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{{Short description|Group of two parents and their children}}{{About|the concept|works using that title|Nuclear Family (disambiguation){{!}}Nuclear Family}}(File:W.H. Shumard family, circa 1955.jpg|right|thumb|alt=A man, woman, and two children smiling outside of a house|An American nuclear family composed of the mother, father, and their children, {{circa|1955}})A nuclear family (also known as an elementary family, atomic family, cereal packet familyBOOK, Browne, K., An Introduction to Sociology, Wiley, 2011, 978-0-7456-5008-1,weblink December 18, 2022, 135, or conjugal family) is a family group consisting of parents and their children (one or more), typically living in one home residence. It is in contrast to a single-parent family, a larger extended family, or a family with more than two parents. Nuclear families typically center on a married couple which may have any number of children. There are differences in definition among observers. Some definitions allow only biological children who are full-blood siblings and consider adopted or half- and step-siblings a part of the immediate family, but others allow for a step-parent and any mix of dependent children, including stepchildren and adopted children. Some sociologists and anthropologists consider the extended family structure to be the most common family structure in most cultures and at most times, rather than the nuclear family.WEB, Extended Family - an overview {{!, ScienceDirect Topics |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/extended-family |access-date=2022-07-21 |website=www.sciencedirect.com}}The term nuclear family was popularized in the 20th century. Since that time, the number of North American nuclear families is gradually decreasing, while the number of alternative family formations has increased.JOURNAL, Aragão, Carolina, Parker, Kim, Greenwood, Shannon, Baronavski, Chris, Mandapat, John Carlo, 14 September 2023, The Modern American Family,weblink live, Pew Research Center,weblink 3 October 2023,

Etymology

The term nuclear family first appeared in the early 20th century. Merriam-Webster dates the term back to 1924,WEB,weblink nuclear family, Merriam-Webster, October 5, 2020, First Known Use of nuclear family1924, in the meaning defined above, while the Oxford English Dictionary has a reference to the term from 1925; thus it is relatively new. The phrase is taken from the general use of the noun nucleus, itself originating in the Latin , meaning "nut", i.e. the core of something.{{efn|Any similarity to the terminology of nuclear warfare, nuclear power, nuclear fission etc. is therefore coincidental, even in spite of its association with the early Atomic Age.}}In its most common usage, the term nuclear family refers to a household consisting of a father, a mother, and their children,WEB,weblink Nuclear family - Definition and pronunciation, Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, 2021-03-05, all in one household dwelling. George Murdock, an observer of families, offered an early description: }}Many individuals are part of two nuclear families in their lives: the family of origin in which they are offspring, and the family of procreation in which they are a parent.BOOK,weblink registration, 27, An Introduction to Family Social Work, Donald, Collins, Catheleen, Jordan, Heather, Coleman, Cengage Learning, 2009, 978-0-495-60188-3, 3, Alternative definitions have evolved to include family units with same-sex parents,ENCYCLOPEDIA, 2011, Nuclear family, Encyclopædia Britannica Online, Encyclopædia Britannica,weblink 2011-07-24, adoption, and perhaps additional adult relatives who take on a cohabiting parental role."Strictly, a nuclear or elementary or conjugal family consists merely of parents and children, though it often includes one or two other relatives as well, for example, a widowed parent or unmarried sibling of one or other spouse."Sloan Work and Family Research Network, citing Parkin, R. (1997). Kinship: An introduction to basic concepts. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Retrieved April 18, 2012.

History

DNA extracted from bones and teeth discovered at a 4,600-year-old Stone Age burial site in Germany has provided the earliest evidence for the social recognition of a family consisting of two parents with multiple children.WEB,weblink World's Earliest Nuclear Family Found, ScienceDaily, Historians Alan Macfarlane and Peter Laslett, among other European researchers, say that nuclear families have been a primary arrangement in England since the 13th century.BOOK, Berger, Brigitte,weblink The family in the modern age : more than a lifestyle choice, 2002, Transaction Publishers, 0-7658-0121-3, New Brunswick, N.J., 100, 48140349, This primary arrangement was different from the normal arrangements in Southern Europe, in parts of Asia, and the Middle East, where it was common for young adults to remain in or marry into the family home. In England, multi-generational households were uncommon{{When|date=March 2022}} because young adults would save enough money to move out, into their own household once they married. Sociologist Brigitte Berger argued, "the young nuclear family had to be flexible and mobile as it searched for opportunity and property. Forced to rely on their own ingenuity, its members also needed to plan for the future and develop bourgeois habits of work and saving."NEWS, The Real Roots of the Nuclear Family, en, Institute for Family Studies,weblink 2017-03-28, Berger also mentions that this could be one of the reasons that the Industrial Revolution began in England and other Northwest European countries. However, the historicity of the nuclear family in England has been challenged by Cord Oestmann.BOOK, Cord Oestmann,weblink Lordship and Community: The Lestrange Family and the Village of Hunstanton, Norfolk, in the First Half of the Sixteenth Century, Boydell Press, 1994, 978-0-85115-351-3, 53–, Family structures of a married couple and their children were present in Western Europe and New England in the 17th century, influenced by church and theocratic governments.BOOK, Volo, James M.,weblink Family life in 17th- and 18th-century America, Volo, Dorothy Denneen, Greenwood, 2006, 978-0-313-33199-2, 42, With the emergence of proto-industrialization and early capitalism, the nuclear family became a financially viable social unit.Traditions and Encounters: A Brief Global History (New York: McGraw Hill, 2008).

Compared with extended family

File:Svinhufvud med familj.jpg|thumb|P. E. Svinhufvud, the President of Finland (in the middle), with his family on his 75th birthday in 1936]]An extended group consists of non-nuclear (or "non-immediate") family members considered together with nuclear (or "immediate") family members. When extended family is involved they also influence children's development just as much as the parents would on their own.JOURNAL, LaFave, Dainel, Thomas, Duncan, March 2012, Extended family and child well being,weblink Extended Family and Child Well Being, In an extended family resources are usually shared among those involved, adding more of a community aspect to the family unit. This is not limited to the sharing of objects and money, but includes sharing time. For example, extended family members such as

Changes to family formation

For social conservatism in the United States and Canada, the idea that the nuclear family is traditional is a very important aspect, where family is seen as the primary unit of society. These movements oppose alternative family forms and social institutions that are seen by them to undermine parental authority. The number of nuclear families is slowly dwindling in the US as more women pursue higher education, develop professional lives, and delay having children until later in their life.NEWS,weblink 1. The American family today, 2015-12-17, Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project, 2018-04-10, en-US, Children and marriage have become less appealing as many women continue to face societal, familial, and/or peer pressure to give up their education and career to focus on stabilizing the home. As ethnic and cultural diversity continues to grow in the United States, it has become more difficult for the traditional nuclear family to remain the norm. Data from 2014 also suggests that single parents and the likelihood of children living with one is correlated with race. The Pew Research Center projected that 54% of African Americans will be single parents compared to only 19% of European Americans. Several factors account for the differences in family structure including economic and social class. Differences in education level also change the amount of single parents. In 2014, those with less than a high school education are 46% more likely to be a single parent compared to 12% who have graduated from college.Critics of the term "traditional family" point out that in most cultures and at most times, the extended family model has been most common, not the nuclear family,WEB,weblink Parenting Myths And Facts, NPR.org, though the nuclear family has had a longer tradition in Englandsee {{section link|History of the family|Evolution of household}} than in other parts of Europe and Asia which contributed large numbers of immigrants to the Americas. The nuclear family became the most common form in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s.WEB,weblink History of Nuclear Families, January 3, 2017, bebusinessed.com, The concept that narrowly defines a nuclear family as central to stability in modern society that has been promoted by familialists who are social conservatives in the United States, and has been challenged as historically and sociologically inadequate to describe the complexity of actual family relations.JOURNAL, Johnson, Miriam M., 1 January 1963, Sex Role Learning in the Nuclear Family, Child Development, 34, 2, 319–333, 10.2307/1126730, 1126730, 13957857, In "Freudian Theories of Identification and Their Derivatives" Urie Bronfenbrenner states, "Very little is known about the extent variation in the behavior of fathers and mothers towards sons and daughters, and even less about the possible effects on such differential treatment." Little is known about how parental behavior and identification processes work, and how children interpret sex role learning. In his theory, he uses "identification" with the father in the sense that the son will follow the sex role provided by his father and then for the father to be able to identify the difference of the "cross sex" parent for his daughter.

See also

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• Astronaut family
• Clan
• Eskimo kinship
• Extended family
• Family relationships
• Family values
• Hajnal line
• Human bonding
• Immediate family
• Intentional community
• Joint family
• {{section link|Kibbutz|Child rearing}}
• Origins of society
• Sociology of the family
• Structural functionalism

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Notes

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References

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External links

• (iarchive:DateWith1950|A Date With Your Family), a 1950s social guidance film about an idealized family dinner
• weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20170806204058weblink">The Nuclear Family from Buzzle.com
• Early Human Kinship was Matrilineal by Chris Knight. (anthropological debates as to whether the nuclear family is natural and universal).

{{Family}}{{Parenting}}{{Accommodation}}{{Authority control}}