Hi, I'm currently studying Yr 11 CAFS, and I wrote an essay at school on "Assess the ability of different family structures to fulfill a range of functions."
I would appreciate it if someone could take the time to read it and tell me what they think, suppose the essay was out of 10.
There are nine types of family structures that can be formed within society, and regardless of their size, composition, skills, or ability, they all have specific functions to perform in order to maintain the wellbeing of all their members. The family structures are Nuclear, Blended, Extended, Communal, De-facto, Foster, Adoptive, Sole-Parent, and Childless, and the functions that all family members have the responsibility to perform include physical, economic, social, emotional, cultural, adaptive and moral, spiritual and religious. The ability of each family structure to perform specific functions depending on their skills, age, resources, composition , financial status and other factors.
One specific family structure that might have difficulty performing certain types of functions include a sole-parent family. A sole-parent family is a family that has children but no partner to help with raising their children. A sole-partner must fulfil it's physical functions - of food, clothing, shelter and healthcare with only one income. This can be difficult because many sole-parents may not be able to work due to the fact that they constantly have to look after their children. If they do work, it will most probably be part-time which may not be enough income coming in to provide for their physical needs on a daily basis. However, a sole-parent family still should be able to fulfil physical needs with the help of government assistance and perhaps financial support from the extended family. Economic functions may also be particularly difficult for sole-parents, with less income coming in, they may have more difficulty than other family structures in fulfilling their secondary needs, and they will probably not be able to afford to send their child to a private school due to their expenses. Emotional functions can be performed in this family - and they might be necessary due to large levels of stress placed especially on the sole-parent due to the large amount of responsibilities faced on him/her.
Large families like Communal and Blended families and nuclear families (families that can have 2 or more adults) can easily fulfil a range of functions. With two incomes coming in, affording their physical needs of food, clothing, water and shelter shouldn't be too difficult. Their primary needs won't be difficult to achieve, and secondary needs should be achieved with little difficulty. They should also be able to afford to send their children into university. Emotional functions can be and should be able to be performed with this type of family structure. With changes, families with 2 adults should be able to adapt as they have more resources available to them . In communal families, individuals can share resources and ease the financial and emotional strain on all individuals, therefore fulfilling physical and economic functions can be done easily, maintaining the wellbeing of all. In Blended family, cultural functions to fulfil may be difficult and can cause conflict - if one side of the family has different cultural customs to the other. This is especially also a problem in Communal arrangements too - as maintaining the culture of many different individuals and families is not easy, and can cause conflict. Large families like these only have more people to offer and to get love, support and encouragement from.
Adoptive and Foster Families are those families that may have natural children and children not biologically related. Having extra children or having children come into the family unit may affect the degree to which the family is able to fulfil their functions. It may mean that the parents may have to start working over-time to cover for the extra child, and if they can't - then the physical functions for that particular child/children won't be able to be fulfilled. The family will also have less finances to afford their secondary needs or luxuries if that extra bit of money goes towards caring for the extra child. Also, cultural functions may be difficult to perform if the child adopted or fostered is from another country and has different cultural customs to the family which has adopted them, again causing conflict. Emotional functions may be an important function in this family - if the child fostered or adopted came from an negligent family and has not had their needs met, they may be have to shown love, support and encouragement when in need. This function can be met easily.
Childless families - it may be more easy to fulfil certain functions than if they had children - it may be easier for them to fulfil physical and economic functions as they only have to cover 2 adults. Emotional functions may also be satisfied easily; social functions may also be more easy to perform as they can spend more time together without having to look after any children. Same story for Same-Sex Couples and De-Facto, providing they have no dependants.
Overall, it can be see that the way families fulfil different functions depend on their size, their resources available, their skills, and amount of income that comes in for the family and their composition.
