📘 Part 3: Families

This episode's vocabulary

Comprise (verb) - to have things or people as parts or members; to consist of.

Patriarch (noun) - the male leader of a family.

Egalitarian (adj.) - believing that all people are equally important and should have the same rights and opportunities in life.

The purse strings - the spending of money by a family, company, or country.

Matriarchal (adj.) - ruled or controlled by women or females.

Relegate (verb) - to put someone or something into a lower or less important rank or position.

Well-rounded (adj.) - involving or having experience in a wide range of ideas or activities.

Tangible (adj.) - real and not imaginary; able to be shown, touched, or experienced.

Atomized (adj.) - consisting of separate parts that do not have much contact with each other.

Sway (noun) - control or influence.

Act out (phrasal verb) - to behave badly because you are unhappy or upset , often in ways that you are not aware of.

Delinquency (noun) - behaviour, especially of a young person, that is is illegal or not acceptable to most people.

Counteract (verb) - to reduce or remove the effect of something unwanted by producing an opposite effect.

Caveat (noun) - a warning to consider something before taking any more action, or a statement that limits a more general statement.

-

Questions and Answers

M: So, Rory, let's talk about families. In your country, what kinds of family members leave together?

R: Well, the typical clos and nuclear family in Western terms, I suppose. So both parents and children and any pets, if they have any. There's also an increasing number of single parent families that are usually comprised by the mother and children.

M: Who's usually the head of the family in your culture?

R: Oh, at least on the surface, it used to be the father and only the father is the patriarch. But I think it's more egalitarian these days in terms of representation. I mean, certainly my parents make joint decisions. When you look closer, though, at least in history, it's a bit more complicated. Women make something like 80 percent of household purchasing decisions, so they hold the purse strings in many cases. So it's always... It seems simple, but it turns out to be a lot more complicated on further analysis.

M: Is a grandmother important in the family in your culture?

R: Well, I think that used to be for everybody. And they still are for children or the grandchildren. But increasingly, they seem to play less of a matriarchal role and they get relegated to the status of any other relative. Some of them even get sent to nursing homes and forgotten about entirely, which is a bit troubling for my culture at least.

M: What's the most important quality of a good parent?

R: Well, I've thought about this a great deal when I think about having my own children. And I suppose patience is the important one for at least for my culture. Um, there's so much pressure to be a certain way and act accordingly. And children make so many mistakes. Though as a parent, your role is to be kind of patient guide. And ideally, life will have given you enough experience to tell them what they need to know. But patience is something that you always work on to stay calm as children go through life.

M: What makes a good parent?

R: Well, aside from the patience, probably self-discipline, good organization and flexibility in roughly equal measure, you have to be a reasonable role model and provide for your children and respond to changes effectively enough. But you shouldn't do everything for them. That's where the space to grow is.

M: Let's talk about grandparents. How can grandparents help to bring up children?

R: Well, grandparents are rather good at passing on stories and ideas from their generation that parents might forget or filter out. So that gives your child the more well-rounded view of the world.

M: What can a child learn from grandparents?

R: Well, I learned how to cook some things in a limited way. Other people learn some traditions and stories about how things were in the past. So similar things to this. But there are less tangible things like family loyalty, various aspects of cultures that can be learned too.

M: What kinds of things can young people learn from old people?

R: Well, in addition to what I already mentioned, there are some sort of timeless values that can only be touched on in schools, but reinforced and expanded on by older people like respect for the local area, for example.

M: Do you agree that grandparents had more influence on family decisions in the past than they do today?

R: Well, I imagine that depends on the country and the culture. I mean, for example, in the West, I would say the influence is weakened significantly as a society becomes increasingly atomized. In Russia, it seems like older people hold a lot more sway, though, in more built up areas that's less so.

M: Let's talk about media and changing work patterns. How can the media affect family relationships today?

R: I think it could expand the range of options in people's minds. Like time mores you would only see sort of heterosexual nuclear families on TV or hear about them on the radio. But no people are exposed to same sex couples and single parent families, and that can give people examples of how they would like to live their lives, as well as sort of raising awareness about the fact these people exist and how their lives work.

M: What's the impact of changing work patterns on the family?

R: Well, in the past, one parent worked, but now both work. So there's less sort of parent child contact time as a result. And that can lead to sort of partial disconnect between the generations and that results in things like acting out and delinquency. On the other hand, two parents means greater financial strength and stability so they can at least attempt to counteract any negative influences or consequences further down the line. That's a heck of a trade off, though.

M: Do you agree that the state should provide support for the family unit?

R: Well, yes, with a few caveats. I mean, there should be some limitations on the nature of the support and how it's used. It's something like money then it should only be spent on, well, the children's needs in this case. Maybe, I think monitoring this would be difficult, but it's more efficient than sort of government manufactured goods for children, and those tend to be of a lower quality.

-