Families at risk / edited by Nicola Madge.

Date:
1983
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Families at risk / edited by Nicola Madge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    54 FAMILIES AT RISK account and, as already pointed out, the second-generation families in this study were producing many fewer children than had their parents. For this reason it cannot be suggested more than tentatively that family size may be among the significant influences upon a family's ability to cope. Certainly this study found, within the first generation, that large families seemed to have more than their share of problems, the number of children present being inversely related to social class, employment stability, good marital relations and better housing, and that second-generation problem families who followed in the footsteps of their parents generally had more children, a poorer work record and more marital tensions than those who had been upwardly mobile. Nevertheless, to put these observations in context, it must again be pointed out that although the adult children of the original problem families were much more likely than their counterparts from the comparison group to have a variety of difficulties, they tended to have produced only marginally more children. Moreover although the first- and second-generation families in many cases demonstrated compar¬ able problems, their respective family sizes were very different. All in all it would seem fair to conclude, on the one hand, that large families may reflect a certain disorganisation and that they may add to stresses and strains: in these ways family size can be related to problem family status. On the other hand, however, the evidence indicates that, in isolation from other factors, number of children is not a prime influence upon family circumstances. Family contact The majority of families in the study who showed social mobility upwards appeared to do so at the expense of family contact. Such rejection of family ties was generally accompanied by an adoption of the marriage partner's standards. One daughter who had moved socially upwards, and had little contact with the parental home, con¬ structively criticised her parents when she stated 'there's no need to be dirty even if you cannot afford new furniture'. There were also a few families who remained in contact with their families but in so doing managed to keep an emotional distance and thus cope realistically with the situation. How much this reflects the intelligence of the subjects it is difficult to say, but it is obvious that this more mature attitude towards both past and present situation is crucial to the relatively problem-free existence of these families. Having said this, it should be noted that there were also some families who were able to combine social and material improvement with continued and close family contact. This is not surprising as,