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サマリー
あらすじ・解説
On the Modern Non-Nuclear FamilyThe concept of the nuclear family or at least the term nuclear family has been around for at least a century by now. Many people associate the concept of the nuclear family with the 50’s and 60’s and the rise of the atomic age after WWII. But this is incorrect. Actually the use of the term nuclear family predates the atomic age and refers instead to the family formation as a nucleus as in the core of an entity consisting of a mother a father and their children.In modern times the entire nature of the nuclear family as first defined has been challenged from all sides as families in the United States have changed dramatically in their formulation. The concept of a family consisting of a mother and father, a man and a woman has expanded to include single parents, co-habitating unmarried parents, divorced parents, same sex parents and the list goes on. From these dramatic and broad social changes one might conclude that the concept of the nuclear family has fallen by the wayside as we have moved into a new age that makes room for and embraces a broad variety of family formulations.I can easily see how one might come to this conclusion. The nuclear family has a rigid structure that no longer applies in the modern era. One might assume that it is for the most part a thing of the past. One might assume this, but this assumption would be wrong. Wrong? you say. How is that possible. How is it possible that the nuclear family persists in the face of such broad social change. Can a family with a single mother or a single father, or two mothers or two fathers still be considered a nuclear family?In order to understand what I’m talking about you really have to step back for a second and consider not simply the genders, or the number of people in the family. Instead you have to take a closer look at the nuclear metaphor itself.In all cases the term nuclear refers to the existence of a core. This could be the nucleus of an atom, or a cell or even something like a solar system. In all of these examples, an atom, a cell or a solar system something is at the center and everything else is on the periphery. I like the example of a solar system because it places some entity at the very center, the sun while all the other entities orbit around the center held in place by gravity. When you take this broader metaphor and apply it to an actual human family you see that it is defined, not by the gender or number of people at the head of the family but rather by the family structure itself. Gender and number, these are physical dynamics but the true nature of the nuclear family is not defined by physical dynamic but by emotional dynamics. Some person or people are at the center and all other people are on the periphery orbiting around that center.Obviously I don’t know anything about your family but I can tell you that this exactly describes my family of origin. My father, who I have spoke of often, was a famous linguist at MIT. When asked to place my family members into the structure of a solar system I would say without hesitation that my father was at the center, the sun so to speak. All other family members from my mother to my three brothers and myself orbited around his center of gravity. Dad wasn’t a greedy or narcissistic person far from it, he was just an incredible intellect, a genius. It was impossible for our family to have any other emotional formulation in some sense as we all basked in the reflected glory of his talent.When my father passed away in 2001 at the age of 67 it was devastating for our family system. I con only really speak for myself, but I can tell you that I felt completely unmoored. Like a dark planet suddenly left adrift in the galaxy released from the gravitational pull of an immense sun which had suddenly twinkled out of existence.One day several weeks after my father’s death. I was sitting at our kitchen table when I noticed my mother take a small waste bin over to my father’s desk. She opened one of the drawers in his desk and began pulling out his papers and cassette tapes and placing them into the bin. I walked over to her and knelt down beside her. “What are you doing mom?” I asked. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and said simply “I don’t know what TO do” “It’s ok mom, I said, I understand and I helped her take the papers and cassette tapes out of the bin and place them back into his desk”. This was the nature of our family, without the warmth and gravity of my father at the center we were all left adrift in space and time, unsure how we would move forward, what the future looked like.But here I am 20 years later with a family of my own. My wife Kristin and I struggled for years over our family dynamic. We tried everything, breaking up tasks, dividing up the labor, everything that you might expect in a modern household. One day I got kind of pissed and I said something like man my father didn’t know how good he had it...