Unit 4- Structural Functionalism

The structure of the family is a topic we have talked about in every unit thus far. Structural Functionalism focuses heavily on the roles each family member is supposed to have and how it contributes to society as a whole. One of the concepts in this theory is the benchmark family. The benchmark family  is the traditional family with a husband and wife and their children. The husband is the sole provider for the home and the wife is to stay at home and maintain the home, her husband, and her children. Well according to this theory my husband and I are not in equilibrium.

My husband and I do have roles in our relationship but they are not the same type of roles that are mentioned in this theory. First off I think it's fabulous when a women makes a choice to stay home, but only if it's a choice. In my relationship both my husband are equal breadwinners with no intention of me stopping even when there are children involved. We divide and conquer the house work and the cooking together. There are times where it has fallen on me to do the majority of the domestic chores but that was out of necessity. My husband and I both fulfill the instrumental and expressive roles. Depending on the situation, I can be instrumental in my approach, I am very task-oriented and sometimes I just want to know how to get to where I am going in-spite of what may be happening. The flip side to that is my husband at times can be very expressive. There is nothing I love more than after a rough day finding a random sticky note on my side of the bed with some words of encouragement. I do believe in the importance of family and it's structure in today's society but I find this theory to be very dated and in need of some new research.

Just one example I can give of where the benchmark family is not always what it seems, comes from a former student. To the public this family had it all; a husband who worked, a wife who was Susie homemaker, a son who played high school sports, and my former student who was their dirty little secret. My student was a threat to their desire to be a benchmark family and he had to be dealt with in private and quickly because no one could know. Unfortunately for my student this meant he did not always get the mental health help he needed due to risk of being seen going into the "crazy doctor". This family also had other issues that played out like a lifetime movie; drug use, physical and emotional abuse, and infidelity. Keeping up with the Jones' is not always beneficial, especially when the Jones' are probably hiding some big skeletons.