Heterosexual family set-ups are characterized by the two genders; male and female. Traditionally, men assumed the roles of providing and protecting the families, while women concentrated on nursing and caring for the children. However, in the past decades, the societal definition of the roles of men and women have experienced a great shift, especially with the rising emancipation of women which has resulted in more girl-child education, more awareness of their rights, taking up of full-time careers and declining fertility rates. These shifts have led to a de-standardization of the family life course, and the effects are evidenced in the statistics of family trends. For instance, the number of stay-at-home dads have risen in Canada, from about 1 in every 70 men in 1976 to about 1 in every 10 men in 2015 ( Changing profile of stay-at-home parents : Statistics Canada, 2020). Conversely, the number of stay-at-home mothers has decreased, owing to the rise in needs of dual-earning in families and women assuming more economically active roles. The trends in education, number of children, fertility rates, age of marriage, and other trends point to a shifting trend in gender roles. The change in the societal system that has given more opportunity to women has led to a change in gender roles and shifts in attitude about the roles of men and women in family set-ups.
The rise in social trends such as divorce, and parental separations have led to a diverse effect on children, who grow up absent the other parent or in an unstable family and absent the influence of double-gender parenting. Children thrive and learn about the gender roles in stable families (Pinsker, 2019). Divorce and family separations, which have risen in the modern times, have thus led to shift in the roles of parents in families, which will translate to changes in the structure of the future families. The number of single-parent headed families have increased in many societies around the world. By 2018, in Canada alone, the number of single parent families had risen from about 1.4 million in 2006 to 1.6 million (Pinsker, 2019). Divorce still leads as the main cause of singleness for both men and women. Children growing in single parent headed families develop absent the influence of the other parent and as such, fail to grasp the importance of the role the other parent (gender) plays in family set-up (Mackay, 2020). While the multiple challenges affecting single-parent families is not entirely linked to the state of single-parenthood, it is true that the absence of the other parent influences the psychological well-being of the children, and especially, on the importance of the role of the other parent. Furthermore, lack of adequate resources and time, associated with the pressures of single parenthood also lead to psychological strain to the children. Women heading single parent families cannot play the role of a father, and even if they assume the traditional roles of men like providing for sustenance and security, the aura of male presence, the authority associated with it and the sense of leadership presented by the male figures cannot be sufficiently provided (Ball, 2009). Similarly, men, though nurturing and loving as single parents, cannot adequately sustain the emotional needs of love and affection, and fulfill the mother’s nurturing roles. Such parents end up marrying or having strings of relationships that affect their children’s psychological development in relation to family ethics. Furthermore, it has been established that children of divorce are more likely to divorce than their counterparts from stable families. To accentuate it, if both children in a family set-up are from divorce backgrounds, their chances of getting divorced are even higher (Pinsker, 2019). The perpetuation of family trends, like divorce or stability, across generations, shows that the shifts in family trends, like the rising trends in divorce are changing the stability of modern marriages, and thus, affecting the stability of modern family lives and responsibility in marriages.
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The changes in the family trends have led to shifts about the conception of manhood and woman hood, which translates to the changes in patterns of domination in family lives of families in the modern life. Jack Myers, in his book The Future of Men: Masculinity in the Twenty-First Century (2016) highlights how the changes in the roles of men and women have affected the basic social structure; family. According to Myers, the elevation of the woman’s social and economic self has led to new trends like women out-earning their partners, both parents engaging in full-time careers and more and more fatherless homes due to the rising trends in divorce. Myers opines that these trends are a deviation from the traditional gender norms, which creates a new system of mentality about gender roles (Myers, 2016). The change in gender norms are experienced in education sectors, employment, career progressions and remunerations. The shifts are even more pronounced at the work places. According to Myers, the society does not prepare the male for their traditional gender roles, but when these men are absorbed at work place, the work environment expects them to know their roles as males in a working environment. These assertions shows that the number of stay-at-home dads, who are taking up children and home care duties is rising, and so is the number of women assuming male roles in family and at work situations.
The shift in gender roles has also shifted the styles of parenting in the twenty-first Century, especially for men. The traditional parenting system including more nurturing roles to the mother, with little to minimum involvement of the father. Furthermore, the women still created time to tend to domestic duties, alongside their parenting responsibilities. As the children grew, they assumed different roles in the family, depending on their genders. Boys, even if they had more liking to their mothers, were forced to engage with their fathers and learn to be a man. On the other hand, girls could be free with their fathers, but they had to associate with their mother more often to learn the traditional roles of a woman (Allen and Hawkins, 1999, Rodriquez, 2019). The styles of parenting alternated between being authoritative and employing instinctive parenting. While helicopter parenting was common and normal for children as they grew, authoritative and freestyle parenting took over as they approached maturity. However, the current Canadian social system has made almost all domestic duties gender neutral. Men and women, in the domestic setting have the responsibilities to share in the domestic works (Rodriquez, 2019). Men, in the domestic setting, freely cook, tend to children and provide nurturing role that greatly deviates from the authoritative style of father parent in the past generations. These trends have been made more common by the rise of the numbers of stay-at-home dads. Stay-at-home dads take up domestic responsibilities which affects how their children perceive them. Their (the dads) parenting styles have changed tremendously. These shifts in gender roles in the present situation have transformed these men’s parenting style. As a result, the authoritative parenting has declined significantly, and both parents are adopting the attachment and helicopter parenting strategies (Rodriquez, 2019, Mackay, 2020). The increased individualistic trends has made parenting a family affair. The ‘go with your guts’ parenting and the free-style parenting strategies that gave children more autonomy over their actions and emphasized more personal responsibility for the children is slowly dissipating.
The new role of women in the family set ups has received considerable attention because women have been subject to social evolution more than men. Women have restructured their roles and taken the opportunity of the efforts that have been employed to revolutionize their status to elevate themselves. The independence of women has been fuelled by their rising economic independence from men, and with the independence, the male’s primary roles of providing has been threatened. Even though women still earn less than men in the same profession, the male position as the alpha in the family has suffered greatly. More women, for instance, are acquiring higher education and completing successfully in most European universities than men (Myers, 2016). With these developments, the desires for women on the standard of men remain primary to their traditional needs- a man with similar or higher status than the woman has. Myers argues that the desires of women, in terms of academic qualification, is that their relationship should tend towards homogamy, or the man should be slightly more educated. Ironically, most men, although they prefer women with almost similar academic qualifications, pay more attention to the women who show proficiency in performing domestic duties and one that will dedicate more time towards the nurturing of the family than on her career. These conflicting desires shows that the newly acquired social emancipation of women is leading to more conflicts with the man who still adheres to the traditional expectations of a woman (Randall et al., 2017).
In summary, the trends in education, career choices and other trends point to a shifting trend in gender roles. The change in the societal system that has given more opportunity to women has led to a change in gender roles and shifts in attitude about the roles of men and women in family set-ups. The changing trends are however more biased towards elevating the woman at the expense of the man. These trends will surely restructure the composition and ideologies in marriages in the coming generations.
References
Allen, S., & Hawkins, A. (1999). Maternal Gatekeeping: Mothers' Beliefs and Behaviors That Inhibit Greater Father Involvement in Family Work. Journal Of Marriage And The Family , 61 (1), 199. https://doi.org/10.2307/353894
Ball, J. (2009). Fathering in the Shadows: Indigenous Fathers and Canada's Colonial Legacies. The ANNALS Of The American Academy Of Political And Social Science , 624 (1), 29-48. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716209334181
Changing profile of stay-at-home parents . Www150.statcan.gc.ca. (2020). Retrieved 20 March 2020, from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-630-x/11-630-x2016007-eng.htm.
Mackay, R. (2020). The Impact of Family Structure and Family change on Child Outcomes: A Personal Reading of the Research Literature - Ministry of Social Development . Msd.govt.nz. Retrieved 20 March 2020, from https://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/journals-and-magazines/social-policy-journal/spj24/24-impact-of-family-structure-and-family-change-on-child-outcome-p111-133.html.
Myers, J. (2016). The Future of Men: Masculinity in the Twenty-First Century (1st ed.). Inkshares.
Pinsker, J. (2019). How Successful Are the Marriages of People With Divorced Parents? . The Atlantic. Retrieved 20 March 2020, from https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/05/divorced-parents-marriage/590425/.
Randall, M., Koshan, J., & Nyaundi, P. (2017). The right to say no (1st ed.). Hart Publishing.
Rodriquez, E. (2019). The Evolving Parent: Outline of the Evolution of Parenting Styles. Journal Of Childhood & Developmental Disorders , 05 (01). https://doi.org/10.4172/2472-1786.100081
