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This is mostly a fiction. Nuclear family has never had primacy - look at wild, dangerous places, primacy is held by extended family, clans, tribes or mafia. ‘

This is mostly a fiction. Nuclear family has never had primacy - look at wild, dangerous places, primacy is held by extended family, clans, tribes or mafia. ‘Nuclear family primacy’ exists only In carefully crafted stable and safe societies, and another authority must exist to organise military-age men for matters of war and survival. Thus nuclear family can only exist as we know it, in a partially undermined condition.

toasterlovin 1y ago
It’s absolutely not a fiction that the nuclear family is the most important human social arrangement. In every language I’m aware of, a child’s first word is ‘mother’ and in most languages ‘father’ follows shortly thereafter. Other social arrangements are important (we live in societies or tribes or clans, after all), but throughout most of human history, people grew up with their mother, father, and siblings being the most important people in their lives.
- yonaguska 1y ago
  It's very odd to me seeing nuclear family being propped up in an exclusive/or relationship with a strong extended family. Every strong extended family dynamic that I've seen is the result of a strong nuclear family from a generation before.
  - weft 1y ago
    That distinction is what defines a "nuclear family" to begin with...
  - toasterlovin 1y ago
    To be clear, I am not arguing that nuclear and extended families are exclusive of each other. I think most of the people arguing against me are confused about this. Anthropologists dichotomize societies by nuclear family vs extended family because Western societies basically don’t have extended families as an important social unit at all, whereas in many societies the extended family is an important social unit. And the difference usually has a lot of implications. Hence the dichotomy being useful. But this does not mean that in societies where extended families are important that they are more important than nuclear families. And really this shouldn’t be surprising: we’re not bees. We form reproductive pairs. Our children are twice as related to us as our nieces and nephews. There’s no way it could ever come to be that the nuclear family would not be the primary human social institution.
    - gonzobonzo 1y ago
      > Western societies basically don’t have extended families as an important social unit at all Like with low birth rates, this appears to stem more from modernity than anything else. Both Western and non-Western societies placed more of an emphasis on extended families in the past, and both have placed less of an emphasis on them as they've modernized. Western societies have been at the forefront of a lot of modern changes, so these changes were more noticeable in them.
    - yonaguska 1y ago
      Sorry, my response to you was in agreement if that wasn't clear.
- weft 1y ago
  "Nuclear" here is in reference to households with only mother, father, and children, in distinction to the norm of multigenerational households throughout history and in most of the world today excepting the West.
  - toasterlovin 1y ago
    No, that’s baggage that people are bringing to the conversation. It merely means a couple and their dependent children. Whether or not they live separately from extended family has no bearing on the term.
    - tainerchon 1y ago
      [flagged]
- nine_k 1y ago
  Certainly, having a mother and a father is pretty traditional! But past a toddler age, in a large clan-like structure, if your father and the clan's patriarch give you conflicting orders, who do you obey? This question is moot in a nuclear-family society, with relatives beside father and mother minding their own children, and not more.
  - toasterlovin 1y ago
    > if your father and the clan's patriarch give you conflicting orders, who do you obey? Good question, here’s one for you: if your father and a police officer give you conflicting orders, who do you obey? The existence of a layer cake of social units doesn’t argue against the primacy of the nuclear family. Here’s another question for you: who’s more likely to advocate for your interest, your father or the clan’s patriarch?
    - ClumsyPilot 1y ago
      > if your father and a police officer give you conflicting orders, who do you obey? This goes to show that you, along with many other commenters here, do not grasp the concept because it’s so different from your experience. Extended family would often raise your kids, I know a person that was taken away by extended family as a child because the father had anger management issues. They are not functionaries like police, they actually share responsibility. In case of conflict, loyalty is highly situational. And if your mother dies, they would be expected to take you in, even if your father is alive and well.
      - toasterlovin 1y ago
        > I know a person that was taken away by extended family as a child because the father had anger management issues. Yeah, but the default was for them to be raised by their nuclear family.
- protocolture 1y ago
  You seem to have a definition of nuclear family which differs from the consensus. >throughout most of human history, people grew up with their mother, father, and siblings being the most important people in their lives. Throughout most of history people grew up with their mother, 3 aunts, their dad, 5 uncles, and grandparents if they are lucky, learning the single trade of their entire family. The "Nuclear" family is the atomisation of this corporate family through modern practices (Finance, Tertiary Education, Suburbia)
  - toasterlovin 1y ago
    > You seem to have a definition of nuclear family which differs from the consensus. I’m a simple man, so I like to use the dictionary when there’s a disagreement about what something means. In this case, my phone’s dictionary, which cites the Oxford American dictionary as its source, has the definition of ‘nuclear family’ as “a couple and their dependent children, regarded as a basic social unit” and I’m not seeing how anything I wrote is in disagreement with that. Sure, people often grow up with other relatives. But we have other terms for them, which belies their reduced importance in our lives vs our parents and siblings.
    - immibis 1y ago
      It's the basic social unit part. In society that actually exists, they're not a basic unit. You can obviously find couples and their dependent children, just like maybe you can find a monad in a Java program, but they're not basic units.
      - toasterlovin 1y ago
        If nuclear families were not of fundamental importance, you would not see “mother” and “father” universally conserved across all languages as the first words that people learn. This is like the thing with the two fish who don’t know what water is; nuclear families are so pervasively important that you just can’t see it.
        1y ago

toasterlovin 1y ago

It’s absolutely not a fiction that the nuclear family is the most important human social arrangement. In every language I’m aware of, a child’s first word is ‘mother’ and in most languages ‘father’ follows shortly thereafter. Other social arrangements are important (we live in societies or tribes or clans, after all), but throughout most of human history, people grew up with their mother, father, and siblings being the most important people in their lives.

yonaguska 1y ago
It's very odd to me seeing nuclear family being propped up in an exclusive/or relationship with a strong extended family. Every strong extended family dynamic that I've seen is the result of a strong nuclear family from a generation before.
- weft 1y ago
  That distinction is what defines a "nuclear family" to begin with...
- toasterlovin 1y ago
  To be clear, I am not arguing that nuclear and extended families are exclusive of each other. I think most of the people arguing against me are confused about this. Anthropologists dichotomize societies by nuclear family vs extended family because Western societies basically don’t have extended families as an important social unit at all, whereas in many societies the extended family is an important social unit. And the difference usually has a lot of implications. Hence the dichotomy being useful. But this does not mean that in societies where extended families are important that they are more important than nuclear families. And really this shouldn’t be surprising: we’re not bees. We form reproductive pairs. Our children are twice as related to us as our nieces and nephews. There’s no way it could ever come to be that the nuclear family would not be the primary human social institution.
  - gonzobonzo 1y ago
    > Western societies basically don’t have extended families as an important social unit at all Like with low birth rates, this appears to stem more from modernity than anything else. Both Western and non-Western societies placed more of an emphasis on extended families in the past, and both have placed less of an emphasis on them as they've modernized. Western societies have been at the forefront of a lot of modern changes, so these changes were more noticeable in them.
  - yonaguska 1y ago
    Sorry, my response to you was in agreement if that wasn't clear.
weft 1y ago
"Nuclear" here is in reference to households with only mother, father, and children, in distinction to the norm of multigenerational households throughout history and in most of the world today excepting the West.
- toasterlovin 1y ago
  No, that’s baggage that people are bringing to the conversation. It merely means a couple and their dependent children. Whether or not they live separately from extended family has no bearing on the term.
  - tainerchon 1y ago
    [flagged]
nine_k 1y ago
Certainly, having a mother and a father is pretty traditional! But past a toddler age, in a large clan-like structure, if your father and the clan's patriarch give you conflicting orders, who do you obey? This question is moot in a nuclear-family society, with relatives beside father and mother minding their own children, and not more.
- toasterlovin 1y ago
  > if your father and the clan's patriarch give you conflicting orders, who do you obey? Good question, here’s one for you: if your father and a police officer give you conflicting orders, who do you obey? The existence of a layer cake of social units doesn’t argue against the primacy of the nuclear family. Here’s another question for you: who’s more likely to advocate for your interest, your father or the clan’s patriarch?
  - ClumsyPilot 1y ago
    > if your father and a police officer give you conflicting orders, who do you obey? This goes to show that you, along with many other commenters here, do not grasp the concept because it’s so different from your experience. Extended family would often raise your kids, I know a person that was taken away by extended family as a child because the father had anger management issues. They are not functionaries like police, they actually share responsibility. In case of conflict, loyalty is highly situational. And if your mother dies, they would be expected to take you in, even if your father is alive and well.
    - toasterlovin 1y ago
      > I know a person that was taken away by extended family as a child because the father had anger management issues. Yeah, but the default was for them to be raised by their nuclear family.
protocolture 1y ago
You seem to have a definition of nuclear family which differs from the consensus. >throughout most of human history, people grew up with their mother, father, and siblings being the most important people in their lives. Throughout most of history people grew up with their mother, 3 aunts, their dad, 5 uncles, and grandparents if they are lucky, learning the single trade of their entire family. The "Nuclear" family is the atomisation of this corporate family through modern practices (Finance, Tertiary Education, Suburbia)
- toasterlovin 1y ago
  > You seem to have a definition of nuclear family which differs from the consensus. I’m a simple man, so I like to use the dictionary when there’s a disagreement about what something means. In this case, my phone’s dictionary, which cites the Oxford American dictionary as its source, has the definition of ‘nuclear family’ as “a couple and their dependent children, regarded as a basic social unit” and I’m not seeing how anything I wrote is in disagreement with that. Sure, people often grow up with other relatives. But we have other terms for them, which belies their reduced importance in our lives vs our parents and siblings.
  - immibis 1y ago
    It's the basic social unit part. In society that actually exists, they're not a basic unit. You can obviously find couples and their dependent children, just like maybe you can find a monad in a Java program, but they're not basic units.
    - toasterlovin 1y ago
      If nuclear families were not of fundamental importance, you would not see “mother” and “father” universally conserved across all languages as the first words that people learn. This is like the thing with the two fish who don’t know what water is; nuclear families are so pervasively important that you just can’t see it.
      - 1y ago