The American Family

Family Daily Routines

It is not a bad idea to have a kind of subdivision of labour at home when each person knows his own daily households jobs. The children should keep their own room tidy, make their beds, set the table for meals, clear away the dishes and wash up. The mother could then concentrate on the more specialized jobs of cooking, ironing and mending. It would be useless, however, if the children promised to help, and failed to do their jobs, so that she constantly had to say: “I wish you would make your bed, Carol.”

Shopping at the supermarket could be a kind of family outing, if they all were free at the right time and went together and helped to choose the goods and push the trolley.

1) Read the following text..

Most American families consist of a mother, a father, and three or four children living at home. There may be relatives – grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and in-laws in the same community, but American families usually maintain separate households. This familial structure is known as the “nuclear family”. It is unusual for members of the family other than the husband, wife, and children to live together. Occasionally an aging grandparent may live with the family, but this arrangement is usually not considered desirable. Although the nuclear family unit is economically independent of the rest of the family, members of the whole family group often maintain close kinship ties. Visiting between parents and their married children and between married sisters and brothers is frequent when they live close to each other. If they live in different communities, they keep in touch by writing letters and by telephone.

In the American family the husband and wife usually share important decision making. When the children are old enough, they participate as well. Foreign observers are frequently amazed by the permissiveness of American parents. The old rule that “children should be seen and not heard” is rarely followed, and children are often allowed to do what they wish without strict parental control. The father seldom expects his children to obey him without question, and children are encouraged to be independent at an early age. Some people believe that American parents carry this freedom too far. Young people are expected to break away from their parental families by the time they have reached their late teens or early twenties. Indeed, not to do so is often regarded as a failure, a kind of weak dependence.

This pattern of independence often results in serious problems for the aging parents of a nuclear family. The job-retirement is usually 65. The children have left home, married, and set their own households. Elderly couples feel useless and lonely with neither an occupation nor a close family group. Many communities and church groups sponsor social centers for “senior citizens”.

At these centers older men and women can make friends and participate in a variety of planned activities, including games, trips, lectures, and discussion groups. These programs may help some old people, but they do not provide the complete solution to the problems of old age.

2) give the equivalents to: родственники жены или мужа, вести раздельное хозяйство, маленькая семья (из двух поколений), желательный, поддерживать тесные родственные связи, поддерживать связь, разделять ответственность за принятие решений, снисходительность/ попустительство, строгий родительский контроль, слушаться, оторваться от семьи, считаться провалом/ неудачей, пожилые люди/ старшее поколение

Дата добавления: 2014-12-29