateral problem solving; men prefer to fix problems alone, and if a
problem cannot be repaired, men will not see value in discussion (Tannen,
1990).
-What research now shows: the person who raises the topic tends to be the
demander regardless of gender/sex in heterosexual and same sex couples
(Baucom, Snyder, & Gordon, 2009; Holley, Sturm, & Levinson, 2010; Papps,
et al., 2009).
-Couples in distressed relationship over time seem to lock into stereotypic
binary genders roles of wife demanding, husband withdrawing, even when
they are not presently in conflict (Eldridge, Sevier, Jones, Arkins, &
Christensen, 2007).
D. Domestic violence
*Intimate violence is the most common form of violence against women in the United
States; 28% to 50% of women experience physical, mental, emotional and/or verbal
abuse from an intimate partner (Catalano, 2012).
-About four in five reported victims of intimate partner violence are female; men
are less likely to report or file charges (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1994-2010;
Catalano, 2012).
*domestic violence: physical, psychological, and/or sexual abuse within a couple or
family unit.
*The institution of family enables violence because it hides and denies that violence
occurs there. Public discussions about domestic violence tend to focus on extreme
forms and consider individual’s psychological illnesses the primary causes of
violence, making it more difficult to recognize the roles of gender and power in
perpetuating violence (Harris, Palazzolo, & Savage, 2012).
*Violence exists in all forms of intimate relationships.
*At least three types of couple violence exists:
1) Wife battering from husbands abusing their power and seeking to control. Also
known as intimate terrorism, Kelly and Johnson (2008) have renamed it coercive
controlling violence: forms of violence where a pattern of multiple strategies are
used to seek power and control over the other person.
-Coercive controlling violence has been tied to the demand/withdraw
conflict pattern.
-Johnson (2006) argues the cultural rhetoric of romance discussed
previously plays a pervasive role in coercive controlling violence.
*Coercive controlling violence should not be understood as an aberration in an
otherwise well functioning gendered family institution. Instead, it ought to be
seen as a possible outcome of the cultural gendered/sexed pressures brought to
bear on families.

NEW INFORMATION: Adams and Coltrane (2005) highlight the linkage

between masculinity and violence: “we expect and encourage boys to pursue our
cultural ideals of masculinity. From early in their youth, we teach them (through
for instance toys and sports) to symbolically correlate competition, violence,

9
 power, and domination with masculinity” (p. 237). As children, boys are
socialized to relate to family in a particular way. By encouraging boys in this way,
“we are . . . defining boys and men away from the family” (p. 237).

NEW INFORMATION: Although masculinity means men are commonly

taught to kill enemies on battlefields, hit opponents in boxing rings, demolish
alien invaders in video games, and tackle competitors on football fields, men also
are taught they should be women’s protectors (why is it that a heterosexual couple
in which the woman is taller or more physically imposing looks odd to many
people?). These conditions create one of the paradoxes of contemporary
manhood. Men are meant to protect women, yet when women are injured it is
usually by a man. In a society that valorizes violence, one should not be surprised
that impulses to violence overwhelm men’s impulses to protection.

NEW INFORMATION: Contrary to common belief, men who abuse intimate

others are not just those who are psychologically imbalanced. Researchers and
clinicians report that abusive men test as “normal on measures of mental stability,
social adjustment, and other standard clinical criteria;” concomitantly, “women
who remain in violent relationships also are not demonstrably atypical of women
in general” (Wood, 2001, p. 241).

2) Violent resistance: a person tries to protect her/himself by resisting the other’s

abuse. The resistance situation that receives the most media attention is women
who murder their partners.
-Coercive controlling violence and violent resistance are not the result of
inherent sex differences but the result of socialization practices that tend to
socialize some men into a form of masculinity that sees violence as a
solution to problems.
3) Situational couple violence. This type of violence is perpetrated by both
partners in heterosexual or same sex relations, married or cohabitating. Either
partner is likely to initiate the violence in specific situations, such as observing
one’s partner flirting with another person, or stress due to finances or child
concerns. The violence typically happens with less frequency and severity, and
partners are not afraid of each other as in coercive controlling violence (Kelly &
Johnson, 2008).

IV. Flexible and Diverse Family Structures Today

*The Journal of Marriage and the Family changed its name in 2001 to the Journal of
Marriage and Family to better recognize the diversity of actual families (inside
cover).
*We do not advocate the replacement of one monolithic model of family with
another.
*We offer examples to illustrate the variety of ways in which gender/sex is being
constructed and changed within diverse families, and how more flexible gendered
communication is actually at the center of helping families thrive.
A. Singles

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 *Contrary to the nuclear myth, a large number of people are single adults in the US
today.
*Most are not without family
-They may have families of choice as in friendships, they have parents, siblings,
sometimes children, nieces, nephews.
-many model for their families more flexibly gendered identities.
-Most have important, long-term relationships.
-They are less likely to settle for a relationship that is not healthy, and they have
the skills of being autonomous and connected (DePaula, 2012).

NEW INFORMATION: “The Leftover Women,” in 2013, “the Communist

government ordered its feminist All-China Women’s Federation to use the derogatory
term in several stinging articles about the growing number of educated, professional,
urban and single females aged 27-30 who have ‘failed’ to find a husband and are
now deemed ‘undesirable’. ‘Pretty girls do not need a lot of education to marry into a
rich and powerful family. But girls with an average or ugly appearance will find it
difficult,’ reads one article titled ‘Leftover Women Do Not Deserve Our Sympathy’.
. . . The proportion of unmarried males that age is over a third higher - but Chinese
men tend to ‘marry down’ both in terms of age and educational attainment.
Simpson, Peter. (2013, February 22). The-leftover-women-China-defines-official-
age-females-left-shelf-27, Mail Online News. Retrieved from:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2282249/The-leftover-women
China-defines-official-age-females-left-shelf-27.html#ixzz2LdpEP

B. Engaged Fatherhood
*If the norm has been for fathers to play more emotionally distant, wage-earning
roles, then an alternative is for fathers to play more interpersonally active,
emotionally engaged roles in the day-to-day care-taking of their children and
other family members.
*Wide variances in fathering have always existed, and researchers continue to find
more evidence of fathers playing central roles in child rearing (Dienhart, 1998;
Cabrera & Tamis-LeMonda, 2013).
*The reality is that many men are primary caregivers. A 2010 U.S. Census Bureau
report shows nearly 3 million men report being single fathers, up from 393,000 in
1970.
*A growing body of research documents men’s increased efforts at engaged
parenting. The benefits of engaged fathers are many, not only for children and
mothers, but also for fathers.
*In a review of research, communication scholars William Doherty and John Beaton
(2004) found a positive relationship between involved parenting and a father’s
psychological well-being, confidence, and self-esteem.

NEW INFORMATION: When men in films portray caring and nurturing, they are
described as unusual or special (e.g. Boyz in the Hood, Crash). When women exhibit
the same behaviors, they are just doing what they should do as women (e.g. Step-

11
 Mom). These portrayals sustain the norms rather than challenge them (Dienhart,
1998).

*Dowd further points out because being an economic provider is a main way men
prove their masculinity, “Black men are denied the means to be men in traditional
terms” (2006, p. 75). Poor men, regardless of race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation
have a more difficult time being involved in parenting. As long as men are
expected to be the primary wage-earners in the home, their ability to share
parenting will be limited.
*Performing fatherhood presents even greater social stigmas for gay men.
Psychologist Charlotte Patterson (1995) says, “The central heterosexist
assumption that everyone is or ought to be heterosexual is nowhere more
prevalent than in the area of parent-child relationships” (p. 255).
C. Same-sex Parents
*Most of the research on non-heterosexual couples focuses on gay and lesbian
families. They are gaining social acceptance due to legalization of same-sex
marriage, the increased number of couples who are public, and the increased
number of children being raised by gay and lesbian couples (Pew report, 2010;
Walsh, 2012).
*A substantial amount of research has examined whether having gay or lesbian
parents negatively affects children’s gender identity development. In a review of
this research, Letitia Peplau and Kristin Beals (2004) reported:
There is no evidence that the children of gay and lesbian parents differ
systematically from children of heterosexual parents. . . . No significant
differences have been found in psychological well-being, self-esteem, behavioral
problems, intelligence, cognitive abilities, or peer relations. . . . There is no
evidence that the children of gay or lesbian parents are confused or uncertain
about their gender identity” (p. 242).
*One of the common criticisms of same-sex couples is that they will raise their
children to also be homosexual, which suggests that sexual orientation is a
teachable choice. Existing research shows that the majority of children from
lesbian and gay parents grow up to identify as heterosexual, just like children
from heterosexual parents (Patterson, 2000).
D. Raising Transgender/sex Children
*Research shows parents navigate complex tensions between accepting and loving
their child and protecting their child from external social rejections (Norwood, 2012,
MacNish & Gold-Peifer, 2011, Lev & Malpas, 2011).

V. Conclusion
*The institution of family in the US is not dying or in crisis.
*Individual families are finding diverse ways of defining family. Many of these resist
some parts of predominant cultural gender role expectations. They suggest more
acceptance is warranted for gender fluidity that enables members of families and families
as a unit to adjust more effectively to changes.
*Subtle Way Adults Can Encourage Gender Flexibility:

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 Model flexible gender/sex behaviors -- parents should take turn cooking or fixing
the car.
 Be aware of what you model -- in criticizing their own bodies, parents may be
modeling unhealthy behaviors.
 Provide diverse gendered/sexed experiences -- encourage a child to play sports
and participate in theatre; encourage a variety of playmates, rather than only
same-sex playmates.
 Buy gender inclusive toys to develop skills and creativity.
 Monitor you interruptions. Stop behaviors of bullying and other dominance
patterns.
 Promote gender/sex equality through values, rules, and norms.
 Teach thoughtfulness -- avoid talk that perpetuates “boys will be boys” or “girls
should be doormats”
 Compliment a range of attributes -- recognize all of a child’s strengths, not just
those that are gender specific. Instead, compliment children for being inquisitive,
fearless, caring, and creative.

(Adapted from Knudson-Martin, 2012; Forbeswoman, 2012)

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