Multimedia and Discussion Questions

Chapter 7: Building Social Relationships: Intimacy and Families

- Video Links
  - MTV’s 16 and Pregnant Season 2 (Full episode)
    This reality program follows teens who have become pregnant. Jenelle, sixteen, is the subject of this episode. Cameras follow Jenelle as she moves from planning to be a mother to meeting (and not meeting) the demands of motherhood. Though the show sensationalizes the issue of teen pregnancy, it also highlights the issues of roles and role conflict, particularly within the context of family.

Discussion questions:
1. Do you think that the show does a good job of depicting the “reality” of teen pregnancy?

2. Why do you believe that this show is so popular?

3. Teen parents face a variety of challenges. How do the reactions—of friends, family, and the wider society—contribute to these? Use Jenelle’s experience as a starting place for your answer.

4. How are the roles of “teen” and “mother” in conflict? How about Jenelle’s “daughter” and “mother” roles?

5. What does Jenelle mean when she says having a child young is doing “everything backwards”?

- Gay Couple Asked To Sit In Back Of Bus Gets An Apology
  In June 2013 a gay couple was asked to sit in the back of an airport shuttle bus. This video tells the story of that experience.

Discussion Questions:
1. What was your reaction to this story?
2. Do you think incidents like this will become more or less common?

- Cheerios commercial: Just checking
  This 2013 television commercial for Cheerios breakfast cereal depicts an interracial family. The mother is white, the father is black, and the child appears to be a product of their union.

Discussion Questions:
1. Many people found this commercial to be bold and shocking. Did you?

2. Do commercials like this merely reflect what families look like? Or, do they influence our notions of what families can and do look like? Both?

- Audio Links
  - This American Life 183: The Missing Parents Bureau
    In the first act of this program the reporter talks with single women who are planning to get pregnant with the help of a sperm bank and finds that they all wrestle with the question of how much they want to know about the fathers of their kids—and how much they want their kids to know. The second act is a collection of letters written by a woman who signs her name as "X" and are addressed to the father of her adolescent son. X has no idea where to send the letters, but she keeps writing. The third act is the story of a girl in an acting class that includes an exercises requiring her to develop a character with a troubled past, and then a real psychologist would come in for a session of character group therapy. The girl chose to take on the character of an orphan. In fact, she remembers that everyone else in her class did too. Twenty years later, she visits her old acting teacher and discovers that for some reason, kids today don't want to be orphans. The final act is the story of two men who adopt a child and the relationship they all have with the mother.

Discussion Questions:
1. How does the lack of biological parents affect the definitions of family in these stories?

2. How are the situations of the children in the stories influenced by the broader social institutions?

3. How do these stories relate to our mythology of family life?

- This American Life 166: Nobody’s family is going to Change
  The family is one of several social institutions in our society. Host Ira Glass describes a children's book from the 1970s called Nobody's Family Is Going to Change by Louise Fitzhugh, the author of Harriet the Spy. On the surface, it sounds like a rather menacing title for a kids' book. But in fact, the story is about how kids can finally find peace if they stop hoping that their parents will ever be any different. The question is, though: is it true? Does anyone's family ever change?

Discussion Questions:
1. Do religious, racial and ethnic, and social class endogamy play a role in these stories?

2. Are any recent trends in the American family at hand in the stories presented?

3. What can be found in this episode about family today that is defined as “normal” that once would have been considered deviance?

- Parental Leave: The Swedes Are The Most Generous
  Consideration of parental leave policies, with special focus on those in Sweden.

Discussion Questions:
1. How do legal policies shape individual family decisions?

2. How does the policy “level the playing field” for women and men in the workplace.

3. Do you believe that people in the United States would support a policy like Sweden’s? Explain your answer.

- Web Resources
  Professional Resources
  - Family Section
    Sociologists who study family issues affiliate with the American Sociological Association (ASA) Family Section.
  - The National Council on Family Relations
    The National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) provides a forum for family researchers, educators, and practitioners to share in the development and dissemination of knowledge about families and family relationships, establishes professional standards, and works to promote family well-being. The NCFR publishes two scholarly journals - Journal of Marriage and Family and Family Relations [self-description].

> Data Resources

- Administration for Children and Families
  Official government statistics on these issues is available through the Department of Health and Human Service (DHSS) Administration for Children and Families.
- National Survey of Families and Households
  One of the most comprehensive and important sociological studies of the family is the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH).
- Child and Family Statistics
  The Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, or the Forum, is a working group of Federal agencies that collect, analyze, and report data on issues related to children and families. The Forum has partners from 22 Federal agencies as well as partners in private research organizations. This page contains contact information for staff from federal agencies who have expertise with NATIONAL data sets. [self-characterization].

> Other Resources
> There are many opinions about the definition of “family” and “family values,” including those of the following groups.

- Alternative Family Matters
  Alternative Family Matters was created to assist lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgenders (LGBTs) through the complex process of having children and to help medical practices and community institutions better understand and serve LGBT-headed families [self-characterization].
- Family Research Council
  Family Research Council’s primary reason for existence is to reaffirm and promote nationally, and particularly in Washington, D.C., the traditional family and the Judeo-Christian principles upon which it is built [self-characterization].
- Father’s Rights Foundation
  Father’s Rights Foundation: A Page Dedicated to the Fight for Fathers Rights, That Kids Need Dads Too [self-characterization].
- Focus on the Family
  Focus on the Family’s mission is to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in disseminating the Gospel of Jesus Christ to as many people as possible, and, specifically, to accomplish that objective by helping to preserve traditional values and the institution of the family [self-characterization].
- The National Organization for Women
  The National Organization for Women: We organize, organize, organize to fight the right wing—whether it’s over attempts to scuttle affirmative action, cut the safety net out from under poor women and their children, or outlaw basic civil rights for lesbians and gay men [self-characterization].
- The Council on Contemporary Families
  The Council on Contemporary Families (CCF) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to enhancing the national conversation about what contemporary families need and how these needs can best be met [self-characterization].
- The International Center for Research on Women
  The International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) is a global research institute with headquarters in Washington, D.C., and regional offices in Nairobi, Kenya, and New Delhi, India. We also have a project office in Mumbai. ICRW is comprised of social scientists, economists, public health specialists and demographers, all of whom are experts in gender relations. We are thought leaders driven by a passion to alleviate poverty and rectify injustice in the world. And we believe that women and girls – in collaboration with men and boys – are essential to the solutions. We know that when their quality of life improves, families are healthier and economies are stronger.