What Is Family? Chapter 2

In the conservative or rather right-wing approaches, the family has a very high value because family is the basis of social control and basis of social of how they build harmony and unity in the society. Family is a very important institution in society. It is based on some assumptions. One of these is a ''normal'' way of living. Within this normal way of living, we assume that there should be a married couple. Marriage here is in quotation because marriage and married couple with children that is the normal model according to this assumption. In that sense, cohabitation or single-parent families or homosexual families, that is all kinds of other forms except marriage which is considered as a normal one, even extended forms of families are abnormal, that is out of the norm. So, the normal is accepted as a sort of a nuclear family with parents and their children to be to exist in the society.

Another assumption is about the gender division of labor. In such a family, it is assumed that there are differences in functions between the man and the woman. It is like men should be the major breadwinners of the house, bringing in money income for the major survival. On the other hand, we would have the accommodated functions such as serving with the cleaning keeping up the house, and caring. It is a division of labor that goes with this gendered division of labor. This kind of gendered division of labor is possible in Turkish society or in some of the traditional families. As a current joke or as a current kind of praise, it is stated that a woman is the minister of interior and a man is an exterior minister. This is a major reference in traditional Turkish families. So, this is mainly based on the productive capacity of the women as well. Since women are giving birth, they should be also taking good care of the children. Another assumption is that the family is responsible for the welfare of its members rather than the state and society. There is more and more neoliberal understanding in the West, it is mostly left to the individual himself herself the responsibility of welfare. In the Cold War, between the 60s to 80s, was mainly left to the states, the state was responsible for the welfare of its citizens.

According to the conservatism, the role models of the parents of this married couple are very important for the children. Therefore, any kind of single-parent family or the children of divorced families are considered to be potential deviance for society. Within the single-parent families, mean that motherless family or a fatherless family, the fatherless family is very important and really critical because the father or men are considered to be major breadwinners of the house. Therefore, a fatherless family comes much more being a subject to criticization to monitoring by the authorities. So, what normal parenting is but how it should be approved form of parenthood and parenting is a discussion within this approach. The correct forms of parenting now the case, if they developed the socio-economic situation of the members of any family is a major concern. In that sense, the poverty of families is also a significant issue for the authorities. In this approach, if a family is falling into poverty it has to be supported by various poverty allocation programs.