MARRIAGE AND FAMILY

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MARRIAGE AND FAMILY
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Marriage

• Approx ¼ of households traditional two parent
  families vs 45 in the l970s
• Average age of women to marry is 25.1 and men
  26.7
• Traditionally marriages arranged for economic or
  political reasons, not for love
• Motivation for marriage
• Economic
• Sex
• Searching for an identity
• Escaping from an unhappy home life
• Avoid loneliness
• Pregnancy

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Love

• Caring as much about another's happiness and
  needs as your own
• Applies both to romantic and parental love
• Attraction
• Men-physical attraction as well as ability to be
  a good mother
• Women-financial or occupational status

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Selecting a Mate

• Attracted to people who have similar
• Ethnic background
• Religion
• Economic background
• Educational background
• Should look for compatibility
• Spend time together
• Find out how the person acts when faced with
  disappointments or frustrations

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Marriage

• Happy marriages characterized by
• Ability to empathize with one another
• Strong sense of self identity
• Realistic perceptions of yourself and your spouse
• Ability to take criticism and argue fairly
• Commitment to working on solving problems
• Open communication
• Ability to laugh and enjoy each other
• Share power in the relationship
• Loosen ties with original family
• Have a sexual relationship that is satisfying to
  both

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Marriage

• Problem areas
• Children
• In-laws
• Money
• How to spend free time
• Sex
• Division of labor at home

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How to Fight

• Learn to fight so it is constructive not hurtful
• Do not turn it into a drama
• Know what you are trying to accomplish
• Allow time for a fight
• Do not use guilt
• Do not leave in the middle of an argument unless
  you fear violence
• Listen to one another and repeat back what you
  hear

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How to Fight

• Focus on the issues at hand
• Do not attack personalities
• Avoid zingers, the words that can hurt
• Little changes can lead to larger changes in the
  relationship
• Men have a difficult time handling conflicts
  while women have a hard time tolerating emotional
  distance

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Parenthood

• Ultimate responsibility 24 hours a day forever
• Expensive-roughly 250,000 to rear a child through
  college
• Couples who do not have children just as likely
  to be content with their marriage as those who do
  have kids
• Many people feel it enriches their lives
• May put a strain on a shaky marriage, do not have
  kids to save a relationship

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Parental Responsibilities

• Must meet childs basic needs
• Emotional development
• Give them a sense of security
• Meet their trust needs
• Intellectual development
• Provide intellectual stimulation
• Reading, singing, talking to child
• Encourage child to try new experiences
• ½ of a persons intellectual capacity is
  developed by age 4

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Parental Responsibilities

• Social development
• Teach a child how to function within society by
  example and rules
• Self-esteem
• Children who develop close bonds with their
  siblings and parents have a higher self esteem
• Lowest self esteem found in kids who saw
  themselves alone in the family

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Childcare

• 70 of mothers work outside the house
• 2 income families needed to survive
• Kids under one year were better off with one care
  giver versus a day care center with many care
  givers
• Difficult decision for parents to make
• One study found that working outside the house
  was less important then the mental stability and
  maturity of parents in determining how kids fared
  in life

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Domestic Violence
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Domestic Abuse

• More then 1/3 of Americans have witnessed an
  episode of domestic violence
• 42 of women homicides committed by their spouse
  or boyfriend
• A married person more likely to be killed by
  their spouse
• 14 of American women say they have been beaten
  by a husband or boyfriend
• 21-25 of all women who visit the ER have been
  abused

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Domestic Violence

• Women are victims at a rate 3 times that of men
• A women is beaten every nine seconds in the US
• Women are more often the victims of domestic
  violence then victims of burglary, muggings or
  other physical crimes combined
• More then ½ of all the women on the street are
  fleeing domestic violence
• Pregnancy is a risk factor for violence
• Domestic violence hot line 800-799-safe
• San Mateo County 650-312-8515

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Domestic Violence

• Abusive spouse feels they have the right ot
  control the other person
• Families become isolated with few societal
  controls put on the behavior
• Wife
• No money and responsible for children
• Low self esteem
• Ashamed
• May have been abused as a child and feels she
  deserves it

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Domestic Violence

• Man
• Has the sense of right to control women and
  children
• Looks like a normal person
• Denies they have done anything
• Blames the women
• Minimizes the impact of violence
• Blames drugs or alcohol for violence
• Teenage relationships
• 25 teens experienced physical violence in dating
• Use isolation, jealousy, violence
• Want to control the girl

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Domestic Violence
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Are You Being Abused?

• Are you afraid of your partner?
• Do they call you names or make you feel stupid?
• Does the person youre involved with tell you
  where you can and cant go or who you can and
  cant talk to?
• Do you feel pushed or forced into having sex?
• Does the person say its your fault when they
  hurt you?

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Domestic Violence

• Does the person shove, grab, hit, pinch, hold you
  down or kick you?
• Is the person youre seeing really nice sometimes
  and really mean at other times?
• Does this person make promises to change?
• Do they pretend that they never hurt you?
• Do they tell your that your are making too big a
  deal out of it?

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Domestic Violence
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Child Abuse

• Every day 5 kids in the US die from abuse or
  neglect
• Neglect is the most frequent form of abuse
• Women abuse more then fathers
• More abuse in larger families
• Children have been
• Burned by boiling water, cigarettes
• Hit with cords
• Strangled, choked
• Shaken child syndrome
• Thrown against walls

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Child Abuse

• 3 components present with child abuse
• Increase during stressful periods, divorce, loss
  of a job, financial problems
• Usually centered on one child who is perceived as
  being different
• Often times parents were abused as children
• Law requires teachers, nurses, doctors, social
  workers to contact child protective services if
  abuse is suspected
• Children will often lie and defend their parents
  to prevent separation

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Child Abuse
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Child Abuse
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Burned by boiling milk
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Sexual Assault

• 2/3 or sex offenders in state prisons attacked
  children and 1/3 of victims were their children
  or stepchildren
• Only 10-15 involves a stranger, usually a close
  friend or relative
• 50,000 kids abused each year by parents or
  guardians

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Divorce

• 43 of marriages end in divorce within 15 yrs
• African- American women least likely to marry and
  most likely to divorce
• Asian marriages most stable
• Whites and Hispanics in the middle
• ½ of those married before the age of 18 divorce
• 40 of those married before 20 divorce
• 24 of those married after 25 divorce

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Divorce

• 43 of women whose parents were divorced are
  divorced within 10 years
• 29 of women whose parents remained married
  divorced within 10 years
• Women and children suffer a severe drop in their
  standard of living within one year of a divorce

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Divorce

• Women complain of
• Money problems
• Physical abuse
• Drinking
• Verbal abuse
• Men complain of
• Sexual incompatibility
• In-law problems

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Divorce

• Divorce very painful for the children and they
  need to know they are not the cause of the
  breakup
• When there is violence, the kids understand
• Approx 1/3 of all divorces
• Low conflict marriages that dissolve are
  difficult for kids to understand
• Approx 2/3 of all divorces

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Alternative Lifestyles

• Single
• Divorced
• Single parents
• Cohabitation
• All of the problems, none of the legal rights
• Higher rates of divorce with cohabitation before
  marriage
• Gay lifestyles
• Older people living together