What Is a Family?
The book Family Communication: Cohesion and Change is, in most ways, a prototype explaining family interaction patterns using several communication theories. Chapter one of the book takes the audience on a journey that answers the question ”what is family ?” The section accomplishes this by covering foundations of family communications, defining family, presenting the family as a system, and describing the contemporary family.
The book asserts that family communication can best be understood through the frameworks of a relation culture. Through the culture, family members share a set of meanings, rules, and expectations that create a unique communication system. Thus, the book argues that the interconnectedness of family made possible by communication. As a result, the authors define family as a network of people bound by blood, marriages, or law and who share their lives over periods, share a history and have an anticipating future.
The authors posit that the family is a system, implying that family members have to communicate with each other. Within the system, each member has a role to play and rules to respect; thus, members respond to each other within patterns of expected behavior (Galvin et al.). With such, individuals in a family cannot be understood in isolation from each other.
According to the chapter, the contemporary family employs a complex and varied multidimensional nature. In current times, families are multiracial, LBGTQ, and multi-ethnic. Moreover, some have biological children, adopted children, fostered children, and step-children, while others don’t have children by choice. Families have also experienced a rise in single parents.
The chapter is a highly recommendable piece for individuals wishing to have an in-depth understanding of the family. The reason is that it explains family within the context of communication systems. With such, the chapter id very educational.
Work Cited
Galvin, Kathleen M., et al. Family Communication: Cohesion and Change. 10th ed., Routledge, 2019.