Talk:Nuclear family/Archive 1

Stub?

Shouldn't this article be considered a stub? It clearly needs to be expanded. I would mark it myself if I knew how to. 69.208.252.35 02:32, 12 May 2006 (UTC)amyanda2000

"Failed" Kibbutz "Experiment"

With, as shown by the kibbutz article, 267 kibbutzim in Israel as of 2001, with a total population of 115,500, is it really fair to call kibbutzim a "failed experiment"? It seems to me that this article should mention that the kibbutzim had an original goal of raising children communally, and beyond that a link to the actual article should suffice. Junjk 14:31, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I think this deserves a link to another article, but it hardly significant enough to be included in the article. DavidBailey 10:48, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

christian living

what are the classifications of family

heterosexual marriage a prerequisite?

In January 2005, someone added "married heterosexual" to the term "two parents". What is the source for this addition and is this a generally accepted view?--Bhuck 21:48, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Bhuck it is commonly accepted that nuclear families are traditional families with one father and one mother. Here are some references. [1] [2] [3] [4]

The fourth reference is not exactly what I would consider neutral. Most of the references do not make marriage a prerequisite. I had not considered the issue of single-parent families yet, but I must say I am surprised that a single-parent family would not qualify as a nuclear family. My understanding was that the term was created in order to distinguish itself from the "extended family" which would include cousins, grandparents, etc. Clearly, biologically, everyone has a father and mother, but obviously the social construct of family and the biological concept of parenthood often differ for a variety of reasons. Unless you think "traditional family" would refer to the extended family, I don't see why you would need to say that "nuclear families are traditional families."--Bhuck 12:50, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Here is an example of a more generalized concept.--Bhuck 12:59, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Pages 4 and 6 are also relevant to this discussion.--Bhuck 13:21, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I am surprised at the degree to which two-parent-ness is considered a prerequisite for being a nuclear family. If one parent dies, does the surving parent-child constellation become an extended family or what kind of family are they then?--Bhuck 13:23, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

You are right, the fourth reference wasn't neutral, it was for irony. I read similar references to yours. There are nearly none who define a "nuclear family" as being anything other than a father and mother with children. In a few cases, I read some articles that recommended the definition be extended to include a widow or widower with children, or the same with a grandparent, etc. I have not seen this in enough articles from authoritative sources to say that this is currently an accepted definition. After all, if nuclear family stops meaning two heterosexual parents (typically married) with children, just how is it that you refer to a "traditional" family structure without ambiguity or over-wordliness? DavidBailey 03:14, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

There are a fair number which refer to "parents and children" instead of specifying the gender of the parents. The foreign-language interwiki links also show differing treatments. German and Swedish say father and mother, French doesn't, if I remember correctly (was a couple days since I checked). What's wrong with "traditional family" to refer to the heterosexual married couple with children? The point of "nuclear family" when the term was created, was to differentiate it from the extended family. A widow and her child are also not an extended family, any more than two lesbians and their children are.--Bhuck 14:59, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I saw some of those references too, but they were mostly from people advocating the need to consider changing the term, not from authoritative sources stating that that was the current definition. Also, in cases where there was no specificity from the author regarding the couple with children, to me, it seemed an omission of what the writer might consider obvious, not a statement that current controversy over language might be fit to sometimes older less-explicit definitions. Please cite some references if you have found some authoritative sources that explicitly state otherwise. The ones I found were either vague through omission or specific as to the heterosexuality of the parents. DavidBailey 21:29, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I think the UN source I cited above is a good example to demonstrate that what people once considered to be obvious is now being reconsidered. It is unclear to me that the sources like Merriam-Webster, when they write "father, mother, and children", considered the issues of stepparents, artificial insemination, or other statistically rare cases, and then consciously chose to exclude such cases. Where such cases are explicitly considered, they fall into two categories: those who accept such families as nuclear families (because they are not extended), or those who reject such families as nuclear families (because they are not heterosexual).--Bhuck 12:30, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

A Google search for "heterosexual nuclear family" (using the quotes to specify the words in that order) turns up over 700 entries. "Nuclear heterosexual family" turns up over 100 more. Searching for a redundant term like "opposite-gender heterosexual family" turns up zero results. Therefore, there is evidence that a wide variety of sources do not perceive "heterosexual" to be redundant when applied to the term "nuclear family", but to believe that there must also be non-heterosexual nuclear families from which the heterosexual ones can be distinguished.--Bhuck 12:37, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Bhuck, I read the references. In one case, I believe the term couple means "heterosexual couple". As Google has returns over 2.4 million references for "nuclear family", "heterosexual nuclear family" and Nuclear heterosexual family" returns in the hundreds are statistically insignificant. DavidBailey 20:46, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the term couple means "heterosexual couple" on p. 6 of the UN document I was pointing you to. If you will allow me to quote that here, Finally - although still not recognized in most countries and affecting only a small percentage of the population - the increasing display of sexual orientation implies the slow emergence and recognition of same-sex couples, with or without children, in a new “same sex nuclear family” form. I have not argued that same-sex nuclear families constitute either a majority of all nuclear families, nor have I argued that the number of usages in which the term nuclear family occurs in a context in which a clear decision for or against heterosexual exclusivity is taken even approaches half of all usages of the term. So I'm not quite sure what the comparison between all uses of the term "nuclear family" and the number of uses in which the issue of heterosexuality is explicitly considered is supposed to prove. My point is that sometimes this issue is considered, and that when it is considered, sometimes the term is used in a way that is not exclusively heterosexual.--Bhuck 08:50, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I was referring to the other article actually. You'll notice that the UN article qualifies the "nuclear family" as a "same-sex nuclear family". Do you feel that the article needs to have a paragraph about "same-sex nuclear families" or that a new article should be created to discuss this phenomenon? DavidBailey 14:06, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't think a new article is necessary. Adding a paragraph about same-sex nuclear families would certainly be one solution to address the case that there are varied uses of the term.--Bhuck 13:01, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to add one, I think it needs to note the fact that this is a new and relatively rare usage of this term. A citation to the UN article would be appropriate. DavidBailey 13:22, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think it's better to keep the article in more general terms. I have modified the article in the way I consider most appropriate for this purpose--the UN source doesn't really fit there, since the current text does not focus specifically on the same-sex usage, but simply states more generally that "Opinions differ...", which seems a fair statement.--Bhuck 08:47, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Considering how new and unusual it is for the term to be used in this fashion, I think it best to split it off of the opening paragraph and put it in its own section. DavidBailey 01:10, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Bhuck, the actual paragraph used by the UN article is following:

Finally - although still not recognized in most countries and affecting only a small percentage of the population - the increasing display of sexual orientation implies the slow emergence and recognition of same-sex couples, with or without children, in a new “same sex nuclear family” form.[5]

Considering this, and the fact that this usage is currently so rare, I do not feel it appropriate or NPOV to include a same sex nuclear family on the same grounds as a heterosexual nuclear family. Even the UN article, which tends to be relatively socially liberal when it comes to family policy, uses the term "same sex nuclear family" to distinguish. DavidBailey 18:50, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the version of the article that you changed put same-sex nuclear families "on the same grounds" as a heterosexual nuclear family. It clearly noted that one usage was more common than the other, and with a "however" underlined the point that the same-sex usage was less common. It does not seem logical to me to put one usage up front and another usage in a place completely unrelated; rather the differing usages should be grouped together--I would think this would also serve the purpose you are trying to accomplish in pointing out that one usage is more common than the other.--Bhuck 09:53, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

It is common in Wikipedia articles to put the most common usage in the opening paragraph. The paragraph below can be used to distinguish other less common uses. DavidBailey 01:17, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

External references and citations

I've tried to clean up and add some references. I'd appreciate some help with formatting and additional references. DavidBailey 12:03, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Purportedly "inappropriate" edits

I don't understand what you feel is inappropriate about my most recent edits. I don't think it makes much sense to have a heading in the article "Nuclear family" which is identical to the title of the article. By using the quote to illustrate the most common use and by describing the most common use before discussing variations, I think 'my' version presents the same information in a more flowing and less choppy and redundant fashion.--Bhuck 10:50, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Bhuck, you're the one who wanted to put obscure usages on the page. I'm simply trying to accomodate you without having the article read that all of those definitions have equal weight. It is typical to put the most common use of a term into the introductory paragraph. You have objected to having the more-obscure variations in their own header below, so I have compromised by putting all of the variations below. That, however, doesn't mean you remove the most common use from the opening paragraph. DavidBailey 21:41, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

This doesn't affect the opening paragraph at all. Your discussion contribution indicates your revert must have been a misunderstanding. --Bhuck 02:17, 31 May 2006 (UTC) (from history page)

Perhaps you're right, I may have reverted in error. I look over it again when I get a chance. Thanks. DavidBailey 22:23, 31 May 2006 (UTC)