NAME: Opoku asiamah Clinton

PROGRAMME: B.A. SOCIAL STUDIES WITH ECONOMICS

COURSE TITLE: THE INDIVIDUAL, FAMILY AND SOCIETY

COURSE CODE: SSE 113

LEVEL: 100(A)

LECTURER’S NAME: Rev. DR. PAUL KUMAH

Index number: 5220210023

QUESTION: THE EXTENDED FAMMILY SEEMS TO BE LOSING Its

SIGNIFICANCE IN MORDERN TIMES. EXPATIATE
NATURE 
The family unit at one time cared for both the larger society and for its members. Children,
elders, and incapacitated members were the responsibility of the extended family. The
nuclear family and single parent families, while perhaps economically viable, are not capable
of caring for the larger needs of the larger family.

INCIDENCE 
The splitting up of the nuclear family between husband/wife, parents/children,
sons/daughters is a critical factor in the breakdown of the extended family where
grandparents, grandchildren, in-laws, uncles, aunts, cousins and others are in close
relationship. A secondary cause is mobility, which uproots part of the extended family and
takes it to a totally different region or even country. Other obstacles to extended families
include the belief that the state can and should take care of senior citizens, the belief in
having fewer or no children, and the erosion of community life.

CLAIM 
Under the strain of 20th Century changes, the family has shifted from the survival-oriented
care structure of the past to a decisional unit of community care. In the past, the kinship
structure of tribal societies effectively cared for the needs of all ages through a system of
inter-family obligation. Nowadays, kinship demands seem unrealistic and no one part of a
family can care for the whole. There is a strain between the maintenance of old obligations
and operating as a single, self-sustained social unit (such as the obligation to extend credit to
kin beyond own financial capabilities). In this transitional situation, there are no structures to
supply care for old people or for single parent families. Young people have no strong memory
of the kinship system, do not identify with the fragments still remaining, but have no
alternative images of family life for themselves. Families that have successfully adjusted as
an independent unit may have done so at the expense of their relations, often causing further
confusion and alienation.
COUNTER-CLAIM 

Nostalgia for "the family" is sabotaging attempts to make today's families, in all their infinite
variety, work. Children thrive in any kind of family that provides stable and committed
parenting.