Family Disintegration: The Family as Fading Focal Point  

Oleh:

Milne, Brian

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Childhood: A Journal of Global Child Research vol. 01 no. 03 (Aug. 1993), page 156-164.
Topik: Kinship; Nuclear Family; Child Abuse; Neglect; Boredom; Convention on the Rights of the Child; Behaviour
Fulltext: Childhood-1993-Milne-156-164 (04Y088).pdf (847.12KB)

Isi artikel

This paper explores the possibility that children are victims of the quality of life within the family. The traditional Western family, or nuclear family, has been imposed on other societies through colonisation, religious conversion and, more recently, their aspirations to emulate Western life styles. Is this a social time bomb? In the Western world kinship is no longer the powerful social institution that governs status within the family. Now that many adult caretakers are working long hours away from their homes, children have less contact and less interest in family affairs. Individuation has superseded familial solidarity. Children are neglected, as too neglecting their families themselves. Overshadowing this is the recent awareness of child abuse that adds to our reasons to call for revision of our traditional view that the family is focal to our childhood, development and social orientation. Are we becoming bored with each other? The Convention on the Rights of the Child begins to give children much needed protection and a voice of their own. Is that sufficient? It does not protect the family, nor is there any equivalent legislation for the family. This paper is based on some findings of research into the lives of children and youth who have run away from home in the Netherlands. Those young people, thrust into a world of self-dependence are just one symptom of the malaise within nuclear family structures in the modern world. However, evidence begins to reveal another aspect of these changes: they are often not wilful, indeed child abuse is sometimes the only expression of affection possible. The paper, therefore, concludes that improvements for children and their families must come with legal and constitutional changes that give children voices that express their needs and points of view.

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