Morality And The Nuclear Family

4 min readFeb 24, 2021

Modern family is an example of a nuclear family with a minimum interdependence between three families.

Nuclear Family is one of the major turning points after the industrial revolution.

The term Nuclear Family maybe new and not everybody has heard of it, so let’s put a clear definition and give an example

In simple words, a nuclear family is one which consists of the husband-wife and their unmarried children. Soon after marriage, the children leave their parental home and establish their separate household.

Hence a nuclear family is an autonomous unit free from the control of the elders.

What was before Nuclear Families?

parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, adult children, and dependent children

The norm wasn’t always Nuclear Families, There was another kind of families called the Extended Families; Basically a social unit that includes parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, adult children, and dependent children.

Before the Industrial Revolution, the Extended Family was the norm in the Western world. There was more than a little romanticism associated with this view: extended families were imagined to have lived in warm, cohesive rural communities where men and women worked together on farms or in small cottage industries. That way of life, ended when industrialization forced people away from their cottages and villages into the teeming, anonymous city, sent men into the factories, and consigned women at home. The nuclear family, it was believed, was evidence of family decline.

What changed with nuclear families (Now)?

Parents are older

One of the interesting thing about nuclear families is that parents on average are older than they used to be in extended families, you’ve to work hard to sustain a stable life and you’re likely to achieve that in an older age than a couple in an extended ones.

They have less children

You need to sustain a good life for your children and you’re old, so you’re going to have less children.

And in consequence they have less sibling and one of the things that’s really useful about having siblings is they keep you in your place, they’re socialization agents for you.

More Independence for Women

In nuclear families, the condition of the woman is better than extended families. She gets enough time to look after her children. She also gets time to plan and manage her house according to her own idea. There is no interference of elders. Her husband can also devote more attention to the wife in a nuclear family.

Economic disadvantage

Living with the parents means they will always have a big support system on which they can rely on whenever somebody is sick, need any advice on crucial matters, have a financial crisis, find managing career, household and children are difficult, etc. Big families mean shared responsibilities and finances ensuring each member gets to relax and have a good time while performing their set of household duties to the best of their abilities which otherwise is not there in a nuclear family.

Negligence towards children

In a nuclear family, both husband and wife are mostly working, which results in children being neglected and looked after by the servants. They feel lonely and are emotionally insecure. They develop more anxiety and depression.

The tendency to get influenced by bad habits

As it is an autonomous unit, it is free from the social control of elders. So the children develop all sorts of bad qualities. They become unsocial as they do not get the opportunity to mix with other members of the family.

Loneliness

The feeling of loneliness is one of the important drawbacks in the nuclear family. After completion of the household task, the housewife becomes alone at home. When you are in a extended family there is always someone to spend your time with.

What does morality have to do we that?

As the nuclear families have less number of children, your child becomes more valuable; you have more time and resources to put for your child.

Which isn’t a bad thing in itself but it yields a flower person who can’t take any jobs or any testing from the environment, part of that is the consequence of being raised by an older parents who had excess resources with no siblings.

Then that person is technically being told he’s special; and there’s an inverse relationship between the person thinking he’s special; and his robustness and resilience.

And that’s why political correctness is now a thing i guess, which insists on setting on a situation where nobody can get offended by anything anytime which isn’t understandable; setting them for failure literally.

Another issue that’s considered heresy to raise is women lifestyle, every woman nowadays is advised to be a leader take four years of college and get a career and would be shamed if she decided to do something else, resulting in many young women having no sense of identity and they don’t know why; just repeating words they don’t mean or understand; fearing they would be shamed.

Maybe just maybe her body is signaling something other than that, maybe she wants to drop out of college; get married and be a mother but how dare she think of something like that.