Sex/uality Artifacts

Hi guys! I’m Sydney and I did my artifact on the changing definition of family in America. In the article, Proper Families, it discusses the most well-known definition of a family. This includes a heterosexual married couple with two genetic children. It goes on to discuss how those who deviated from this family structure were ostracized and looked at negatively. Families who deviated from this might include adopted families, same-sex families, unmarried families, mixed-religion families and so on and so forth. Although this is still the traditional family model for many people today, we as a society are moving more towards a modern family idea. The acceptance of same-sex couples, mixed-race couples, and adopted children in families has grown dramatically since the early 2000’s. As the years go on society has spent less time favoring the idea of having one strict model of a family. Although we still might see this as the dominant model, we are accepting other definitions of family as well. We are beginning to look at a family as whatever we feel are family is. If you believe your family is your significant other, child (ren) (biological or not), and pet then we have acknowledged that that is perfectly acceptable. We have began to normalize the idea of having many diverse family structures and it is allowing people to feel comfortable accepting that themselves and not feeling “wrong” for not following the traditional family model. We can see this in the proper families article when the author recognizes the fact that diverse families are becoming much more common. This is evident during the court case between Paula’s mothers and her genetic father. When the two girls begin to grow up Mark, the father, decides he want more custody of his genetic children. This causes a conflict and when Paula is asked how she feels about the situation she says she does not consider him her father. She considers her family her two mothers and her sister. Paula is completely content with the fact that she has two moms instead of a mom and a dad. This also shows that children aren’t negatively affected by not having a family that fits the traditional mold. She doesn’t need a father to consider her family, family. This reinforcing this notion of moving toward a more inclusive family idea rather than sticking closely to the proper family model and that family is something that we, ourselves, create rather than what society creates.