Challenging our ideas about the typical family unit

Press, 4 December 1985, Page 16

Challenging our ideas about the typical family unit

MAVIS AIREY

reports

a challenging seminar

Who or what constitutes a family? Our traditional assumptions need to be challenged, those attending the Family Affairs Forum held at Christchurch Teachers College during the weekend were told. The nuclear family, that cosy married unit of Mum, Dad, and the kids is now in a minority in New Zealand. “Deviancy”, as some people might consider single-parent families, blended families, adoptive families, extended families and the rest, is fast sbecoming the norm. Is the “no-child family” a contradiction in terms? the forum was asked. About 10 per cent of domestic units in the country fell into this group. Could they be ignored in a discussion on the family? In her provocative opening address, sociologist Jan Cameron reminded participants of the very strong ideology working in our cul-

ture which said that people should become parents: if they did not do so it was either because of some physical defect, or because of some moral or psychological defect. “This ideology makes it very difficult for couples, expecially married couples, to acknowledge ‘childessness by choice’, and makes it increasingly compelling for infertile couples to avail themselves of every possible medical or legal method of gaining a child.” Many problems were caused by society’s confusion between the biological and social aspects of parenthood. “They are separate and different,” she maintained. “Reproduction is a physiological experience, “having a family” is a social one. The roles may be combined in one individual, but they might not be,” she told the forum. The implications of new birth technologies reflected wider issues which society needed to examine. Jan Cameron asked the forum to consider, for example,, whether the intent of reproduction was to have a child, or to create a family, and whether the family of an adoptive surrogate child included the child’s birth mother. Similarly far-reaching questions, she felt, were whether a child in fact “needed” two parents, and who was eligible for parenthood. Could a homosexual couple be regarded as “married,” and therefore also potential parents? “It might be argued that artificial insemination, in vitro fertilisation, and surrogacy are distinguishable from routine adoption only by the degree of develop.ment of the offspring.” If this argument were

accepted, these children could be included in the same family formation as is already culturally approved for adoptive families, she believed. The rest of the weekend was spent in workshops on subjects such as single parent families, new birth technologies, differeing family patterns, alcohol and drug abuse and the family, domestic violence, sexual abuse and the family, and the use of psychodrama or “family sculpture” in counselling. The workshops were led mainly by people with personal experience of the subject rather than a merely professional interest. “We chose the workshop method because we wanted to appeal to a wide range of professional and lay people and allow them to participate. The workshop is the best approach to meet the individual’s needs,” said Heather Foster of the Christchurch Marriage Guidance Council, which cosponsored the forum with “Working Together”), of Burnside High School. "One or two people were disappointed not to hear the experts,” admitted David Matthews, of “Working Together.” “But as one man said, ‘What I did learn was to look at how I myself feel about the family, and that was valuable.’ ” The forum, the first of its kind to be held in the South Island, attracted 56 people working with and living in families. The organisers were pleased to see how well professional and lay people mixed together. “There is a wrong assumption that the professionals know it all and would take over. That is not so,” said Heather Foster. “The professionals also i come to learn.”