Prenthood and Grandparenthood
The socialization of children is essential to the maintenance of any culture. Consequently, parenthood is one of the most important and most demanding social roles in the United States.
Sociologist Alice Rossi (1968, 1984) has identified four factors that complicate the transition to parenthood and the role of socialization.
Factor #1: There is little anticipatory socialization for the social role of caregiver. The normal school curriculum gives scant attention to the subjects most relevant to successful family life, such as child care and home maintenance. Factor #2: only limited learning occurs during the period of pregnancy itself.
Factor #3: the transition to parenthood is quite abrupt. Unlike adolescence, it is not prolonged; unlike the transition to work, the duties of caregiving cannot be taken on gradually. Factor #4: in Rossi's view, our society lacks clear and helpful guidelines for successful parenthood. There is little consensus on how parents can produce happy and well-adjusted offspring - or even on what it means to be well-adjusted. For these reasons, socialization for parenthood involves difficult challenges.
One recent development in family life in the United States has been the extension of parenthood, as adult children continue to live at home or return home after college. In 2008, 56 percent of men and 44 percent of women ages 18 to 24 lived with their parents. Some of these adult children were still pursuing an education, but in many instances, financial difficulties lay at the heart of these living arrangements.
While rents and real estate prices have skyrocketed, salaries for younger workers have not kept pace, and many find themselves unable to afford their own homes. Moreover, considering that divorce is most common in the first seven years of marriage, divorced sons and daughters often return to live with their parents, sometimes with their own children.
Is this living arrangement a positive development for family members? Social scientists have just begun to examine the phenomenon, sometimes called the "boomerang generation" or the "full-nest syndrome" in the popular press. One survey in Virginia seemed to show that neither the parents nor their adult children were happy about continuing to live together. The children often felt resentful and isolated, but the parents suffered too. Learning to live without children in the home is an essential stage of adult life, and may even be a significant turning point for a marriage.
In some homes, the full nest holds grandchildren. In 2004, 6.5 million children, or 9 percent of all children in the United States, lived in a household with a grandparent. In about a third of these homes, no parent was present. Special difficulties are inherent in such relationships, including legal custodial concerns, financial issues, and emotional problems for adults and youths alike. It is not surprising that support groups such as "Grandparents as Parents" have emerged to provide assistance.
Adoption is a process that allows for the transfer of the legal rights, responsibilities, and privileges of parenthood to a new legal parent or parents.
In many cases, these rights are transferred from a biological parent or parents (often called birth parents) to an adoptive parent or parents. At any given time, about 2 million adults in the United States are raising adopted children. Viewed from a functionalist perspective, the government has a strong interest in encouraging adoption.
Policymakers, in fact, have both a humanitarian and a financial stake in the adoption process. In theory, adoption offers a stable family environment for children who otherwise might not receive satisfactory care. Moreover, government data show that unwed mothers who keep their babies tend to be of lower socioeconomic status and often require public assistance to support their children.
The government can lower its social welfare expenses, then, if children are transferred to economically self-sufficient families. However, from an interactionist perspective, adoption may require a child to adjust to a very different family environment and parental approach to child rearing.
Of all people in the United States who are adopted, about half were adopted by persons not related to them at birth. There are two legal methods of adopting an unrelated person: the adoption may be arranged through a licensed agency, or in some states it may be arranged through a private agreement sanctioned by the courts. Adopted children may come from the United States or from abroad. In 2008 over 17,000 children entered the United States as the adopted children of U.S. citizens.
