The Myth of the Model Family
The myth of the model family is the notion that the perfect family is a mother, father, and 2 children. Through the years-- and especially in an age where single parents and interracial couples have become almost a norm-- this myth has somewhat become incorrect and/or irrelevant. As it states in What We Really Miss About the 1950’s, “Eighty-six percent of all children lived in two-parent homes in 1950, as opposed to just 72 percent in 1990.” This proves that the ‘model family’ isn’t really a feasible stereotype anymore, and the average family is ever-changing. Even the definition of ‘family’ itself has changed and morphed into something different than what we thought 50 years ago.
At Lima Senior High School, there are many meanings of family. For one, we have our biological families, or the ones we go home to at the end of the school day. There are also our friend groups, which we sometimes consider family. Then there are our sports teams, football and basketball especially, which chant family before games and have a certain togetherness that is very unique.
In this documentary, we show 3 different perspectives of the model family. First, Fayo Balogun, a junior at Lima Senior, Karlyn Short, an art teacher, and Dawn Frenz, a biology teacher.
As you saw, each person we interviewed had unique and interesting answers to each question. Even if you asked every single person in the school of their family would be a model family, or what they thought of the myth, it would be completely different for every person. What we’re getting at here, is that everyone has different views and opinions on family and what family means to them, because not everyone is brought up the same way in the same type of family. The term ‘model family’ is becoming outdated due to that very reason, with all the different combinations of people you can have in a family adding onto it. What we want to leave you with, is that the term ‘model family’ shouldn’t be used anymore in today’s culture. We shouldn’t be limiting families to one description that labels them as perfect.