The Nuclear and Modern Family

                The nuclear family is the stereotypical picture of a 1950s American dream life. It consists of two parents, more than likely to be a heterosexual couple, and their children. The children are traditionally offspring of the mother and father, but sometimes the children can be adopted. The nuclear family also probably had a pet of some sort, most likely a dog. In the traditional nuclear family, gender roles were highly evident and the couple often strictly stick to them. The mother is traditionally seen as a homemaker, caring for the children, cleaning, making dinner, and generally keeping the home and children in line and presentable. On the weekends she is still seen taking care of the house and children. The father is traditionally the breadwinner where he goes to work 9-5 every day and then comes home from work to bond with his family before retiring to bed. On the weekend he can most likely be seen doing handiwork around the house, working on cars, or maybe even grilling, typically doing traditionally "many" things. In the traditional nuclear family, working mothers and stay at home dads are small and hard to come by. Traditionally, you are more likely to see two working parents before you see a working mother and a stay at home dad.

                The modern family is very different as there is no real way to describe a specific modern family. Modern families can really be anything these days. Today we have families where there are two married individuals, either hetero- or homosexual or somewhere between, where they may have their parents live with them, the couple may or may not have kids, the couple may or may not have a pet, friends may cohabitate the home with the couple and the family; there's really no way to define the modern family.  There may be families consisting of a couple and a pet because the couple doesn't want to have kids. Some people consider a family as a bunch of their close friends living together. A family can be a single parent household where the mom/dad has to  take care of the kids and the house and work all at the same time. A modern family can be an extended family where aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, children, nieces, nephews... all live together and coexist. Traditional nuclear families are still around, but you're more likely to see both parents working to support their family, or it's starting to become more common to have working mothers and stay at home fathers. The modern family can't be easily defined, because there are so many versions of the modern family. In the modern family, gender roles are not as strict as they used to be, and sometimes there isn't a man or woman in the picture to even do those gender specific actions. Men and dads are seen cooking and cleaning and taking care of the kids, women are seen going to work and doing handiwork around the house. Of course there are men and women who do their traditional gender specific actions, but they aren't being forced to. More common than not, these new modern families split the household and family duties equally to create a happier house. In short, in today's modern families, gender roles are a thing of the past.