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What Is a Family Culture? Definition and Examples

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You may know what family values are and even know the different types of family structures, but defining your family culture is a little more complex. A family culture is basically defined as the set of customs and morals your family subscribes to, but it's also much more than that.

Definition of Family Culture

Family culture can relate to just your immediate family or be representative of your extended family and ancestors. To understand the definition of family culture, it's best to break apart these two words.

One broad definition of family is "a social group in society consisting of people related to each other by various means."
The definition of culture is "a particular set of customs, morals, codes and traditions from a specific time and place."
Put these words together and the definition of family culture is "a particular set of customs, morals, codes, and traditions shared by a social group of related people."

Characteristics of a Family Culture

Each family culture is as unique as the family who exemplifies it. While it's impossible to define uniform characteristics of a family culture, there are some things that typically make up family culture.

Unspoken - Families don't often discuss their culture, they just know what's expected and accepted.
Elder Expectations - Older generations have a high expectation that younger generations will keep the same values, customs, and overall family culture.
Reciprocal Relationships - All family members are held to the same standard and expected to reciprocate what's given to them or how they are treated.

Types of Family Cultures With Examples

In 2012, the University of Virginia completed a longitudinal study and identified four types of family cultures common in America. Each type of family culture is almost equally represented by American families from all walks of life, with roughly 20%-25% of families identifying with each type.

Faithful Family Culture

These families take their cues from church or religious communities, including Christianity, Judaism, or Islam.

They are defined by a strong moral compass that requires all members to have a powerful sense of right and wrong as defined by their belief system.
Individual happiness and success is not as important as reflecting your God's purpose.
An example would be a traditional Arab family where grandparents are always consulted for big decisions like marriage because the Koran says the elderly are esteemed.

Engaged Progressive Family Culture

This type of family culture is all about personal responsibility and personal freedom.

Family members operate off The Golden Rule and what feels right to each person.
Kids from this type of family culture generally have more freedom at younger ages than other kids.
This type of family culture is the least religious of all four types.
A traditional Brazilian family could be an example of this family culture because personal values are important and people respect and expect honesty from each other.

Detached Family Culture

Detached families don't spend a lot of time together because they generally believe all the bad influences of the world will overshadow their influence.

Low income families are more likely to fall in this category.
This type of family culture includes a hands-off strategy to parenting and relationships where the belief is that whatever will be, will be.
Parents who don't keep tabs on their child's grades or school work and families that only eat together when they're watching TV are examples of detached family cultures.

American Dreamer Family Culture

American dreamer family cultures are the most common in the U.S., but only slightly more common than all the others.

This type of family culture features an optimistic attitude about the abilities of and opportunities for individual members.
These families have very close relationships where parents pour all their energy into helping their kids succeed in life and avoid as many negative social influences as possible.
A family where both parents attend every practice and game for their son's basketball team would be an example of American Dreamers.

Importance and Impact of Family Culture

Family culture influences the way each family member thinks, feels, and acts on a daily basis. Your family culture influences things like your moral compass, beliefs, values, and traditions. You might choose a career based on your family culture by picking something you know your family values. You might get really upset if your spouse doesn't get you a birthday gift because your family culture made a big deal out of each person's birthday. From big life choices and actions to small details, family culture is important because it is a big part of what makes you, you.

How to Determine Family Culture

Determining what type of family culture you're from could be simple or seem impossible. The trick is to look at similarities between the lives of the majority of your family members. Do many of you work in the same occupational field? Do you have certain family obligations that can never be missed? Do many of you act the same way when you're happy, sad, or angry? Do you view certain groups of people in an overly negative or positive way? These similarities in values, beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and customs make up your family culture.

Define Your Family Culture

A healthy family culture highlights the importance of family values that are shared amongst the group. Those who veer away from the family culture may encounter culture and family issues . Families are influenced by all kinds of factors, so you'll find different family cultures around the world.

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Article contents

Family, culture, and communication.

V. Santiago Arias V. Santiago Arias College of Media and Communication, Texas Tech University
and Narissra Maria Punyanunt-Carter Narissra Maria Punyanunt-Carter College of Media and Communication, Texas Tech University
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.504
Published online: 22 August 2017

Through the years, the concept of family has been studied by family therapists, psychology scholars, and sociologists with a diverse theoretical framework, such as family communication patterns (FCP) theory, dyadic power theory, conflict, and family systems theory. Among these theories, there are two main commonalities throughout its findings: the interparental relationship is the core interaction in the familial system because the quality of their communication or coparenting significantly affects the enactment of the caregiver role while managing conflicts, which are not the exception in the familial setting. Coparenting is understood in its broader sense to avoid an extensive discussion of all type of families in our society. Second, while including the main goal of parenting, which is the socialization of values, this process intrinsically suggests cultural assimilation as the main cultural approach rather than intergroup theory, because intercultural marriages need to decide which values are considered the best to be socialized. In order to do so, examples from the Thai culture and Hispanic and Latino cultures served to show cultural assimilation as an important mediator of coparenting communication patterns, which subsequently affect other subsystems that influence individuals’ identity and self-esteem development in the long run. Finally, future directions suggest that the need for incorporating a nonhegemonic one-way definition of cultural assimilation allows immigration status to be brought into the discussion of family communication issues in the context of one of the most diverse countries in the world.

parental communication
dyadic power
family communication systems
cultural assimilation

Introduction

Family is the fundamental structure of every society because, among other functions, this social institution provides individuals, from birth until adulthood, membership and sense of belonging, economic support, nurturance, education, and socialization (Canary & Canary, 2013 ). As a consequence, the strut of its social role consists of operating as a system in a manner that would benefit all members of a family while achieving what is considered best, where decisions tend to be coherent, at least according to the norms and roles assumed by family members within the system (Galvin, Bylund, & Brommel, 2004 ). Notwithstanding, the concept of family can be interpreted differently by individual perceptions to an array of cultural backgrounds, and cultures vary in their values, behaviors, and ideas.

The difficulty of conceptualizing this social institution suggests that family is a culture-bound phenomenon (Bales & Parsons, 2014 ). In essence, culture represents how people view themselves as part of a unique social collective and the ensuing communication interactions (Olaniran & Roach, 1994 ); subsequently, culture provides norms for behavior having a tremendous impact on those family members’ roles and power dynamics mirrored in its communication interactions (Johnson, Radesky, & Zuckerman, 2013 ). Thus, culture serves as one of the main macroframeworks for individuals to interpret and enact those prescriptions, such as inheritance; descent rules (e.g., bilateral, as in the United States, or patrilineal); marriage customs, such as ideal monogamy and divorce; and beliefs about sexuality, gender, and patterns of household formation, such as structure of authority and power (Weisner, 2014 ). For these reasons, “every family is both a unique microcosm and a product of a larger cultural context” (Johnson et al., 2013 , p. 632), and the analysis of family communication must include culture in order to elucidate effective communication strategies to solve familial conflicts.

In addition, to analyze familial communication patterns, it is important to address the most influential interaction with regard to power dynamics that determine the overall quality of family functioning. In this sense, within the range of family theories, parenting function is the core relationship in terms of power dynamics. Parenting refers to all efforts and decisions made by parents individually to guide their children’s behavior. This is a pivotal function, but the quality of communication among people who perform parenting is fundamental because their internal communication patterns will either support or undermine each caregiver’s parenting attempts, individually having a substantial influence on all members’ psychological and physical well-being (Schrodt & Shimkowski, 2013 ). Subsequently, parenting goes along with communication because to execute all parenting efforts, there must be a mutual agreement among at least two individuals to conjointly take care of the child’s fostering (Van Egeren & Hawkins, 2004 ). Consequently, coparenting serves as a crucial predictor of the overall family atmosphere and interactions, and it deserves special attention while analyzing family communication issues.

Through the years, family has been studied by family therapists, psychology scholars, and sociologists, but interaction behaviors define the interpersonal relationship, roles, and power within the family as a system (Rogers, 2006 ). Consequently, family scholarship relies on a wide range of theories developed within the communication field and in areas of the social sciences (Galvin, Braithwaite, & Bylund, 2015 ) because analysis of communication patterns in the familial context offers more ecological validity that individuals’ self-report measures. As many types of interactions may happen within a family, there are many relevant venues (i.e., theories) for scholarly analysis on this subject, which will be discussed later in this article in the “ Family: Theoretical Perspectives ” section. To avoid the risk of cultural relativeness while defining family, this article characterizes family as “a long-term group of two or more people related through biological, legal, or equivalent ties and who enact those ties through ongoing interactions providing instrumental and/or emotional support” (Canary & Canary, 2013 , p. 5).

Therefore, the purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the most relevant theories in family communication to identify frustrations and limitations with internal communication. Second, as a case in point, the United States welcomes more than 50 million noncitizens as temporary visitors and admits approximately 1 million immigrants to live as lawful residents yearly (Fullerton, 2014 ), this demographic pattern means that nearly one-third of the population (102 million) comes from different cultural backgrounds, and therefore, the present review will incorporate culture as an important mediator for coparenting, so that future research can be performed to find specific techniques and training practices that are more suitable for cross-cultural contexts.

Family: Theoretical Perspectives

Even though the concept of family can be interpreted individually and differently in different cultures, there are also some commonalities, along with communication processes, specific roles within families, and acceptable habits of interactions with specific family members disregarding cultural differences. This section will provide a brief overview of the conceptualization of family through the family communication patterns (FCP) theory, dyadic power theory, conflict, and family systems theory, with a special focus on the interparental relationship.

Family Communication Patterns Theory

One of the most relevant approaches to address the myriad of communication issues within families is the family communication patterns (FCP) theory. Originally developed by McLeod and Chaffee ( 1973 ), this theory aims to understand families’ tendencies to create stable and predictable communication patterns in terms of both relational cognition and interpersonal behavior (Braithwaite & Baxter, 2005 ). Specifically, this theory focuses on the unique and amalgamated associations derived from interparental communication and its impact on parenting quality to determine FCPs and the remaining interactions (Young & Schrodt, 2016 ).

To illustrate FCP’s focus on parental communication, Schrodt, Witt, and Shimkowski ( 2014 ) conducted a meta-analysis of 74 studies (N = 14,255) to examine the associations between the demand/withdraw family communication patterns of interaction, and the subsequent individual, relational, and communicative outcomes. The cumulative evidence suggests that wife demand/husband withdraw and husband demand/wife withdraw show similar moderate correlations with communicative and psychological well-being outcomes, and even higher when both patterns are taken together (at the relational level). This is important because one of the main tenets of FCP is that familial relationships are drawn on the pursuit of coorientation among members. Coorientation refers to the cognitive process of two or more individuals focusing on and assessing the same object in the same material and social context, which leads to a number of cognitions as the number of people involved, which results in different levels of agreement, accuracy, and congruence (for a review, see Fitzpatrick & Koerner, 2005 ); for example, in dyads that are aware of their shared focus, two different cognitions of the same issue will result.

Hereafter, the way in which these cognitions are socialized through power dynamics determined socially and culturally by roles constitutes specific interdependent communication patterns among family members. For example, Koerner and Fitzpatrick ( 2006 ) provide a taxonomy of family types on the basis of coorientation and its impact on communication pattern in terms of the degree of conformity in those conversational tendencies. To wit, consensual families mostly agree for the sake of the hierarchy within a given family and to explore new points of view; pluralistic families allow members to participate equally in conversations and there is no pressure to control or make children’s decisions; protective families maintain the hierarchy by making decisions for the sake of achieving common family goals; and laissez-faire families, which are low in conversation and conformity orientation, allow family members to not get deeply involved in the family.

The analysis of family communication patterns is quintessential for family communication scholarly work because it influences forming an individual’s self concept in the long run. As a case in point, Young and Schrodt ( 2016 ) surveyed 181 young adults from intact families, where conditional and interaction effects between communication patterns and conformity orientation were observed as the main predictors of future romantic partners. Moreover, this study concluded that FCPs and interparental confirmation are substantial indicators of self-to-partner confirmation, after controlling for reciprocity of confirmation within the romantic relationship. As a consequence, FCP influences children’s and young adults’ perceptions of romantic behavior (e.g., Fowler, Pearson, & Beck, 2010 ); the quality of communication behavior, such as the degree of acceptation of verbal aggression in romantic dyads (e.g., Aloia & Solomon, 2013 ); gender roles; and conflict styles (e.g., Taylor & Segrin, 2010 ), and parental modeling (e.g., Young & Schrodt, 2016 ).

This suggests three important observations. First, family is a very complex interpersonal context, in which communication processes, specific roles within families, and acceptable habits of interactions with specific family members interact as subsystems (see Galvin et al., 2004 ; Schrodt & Shimkowski, 2013 ). Second, among those subsystems, the core interaction is the individuals who hold parenting roles (i.e., intact and post divorced families); the couple (disregarding particular sexual orientations), and, parenting roles have a reciprocal relationship over time (Le, McDaniel, Leavitt, & Feinberg, 2016 ). Communication between parenting partners is crucial for the development of their entire family; for example, Schrodt and Shimkowski ( 2013 ) conducted a survey with 493 young adult children from intact (N = 364) and divorced families (N = 129) about perceptions of interparental conflict that involves triangulation (the impression of being in the “middle” and feeling forced to display loyalty to one of the parents). Results suggest that supportive coparental communication positively predicts relational satisfaction with mothers and fathers, as well as mental health; on the other hand, antagonist and hostile coparental communication predicted negative marital satisfaction.

Consequently, “partners’ communication with one another will have a positive effect on their overall view of their marriage, . . . and directly result[ing in] their views of marital satisfaction” (Knapp & Daly, 2002 , p. 643). Le et al. ( 2016 ) conducted a longitudinal study to evaluate the reciprocal relationship between marital interaction and coparenting from the perspective of both parents in terms of support or undermining across the transition to parenthood from a dyadic perspective; 164 cohabiting heterosexual couples expecting their first child were analyzed from pregnancy until 36 months after birth. Both parents’ interdependence was examined in terms of three variables: gender difference analysis, stability over time in marriage and coparenting, and reciprocal associations between relationship quality and coparenting support or undermining. The findings suggest a long-term reciprocal association between relationship quality and coparenting support or undermining in heterosexual families; the quality of marriage relationship during prenatal stage is highly influential in coparenting after birth for both men and women; but, coparenting is connected to romantic relationship quality only for women.

Moreover, the positive association between coparenting and the parents’ relationship relates to the spillover hypothesis, which posits that the positive or negative factors in the parental subsystem are significantly associated with higher or lower marital satisfaction in the spousal subsystem, respectively. Ergo, overall parenting performance is substantially affected by the quality of marital communication patterns.

Dyadic Power

In addition, after analyzing the impact of marital interaction quality in families on marital satisfaction and future parental modeling, it is worth noting that marital satisfaction and coparenting are importantly mediated by power dynamics within the couple (Halstead, De Santis, & Williams, 2016 ), and even mediates marital commitment (e.g., Lennon, Stewart, & Ledermann, 2013 ). If the quality of interpersonal relationship between those individuals who hold parenting roles determines coparenting quality as well, then the reason for this association lies on the fact that virtually all intimate relationships are substantially characterized by power dynamics; when partners perceive more rewards than costs in the relationship, they will be more satisfied and significantly more committed to the relationship (Lennon et al., 2013 ). As a result, the inclusion of power dynamics in the analysis of family issues becomes quintessential.

For the theory of dyadic power, power in its basic sense includes dominance, control, and influence over others, as well as a means to meet survival needs. When power is integrated into dyadic intimate relationships, it generates asymmetries in terms of interdependence between partners due to the quality of alternatives provided by individual characteristics such as socioeconomic status and cultural characteristics such as gender roles. This virtually gives more power to men than women. Power refers to “the feeling derived from the ability to dominate, or control, the behavior, affect, and cognitions of another person[;] in consequence, this concept within the interparental relationship is enacted when one partner who controls resources and limiting the behavioral options of the other partner” (Lennon et al., 2013 , p. 97). Ergo, this theory examines power in terms of interdependence between members of the relationship: the partner who is more dependent on the other has less power in the relationship, which, of course, directly impact parenting decisions.

As a case in point, Worley and Samp ( 2016 ) examined the balance of decision-making power in the relationship, complaint avoidance, and complaint-related appraisals in 175 heterosexual couples. Findings suggest that decision-making power has a curvilinear association, in which individuals engaged in the least complaint avoidance when they were relatively equal to their partners in terms of power. In other words, perceptions of one another’s power potentially encourage communication efficacy in the interparental couple.

The analysis of power in intimate relationships, and, to be specific, between parents is crucial because it not only relates to marital satisfaction and commitment, but it also it affects parents’ dyadic coping for children. In fact, Zemp, Bodenmann, Backes, Sutter-Stickel, and Revenson ( 2016 ) investigated parents’ dyadic coping as a predictor of children’s internalizing symptoms, externalizing symptoms, and prosocial behavior in three independent studies. When there is a positive relationship among all three factors, the results indicated that the strongest correlation was the first one. Again, the quality of the marital and parental relationships has the strongest influence on children’s coping skills and future well-being.

From the overview of the two previous theories on family, it is worth addressing two important aspects. First, parenting requires an intensive great deal of hands-on physical care, attention to safety (Mooney-Doyle, Deatrick, & Horowitz, 2014 ), and interpretation of cues, and this is why parenting, from conception to when children enter adulthood, is a tremendous social, cultural, and legally prescribed role directed toward caregiving and endlessly attending to individuals’ social, physical, psychological, emotional, and cognitive development (Johnson et al., 2013 ). And while parents are making decisions about what they consider is best for all family members, power dynamics play a crucial role in marital satisfaction, commitment, parental modeling, and overall interparental communication efficacy in the case of postdivorce families. Therefore, the likelihood of conflict is latent within familial interactions while making decisions; indeed, situations in which family members agree on norms as a consensus is rare (Ritchie & Fitzpatrick, 1990 ).

In addition to the interparental and marital power dynamics that delineates family communication patterns, the familial interaction is distinctive from other types of social relationships in the unequaled role of emotions and communication of affection while family members interact and make decisions for the sake of all members. For example, Ritchie and Fitzpatrick ( 1990 ) provided evidence that fathers tended to perceive that all other family members agree with his decisions or ideas. Even when mothers confronted and disagreed with the fathers about the fathers’ decisions or ideas, the men were more likely to believe that their children agreed with him. When the children were interviewed without their parents, however, the majority of children agreed with the mothers rather than the fathers (Ritchie & Fitzpatrick, 1990 ). Subsequently, conflict is highly present in families; however, in general, the presence of conflict is not problematic per se. Rather, it is the ability to manage and recover from it and that could be problematic (Floyd, 2014 ).

One of the reasons for the role of emotions in interpersonal conflicts is explained by the Emotion-in-Relationships Model (ERM). This model states that feelings of bliss, satisfaction, and relaxation often go unnoticed due to the nature of the emotions, whereas “hot” emotions, such as anger and contempt, come to the forefront when directed at a member of an interpersonal relationship (Fletcher & Clark, 2002 ). This type of psychophysical response usually happens perhaps due to the different biophysical reactive response of the body compared to its reaction to positive ones (Floyd, 2014 ). There are two dimensions that define conflict. Conflict leads to the elicitation of emotions, but sometimes the opposite occurs: emotions lead to conflict. The misunderstanding or misinterpretation of emotions among members of a family can be a source of conflict, as well as a number of other issues, including personality differences, past history, substance abuse, mental or physical health problems, monetary issues, children, intimate partner violence, domestic rape, or maybe just general frustration due to recent events (Sabourin, Infante, & Rudd, 1990 ). In order to have a common understanding of this concept for the familial context in particular, conflict refers to as “any incompatibility that can be expressed by people related through biological, legal, or equivalent ties” (Canary & Canary, 2013 , p. 6). Thus, the concept of conflict goes hand in hand with coparenting.

There is a myriad of everyday family activities in which parents need to decide the best way to do them: sometimes they are minor, such as eating, watching TV, or sleeping schedules; others are more complicated, such as schooling. Certainly, while socializing and making these decisions, parents may agree or not, and these everyday situations may lead to conflict. Whether or not parents live together, it has been shown that “the extent to which children experience their parents as partners or opponents in parenting is related to children’s adjustment and well-being” (Gable & Sharp, 2016 , p. 1), because the ontology of parenting is materialized through socialization of values about every aspect and duty among all family members, especially children, to perpetuate a given society.

As the findings provided in this article show, the study of family communication issues is pivotal because the way in which those issues are solved within families will be copied by children as their values. Values are abstract ideas that delineate behavior toward the evaluation of people and events and vary in terms of importance across individuals, but also among cultures. In other words, their future parenting (i.e., parenting modeling) of children will replicate those same strategies for conflict solving for good or bad, depending on whether parents were supportive between each other. Thus, socialization defines the size and scope of coparenting.

The familial socialization of values encompasses the distinction between parents’ personal execution of those social appraisals and the values that parents want their children to adopt, and both are different things; nonetheless, familial socialization does not take place in only one direction, from parents to children. Benish-Weisman, Levy, and Knafo ( 2013 ) investigated the differentiation process—or, in other words, the distinction between parents’ own personal values and their socialization values and the contribution of children’s values to their parents’ socialization values. In this study, in which 603 Israeli adolescents and their parents participated, the findings suggest that parents differentiate between their personal values and their socialization values, and adolescents’ values have a specific contribution to their parents’ socialization values. As a result, socialization is not a unidirectional process affected by parents alone, it is an outcome of the reciprocal interaction between parents and their adolescent children, and the given importance of a given value is mediated by parents and their culture individually (Johnson et al., 2013 ). However, taking power dynamics into account does not mean that adolescents share the same level of decision-making power in the family; thus, socialization take place in both directions, but mostly from parents to children. Finally, it is worth noticing that the socialization of values in coparenting falls under the cultural umbrella. The next section pays a special attention to the role of culture in family communication.

The Role of Culture in Parenting Socialization of Values

There are many individual perceived realities and behaviors in the familial setting that may lead to conflict among members, but all of them achieve a common interpretation through culture; indeed, “all family conflict processes by broad cultural factors” (Canary & Canary, 2013 , p. 46). Subsequently, the goal of this section is to provide an overview of the perceived realities and behaviors that exist in family relationships with different cultural backgrounds. How should one approach the array of cultural values influencing parental communication patterns?

An interesting way of immersing on the role of culture in family communication patterns and its further socialization of values is explored by Schwartz ( 1992 ). The author developed a value system composed of 10 values operationalized as motivational goals for modern society: (a) self-direction (independence of thought and action); (b) stimulation (excitement, challenge, and novelty); (c) hedonism (pleasure or sensuous gratification); (d) achievement (personal success according to social standards); (e) power (social status, dominance over people and resources); (f) conformity (restraint of actions that may harm others or violate social expectations); (g) tradition (respect and commitment to cultural or religious customs and ideas); (h) benevolence (preserving and enhancing the welfare of people to whom one is close); (i) universalism (understanding, tolerance, and concern for the welfare of all people and nature); and (j) security (safety and stability of society, relationships, and self).

Later, Schwartz and Rubel ( 2005 ) applied this value structure, finding it to be commonly shared among over 65 countries. Nevertheless, these values are enacted in different ways by societies and genders about the extent to which men attribute more relevance to values of power, stimulation, hedonism, achievement, and self-direction, and the opposite was found for benevolence and universalism and less consistently for security. Also, it was found that all sex differences were culturally moderated, suggesting that cultural background needs to be considered in the analysis of coparental communication when socializing those values.

Even though Schwartz’s work was more focused on individuals and societies, it is a powerful model for the analysis of the role of culture on family communication and parenting scholarships. Indeed, Schwartz et al. ( 2013 ) conducted a longitudinal study with a sample of 266 Hispanic adolescents (14 years old) and their parents that looked at measures of acculturation, family functioning, and adolescent conduct problems, substance use, and sexual behavior at five time points. Results suggest that higher levels of acculturation in adolescents were linked to poorer family functioning; however, overall assimilation negatively predicted adolescent cigarette smoking, sexual activity, and unprotected sex. The authors emphasize the role of culture, and acculturation patterns in particular, in understanding the mediating role of family functioning and culture.

Ergo, it is crucial to address the ways in which culture affects family functioning. On top of this idea, Johnson et al. ( 2013 ) observed that Western cultures such as in the United States and European countries are oriented toward autonomy, favoring individual achievement, self-reliance, and self-assertiveness. Thus, coparenting in more autonomous countries will socialize to children the idea that achievement in life is an outcome of independence, resulting in coparenting communication behaviors that favor verbal praise and feedback over physical contact. As opposed to autonomy-oriented cultures, other societies, such as Asian, African, and Latin American countries, emphasize interdependence over autonomy; thus, parenting in these cultures promotes collective achievement, sharing, and collaboration as the core values.

These cultural orientations can be observed in parents’ definitions of school readiness and educational success; for Western parents, examples include skills such as counting, recognizing letters, or independently completing tasks such as coloring pictures, whereas for more interdependent cultures, the development of obedience, respect for authority, and appropriate social skills are the skills that parents are expecting their children to develop to evaluate school readiness. As a matter of fact, Callaghan et al. ( 2011 ) conducted a series of eight studies to evaluate the impact of culture on the social-cognitive skills of one- to three-year-old children in three diverse cultural settings such as Canada, Peru, and India. The results showed that children’s acquisition of specific cognitive skills is moderated by specific learning experiences in a specific context: while Canadian children were understanding the performance of both pretense and pictorial symbols skillfully between 2.5 and 3.0 years of age, on average, Peruvian and Indian children mastered those skills more than a year later. Notwithstanding, this finding does not suggest any kind of cultural superiority; language barriers and limitations derived from translation itself may influence meanings, affecting the results (Sotomayor-Peterson, De Baca, Figueredo, & Smith-Castro, 2013 ). Therefore, in line with the findings of Schutz ( 1970 ), Geertz ( 1973 ), Grusec ( 2002 ), Sotomayor-Peterson et al. ( 2013 ), and Johnson et al. ( 2013 ), cultural values provide important leverage for understanding family functioning in terms of parental decision-making and conflict, which also has a substantial impact on children’s cognitive development.

Subsequently, cultural sensitivity to the analysis of the familial system in this country needs to be specially included because cultural differences are part of the array of familial conflicts that may arise, and children experience real consequences from the quality of these interactions. Therefore, parenting, which is already arduous in itself, and overall family functioning significantly become troublesome when parents with different cultural backgrounds aim to socialize values and perform parenting tasks. The following section provides an account of these cross-cultural families.

Intercultural Families: Adding Cultural Differences to Interparental Communication

For a country such as the United States, with 102 million people from many different cultural backgrounds, the presence of cross-cultural families is on the rise, as is the likelihood of intermarriage between immigrants and natives. With this cultural diversity, the two most prominent groups are Hispanics and Asians, particular cases of which will be discussed next. Besides the fact that parenting itself is a very complex and difficult task, certainly the biggest conflict consists of making decisions about the best way to raise children in terms of their values with regard to which ethnic identity better enacts the values that parents believe their children should embrace. As a result, interracial couples might confront many conflicts and challenges due to cultural differences affecting marital satisfaction and coparenting.

Assimilation , the degree to which a person from a different cultural background has adapted to the culture of the hostage society, is an important phenomenon in intermarriage. Assimilationists observe that children from families in which one of the parents is from the majority group and the other one from the minority do not automatically follow the parent from the majority group (Cohen, 1988 ). Indeed, they follow their mothers more, whichever group she belongs to, because of mothers are more prevalent among people with higher socioeconomic status (Gordon, 1964 ; Portes, 1984 ; Schwartz et al., 2013 ).

In an interracial marriage, the structural and interpersonal barriers inhibiting the interaction between two parents will be reduced significantly if parents develop a noncompeting way to communicate and solve conflicts, which means that both of them might give up part of their culture or ethnic identity to reach consensus. Otherwise, the ethnic identity of children who come from interracial marriages will become more and more obscure (Saenz, Hwang, Aguirre, & Anderson, 1995 ). Surely, parents’ noncompeting cultural communication patterns are fundamental for children’s development of ethnic identity. Biracial children develop feelings of being outsiders, and then parenting becomes crucial to developing their strong self-esteem (Ward, 2006 ). Indeed, Gordon ( 1964 ) found that children from cross-racial or cross-ethnic marriages are at risk of developing psychological problems. In another example, Jognson and Nagoshi ( 1986 ) studied children who come from mixed marriages in Hawaii and found that the problems of cultural identification, conflicting demands in the family, and of being marginal in either culture still exist (Mann & Waldron, 1977 ). It is hard for those mixed-racial children to completely develop the ethnic identity of either the majority group or the minority group.

The question of how children could maintain their minority ethnic identity is essential to the development of ethnic identity as a whole. For children from interracial marriage, the challenge to maintain their minority ethnic identity will be greater than for the majority ethnic identity (Waters, 1990 ; Schwartz et al., 2013 ) because the minority-group spouse is more likely to have greater ethnic consciousness than the majority-group spouse (Ellman, 1987 ). Usually, the majority group is more influential than the minority group on a child’s ethnic identity, but if the minority parent’s ethnicity does not significantly decline, the child’s ethnic identity could still reflect some characteristics of the minority parent. If parents want their children to maintain the minority group’s identity, letting the children learn the language of the minority group might be a good way to achieve this. By learning the language, children form a better understanding of that culture and perhaps are more likely to accept the ethnic identity that the language represents (Xin & Sandel, 2015 ).

In addition to language socialization as a way to contribute to children’s identity in biracial families, Jane and Bochner ( 2009 ) indicated that family rituals and stories could be important in performing and transforming identity. Families create and re-create their identities through various kinds of narrative, in which family stories and rituals are significant. Festivals and rituals are different from culture to culture, and each culture has its own. Therefore, exposing children to the language, rituals, and festivals of another culture also could be helpful to form their ethnic identity, in order to counter problems of self-esteem derived from the feeling of being an outsider.

To conclude this section, the parenting dilemma in intercultural marriages consists of deciding which culture they want their children to be exposed to and what kind of heritage they want to pass to children. The following section will provide two examples of intercultural marriages in the context of American society without implying that there are no other insightful cultures that deserve analysis, but the focus on Asian-American and Hispanics families reflects the available literature (Canary & Canary, 2013 ) and its demographic representativeness in this particular context. In addition, in order to acknowledge that minorities within this larger cultural background deserve more attention due to overemphasis on larger cultures in scholarship, such as Chinese or Japanese cultures, the Thai family will provide insights into understanding the role of culture in parenting and its impact on the remaining familial interaction, putting all theories already discussed in context. Moreover, the Hispanic family will also be taken in account because of its internal pan-ethnicity variety.

An Example of Intercultural Parenting: The Thai Family

The Thai family, also known as Krob Krua, may consist of parents, children, paternal and maternal grandparents, aunts, uncles, grandchildren, in-laws, and any others who share the same home. Thai marriages usually are traditional, in which the male is the authority figure and breadwinner and the wife is in charge of domestic items and the homemaker. It has been noted that Thai mothers tend to be the major caregivers and caretakers in the family rather than fathers (Tulananda, Young, & Roopnarine, 1994 ). On the other hand, it has been shown that Thai mothers also tend to spoil their children with such things as food and comfort; Tulananda et al. ( 1994 ) studied the differences between American and Thai fathers’ involvement with their preschool children and found that American fathers reported being significantly more involved with their children than Thai fathers. Specifically, the fathers differed in the amount of socialization and childcare; Thai fathers reported that they obtained more external support from other family members than American fathers; also, Thai fathers were more likely to obtain support for assisting with daughters than sons.

Furthermore, with regard to the family context, Tulananda and Roopnarine ( 2001 ) noted that over the years, some attention has been focused on the cultural differences among parent-child behaviors and interactions; hereafter, the authors believed that it is important to look at cultural parent-child interactions because that can help others understand children’s capacity to socialize and deal with life’s challenges. As a matter of fact, the authors also noted that Thai families tend to raise their children in accordance with Buddhist beliefs. It is customary for young Thai married couples to live with either the wife’s parents (uxorilocal) or the husband’s parents (virilocal) before living on their own (Tulananda & Roopnarine, 2001 ). The process of developing ethnicity could be complicated. Many factors might influence the process, such as which parent is from the minority culture and the cultural community, as explained in the previous section of this article.

This suggests that there is a difference in the way that Thai and American fathers communicate with their daughters. As a case in point, Punyanunt-Carter ( 2016 ) examined the relationship maintenance behaviors within father-daughter relationships in Thailand and the United States. Participants included 134 American father-daughter dyads and 154 Thai father-daughter dyads. The findings suggest that when quality of communication was included in this relationship, both types of families benefit from this family communication pattern, resulting in better conflict management and advice relationship maintenance behaviors. However, differences were found: American fathers are more likely than American daughters to employ relationship maintenance behaviors; in addition, American fathers are more likely than Thai fathers to use relationship maintenance strategies.

As a consequence, knowing the process of ethnic identity development could provide parents with different ways to form children’s ethnic identity. More specifically, McCann, Ota, Giles, and Caraker ( 2003 ), and Canary and Canary ( 2013 ) noted that Southeast Asian cultures have been overlooked in communication studies research; these countries differ in their religious, political, and philosophical thoughts, with a variety of collectivistic views and religious ideals (e.g., Buddhism, Taoism, Islam), whereas the United States is mainly Christian and consists of individualistic values.

The Case of Hispanic/Latino Families in the United States

There is a need for including Hispanic/Latino families in the United States because of the demographic representativeness and trends of the ethnicity: in 2016 , Hispanics represent nearly 17% of the total U.S. population, becoming the largest minority group. There are more than 53 million Hispanics and Latinos in the United States; in addition, over 93% of young Hispanics and Latinos under the age of 18 hold U.S. citizenship, and more than 73,000 of these people turn 18 every month (Barreto & Segura, 2014 ). Furthermore, the current Hispanic and Latino population is spread evenly between foreign-born and U.S.-born individuals, but the foreign-born population is now growing faster than the number of Hispanic children born in the country (Arias & Hellmueller, 2016 ). This demographic trend is projected to reach one-third of the U.S. total population by 2060 ; therefore, with the growth of other minority populations in the country, the phenomenon of multiracial marriage and biracial children is increasing as well.

Therefore, family communication scholarship has an increasing necessity to include cultural particularities in the analysis of the familial system; in addition to the cultural aspects already explained in this article, this section addresses the influence of familism in Hispanic and Latino familial interactions, as well as how immigration status moderates the internal interactions, reflected in levels of acculturation, that affect these families negatively.

With the higher marriage and birth rates among Hispanics and Latinos living in the United States compared to non-Latino Whites and African American populations, the Hispanic familial system is perhaps the most stereotyped as being familistic (Glick & Van Hook, 2008 ). This family trait consists of the fact that Hispanics place a very high value on marriage and childbearing, on the basis of a profound commitment to give support to members of the extended family as well. This can be evinced in the prevalence of extended-kind shared households in Hispanic and Latino families, and Hispanic children are more likely to live in extended-family households than non-Latino Whites or blacks (Glick & Van Hook, 2008 ). Living in extended-family households, most likely with grandparents, may have positive influences on Hispanic and Latino children, such as greater attention and interaction with loving through consistent caregiving; grandparents may help by engaging with children in academic-oriented activities, which then affects positively cognitive educational outcomes.

However, familism is not the panacea for all familial issues for several reasons. First, living in an extended-family household requires living arrangements that consider adults’ needs more than children’s. Second, the configuration of Hispanic and Latino households is moderated by any immigration issues with all members of the extended family, and this may cause problems for children (Menjívar, 2000 ). The immigration status of each individual member may produce a constant state of flux, whereas circumstances change to adjust to economic opportunities, which in turn are limited by immigration laws, and it gets even worse when one of the parents isn’t even present in the children’s home, but rather live in their home country (Van Hook & Glick, 2006 ). Although Hispanic and Latino children are more likely to live with married parents and extended relatives, familism is highly affected by the immigration status of each member.

On the other hand, there has been research to address the paramount role of communication disregarding the mediating factor of cultural diversity. For example, Sotomayor-Peterson et al. ( 2013 ) performed a cross-cultural comparison of the association between coparenting or shared parental effort and family climate among families from Mexico, the United States, and Costa Rica. The overall findings suggest what was explained earlier in this article: more shared parenting predicts better marital interaction and family climate overall.

In addition, parenting quality has been found to have a positive relationship with children’s developmental outcomes. In fact, Sotomayor-Peterson, Figueredo, Christensen, and Taylor ( 2012 ) conducted a study with 61 low-income Mexican American couples, with at least one child between three and four years of age, recruited from a home-based Head Start program. The main goal of this study was to observe the extent that shared parenting incorporates cultural values and income predicts family climate. The findings suggest that the role of cultural values such as familism, in which family solidarity and avoidance of confrontation are paramount, delineate shared parenting by Mexican American couples.

Cultural adaptation also has a substantial impact on marital satisfaction and children’s cognitive stimulation. Indeed, Sotomayor-Peterson, Wilhelm, and Card ( 2011 ) investigated the relationship between marital relationship quality and subsequent cognitive stimulation practices toward their infants in terms of the actor and partner effects of White and Hispanic parents. The results indicate an interesting relationship between the level of acculturation and marital relationship quality and a positive cognitive stimulation of infants; specifically, marital happiness is associated with increased cognitive stimulation by White and high-acculturated Hispanic fathers. Nevertheless, a major limitation of Hispanic acculturation literature has been seen, reflecting a reliance on cross-sectional studies where acculturation was scholarly operationalized more as an individual difference variable than as a longitudinal adaptation over time (Schwartz et al., 2013 ).

Culture and Family Communication: the “so what?” Question

This article has presented an entangled overview of family communication patterns, dyadic power, family systems, and conflict theories to establish that coparenting quality plays a paramount role. The main commonality among those theories pays special attention to interparental interaction quality, regardless of the type of family (i.e., intact, postdivorce, same-sex, etc.) and cultural background. After reviewing these theories, it was observed that the interparental relationship is the core interaction in the familial context because it affects children from their earlier cognitive development to subsequent parental modeling in terms of gender roles. Thus, in keeping with Canary and Canary ( 2013 ), no matter what approach may be taken to the analysis of family communication issues, the hypothesis that a positive emotional climate within the family is fostered only when couples practice a sufficient level of shared parenting and quality of communication is supported.

Nevertheless, this argument does not suggest that the role of culture in the familial interactions should be undersold. While including the main goal of parenting, which is the socialization of values, in the second section of this article, the text also provides specific values of different countries that are enacted and socialized differently across cultural contexts to address the role of acculturation in the familial atmosphere, the quality of interactions, and individual outcomes. As a case in point, Johnson et al. ( 2013 ) provided an interesting way of seeing how cultures differ in their ways of enacting parenting, clarifying that the role of culture in parenting is not a superficial or relativistic element.

In addition, by acknowledging the perhaps excessive attention to larger Asian cultural backgrounds (such as Chinese or Japanese cultures) by other scholars (i.e., Canary & Canary, 2013 ), an insightful analysis of the Thai American family within the father-daughter relationship was provided to exemplify, through the work of Punyanunt-Carter ( 2016 ), how specific family communication patterns, such as maintenance relationship communication behaviors, affect the quality of familial relationships. Moreover, a second, special focus was put on Hispanic families because of the demographic trends of the United States, and it was found that familism constitutes a distinctive aspect of these families.

In other words, the third section of this article provided these two examples of intercultural families to observe specific ways that culture mediates the familial system. Because one of the main goals of the present article was to demonstrate the mediating role of culture as an important consideration for family communication issues in the United States, the assimilationist approach was taken into account; thus, the two intercultural family examples discussed here correspond to an assimilationist nature rather than using an intergroup approach.

This decision was made without intending to diminish the value of other cultures or ethnic groups in the country, but an extensive revision of all types of intercultural families is beyond the scope of this article. Second, the assimilationist approach forces one to consider cultures that are in the process of adapting to a new hosting culture, and the Thai and Hispanic families in the United States comply with this theoretical requisite. For example, Whites recognize African Americans as being as American as Whites (i.e., Dovidio, Gluszek, John, Ditlmann, & Lagunes, 2010 ), whereas they associate Hispanics and Latinos with illegal immigration in the United States (Stewart et al., 2011 ), which has been enhanced by the U.S. media repeatedly since 1994 (Valentino et al., 2013 ), and it is still happening (Dixon, 2015 ). In this scenario, “ask yourself what would happen to your own personality if you heard it said over and over again that you were lazy, a simple child of nature, expected to steal, and had inferior blood? . . . One’s reputation, whether false or true, cannot be hammered, hammered, hammered, into one’s head without doing something to one’s character” (Allport, 1979 , p. 142, cited in Arias & Hellmueller, 2016 ).

As a consequence, on this cultural canvas, it should not be surprising that Lichter, Carmalt, and Qian ( 2011 ) found that second-generation Hispanics are increasingly likely to marry foreign-born Hispanics and less likely to marry third-generation or later coethnics or Whites. In addition, this study suggests that third-generation Hispanics and later were more likely than in the past to marry non-Hispanic Whites; thus, the authors concluded that there has been a new retreat from intermarriage among the largest immigrant groups in the United States—Hispanics and Asians—in the last 20 years.

If we subscribe to the idea that cultural assimilation goes in only one direction—from the hegemonic culture to the minority culture—then the results of Lichter, Carmalt, and Qian ( 2011 ) should not be of scholarly concern; however, if we believe that cultural assimilation happens in both directions and intercultural families can benefit both the host and immigrant cultures (for a review, see Schwartz et al., 2013 ), then this is important to address in a country that just elected a president, Donald Trump, who featured statements racially lambasting and segregating minorities, denigrating women, and criticizing immigration as some of the main tenets of his campaign. Therefore, we hope that it is clear why special attention was given to the Thai and Hispanic families in this article, considering the impact of culture on the familial system, marital satisfaction, parental communication, and children’s well-being. Even though individuals with Hispanic ancentry were in the United States even before it became a nation, Hispanic and Latino families are still trying to convince Americans of their right to be accepted in American culture and society.

With regard to the “So what?” question, assimilation is important to consider while analyzing the role of culture in family communication patterns, power dynamics, conflict, or the functioning of the overall family system in the context of the United States. This is because this country is among the most popular in the world in terms of immigration requests, and its demographics show that one out of three citizens comes from an ethnic background other than the hegemonic White culture. In sum, cultural awareness has become pivotal in the analysis of family communication issues in the United States. Furthermore, the present overview of family, communication, and culture ends up supporting the idea of positive associations being derived from the pivotal role of marriage relationship quality, such that coparenting and communication practices vary substantially within intercultural marriages moderated by gender roles.

Culture is a pivotal moderator of these associations, but this analysis needs to be tethered to societal structural level, in which cultural differences, family members’ immigration status, media content, and level of acculturation must be included in family research. This is because in intercultural marriages, in addition to the tremendous parenting role, they have to deal with cultural assimilation and discrimination, and this becomes important if we care about children’s cognitive development and the overall well-being of those who are not considered White. As this article shows, the quality of familial interactions has direct consequences on children’s developmental outcomes (for a review, see Callaghan et al., 2011 ).

Therefore, the structure and functioning of family has an important impact on public health at both physiological and psychological levels (Gage, Everett, & Bullock, 2006 ). At the physiological level, the familial interaction instigates expression and reception of strong feelings affecting tremendously on individuals’ physical health because it activates neuroendocrine responses that aid stress regulation, acting as a stress buffer and accelerating physiological recovery from elevated stress (Floyd & Afifi, 2012 ; Floyd, 2014 ). Robles, Shaffer, Malarkey, and Kiecolt-Glaser ( 2006 ) found that a combination of supportive communication, humor, and problem-solving behavior in husbands predicts their wives’ cortisol and adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH)—both physiological factors are considered as stress markers (see 2006 ). On the other hand, the psychology of individuals, the quality of family relationships has major repercussions on cognitive development, as reflected in educational attainment (Sohr-Preston et al., 2013 ), and highly mediated by cultural assimilation (Schwartz et al., 2013 ), which affects individuals through parenting modeling and socialization of values (Mooney-Doyle, Deatrick, & Horowitz, 2014 ).

20 Engaging Essays About Family You Can Easily Write

Discover 20 essays about family for your next essay writing project.

From defining the family to exploring problems within modern families, this personal topic lends itself well to essay writing. If you are preparing a personal essay or were assigned to write one on this topic, good news. You can easily draw on a wealth of sub-topics and themes about the family, as you develop your piece. But if you have trouble getting started, here are 20 ideas for essays about the family.

For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essay checkers .

1. Why Siblings Should Be Your Best Friends

2. what is a family, 3. how family culture is established by a nuclear family, 4. the importance of family in child rearing, 5. how my family made me a better person, 6. why i love my family, 7. why my mom/dad/grandparent is my role model, 8. the effect of dysfunctional families on teenagers, 9. a sociological approach to defining family, 10. the influence of extended family on a child’s life experiences, 11. how popular culture portrays the happy family, 12. how my dysfunctional family defined my character, 13. how family has changed in american society, 14. is family changing or facing a state of decline, 15. the role family holds in everyday life, 16. comparing the family dynamics between two different cultures, 17. how my multi-cultural family gave me the best of both worlds, 18. unique challenges faced in single-parent families, 19. my most vivid family memory, 20. the challenges of being the youngest or oldest in the family.

A loving family is a beautiful gift, and with it often comes the gift of siblings. You could develop an essay on why siblings should be an individual’s best friends. When the relationship between them is loving and supportive, siblings are always around and able to help individuals through challenging life experiences.

This stands in stark contrast to the friends made in high school and even college. While some people will walk away with lifelong friends, life’s circumstances often pull friends apart. Family is forever, and people should work to develop those relationships. Looking for more? See these essays about brothers .

The dictionary defines a family as “a social group made up of parents and their children” or “a group of people who come from the same ancestor.” Yet this is a very narrow definition of family. Could you define it in another way? Are there people who you consider “family” who are not actually related to you by blood?

This essay idea gives you quite a bit of room for interpretation. Decide how you will define family, and then use the essay to support your choice. Then, discuss different ways family can look in society.

If you need some inspiration, check out our guide to the best parenting books .

The nuclear family is the most basic family structure: parents and their children. This family system is critical to developing a family culture and passing it down to the next generation. Do you find that you highly value having a family night on Fridays? It is likely because that is something your parents showed you in your own family when you were growing up.

Your essay can define family culture and show how family life helps establish that and pass it down to children. This family essay can discuss the nuclear family’s role in teaching children about cultural and religious values. Finally, the essay can establish why family culture and passing it along to children is so important.

For more help with this topic, read our guide explaining what is persuasive writing ?

Essays About Family: The importance of family in child-rearing

Can children grow into reasonable and ethical grown-ups without a family? While it is possible, the reality is the most stable adults typically come from loving and supportive families. One of the primary roles of the family is the development and rearing of children.

The family is the child’s primary social group . Through the family, they develop socially, emotionally, physically, and intellectually. In some ways, the family is the first school that teaches them the most important principles of life for young children. In your essay, establish the fact that family is the foundation for strong adults because of its role in child-rearing and child development.

If you need to write a personal essay, you can look at your family’s role in making you who you are. Your family played a vital role in your upbringing, from teaching you your core values to supporting you as you developed into the adult you are today.

Remember that you don’t have to have a happy family to write this essay. Even if your family circumstances were challenging, you can find ways that your family of origin helped you improve yourself and become a better person.

This is another personal essay topic. On the surface, it seems easy, but if you are going to write a quality essay, you need to dig deep. What makes your family unique and special, and why do you love that?

Keep in mind that all families have quirks and even problems. Yet you love your family in spite of these and sometimes even because of them. Don’t be afraid to include these in your essay.

Think of your family and the leaders in it. Is there one that stands out for a particular reason? Have you modeled some of your own life on how that person lived theirs?

Whether you choose a parent or a grandparent or even an extended family member, look more closely at what makes that individual so important in your life. Then, in your essay, you can outline how you are trying to emulate what they did in their life to make you more successful in yours.

When families go through difficult times, the effect is not limited to those struggling the most. The whole family will suffer when parents are fighting or financial problems arise. Teenagers are particularly vulnerable to dysfunctional family dynamics. They may act out, experience depression, or feel pressured to lead the family when their parents are facing conflict.

This essay explores the effect of family problems on teenagers and their emotional or social development. Consider providing solutions that can help teens manage their challenging emotions even while dealing with the unique challenge of a dysfunctional family.

The definition of family is constantly evolving, but what does sociology say about it? This question could lead to an exciting and engaging essay as you dig into sociology to find your family definition. Based on most sociological definitions , a family is a group of related individuals connected by blood, marriage, or adoption. It may also mean people who live under the same roof.

Based on this definition, the word family has a distinct boundary. While close friends might be something you consider as family personally, sociologists will not define family in this way. Looking at the way sociologists, specifically, define family will give you quite a bit for your essay.

Essays About Family: The influence of extended family on a child’s life experiences

Much has been written about the nuclear family and its impact on the child’s development, but the whole family can have a role to play. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other extended family members can contribute to the life experiences of a child, and you can turn this into an interesting essay topic.

Use your essay to explore what happens when the extended family lives close by and what happens when they do not. You can look at how much of an influence the extended family has on a child’s development, and what increases or decreases that influence.

What does the happy nuclear family look like in television shows and movies? Is it usually a mother, father, and child, or are same-sex couples shown regularly? Do single-parent households get equal representation, or not?

This topic could be a fascinating one to explore in your essay. Once you establish the facts, you can discuss if this portrayal reflects real life or not. Finally, you can talk about whether or not the cultural portrayal of the family represents the type of family values the average family embraces.

Not everyone grows up in a happy, stable family, but sometimes bad times can improve someone’s character and give them the drive to be better. If you grew up in a dysfunctional family, you could show how that helped define your character.

In this essay, work to make a positive spin on your difficult situation. This topic can work well for a personal essay for college entrance or employment purposes.

Is the definition of family changing in American society? Some would argue that it is. While the mother, father, and children style family is still common, many other families exist now.

For example, we have an increasing number of grandparents who are raising their grandchildren . Single-parent families are also on the rise, as are families with a single parent who was never married to the other parent to begin with. Families with same-sex parents are becoming more common as well. Take your essay and define this change and how the nuclear family may look in the future.

Another take on the idea of the changing family dynamic s discussing whether or not families are changing, or if the state of the family is in decline. This essay topic will require some research, but you can explore whether families are breaking down or if they are simply changing.

If you decide that the family is breaking down, you can explore the reasons for this breakdown and its impact on society.

From bringing in the income that the family members need to live on to giving direction for the growth and development of children, the family holds a significant role in everyday life. You can explore this role in your essay and talk about the different components of life that the family controls.

For people who grow up in a stable environment, the family provides emotional support and improves overall well-being. It is also the source for moral development, cultural development, and work ethic development. It also provides for the physical safety and needs of the children. All of these lend themselves well to an essay topic.

While the main definition of family is nearly universal, the nuances of family dynamics change significantly from one culture to the next. For example, some cultures are highly patriarchal in nature, while others focus on maternal leadership. Pick a very different culture from your own, and then compare and contrast them in your essay.

For this essay, make sure that you look at differences as well as similarities. Do not disparage either culture, either, but rather focus on their differences positively. This essay works well if you have contact or knowledge of both cultures so that it can be a great choice for someone growing up in a multi-cultural family.

This essay topic is a twist on the previous one. In addition to comparing and contrasting the family dynamic of the two cultures, you can look at how that directly impacted you. What did you gain from each of the two cultures that merged in your home?

The personal nature of this essay topic makes it easier to write, but be willing to do some research, too. Learn why your parents acted the way they did and how it tied into their cultures. Consider ways the cultures clashed and how your family worked through those problems.

Single-parent families can be loving and supportive families, and children can grow well in them, but they face some challenges. Your essay can expound on these challenges and help you show how they are overcome within the family dynamic.

As you develop this family essay, remember to shed some positive light on the tenacity of single parents. There are challenges in this family structure, but most single parents meet them head-on and grow happy, well-balanced children. Remember to discuss both single fathers and single mothers, as single-parent families have both.

You can use this personal essay topic when writing essays about the family. Think back to your childhood and your most vivid family memory. Maybe it is something positive, like an epic family vacation, or maybe it is something negative, like the time when your parents split up.

Write about how that family memory changed you as a child and even in your adult years. Discuss what you remember about it and what you know about it now, after the fact. Show how that memory helped develop you into who you are today.

Are you the family’s baby or the oldest child? What challenges did you face in this role? Discuss those as you develop your family essay topic.

Even if you were the middle child, you can use your observations of your family to discuss the challenges of the bookend children. Do you feel that the baby or the eldest has the easier path? Develop this into a well-thought-out essay.

If you are interested in learning more, check out our essay writing tips !

Nicole Harms has been writing professionally since 2006. She specializes in education content and real estate writing but enjoys a wide gamut of topics. Her goal is to connect with the reader in an engaging, but informative way. Her work has been featured on USA Today, and she ghostwrites for many high-profile companies. As a former teacher, she is passionate about both research and grammar, giving her clients the quality they demand in today's online marketing world.

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May 6-9, 2024 | Chicago, IL

The Effects of Family Culture on Family Foundations

Most people do not think of their family as having a “culture.” For many, it's a group of familiar people doing what they always do.

Yet it is exactly this—a characteristic way of thinking, feeling, judging, and acting—that defines a culture. Both in direct and subtle ways, children are molded by the family culture into which they are born. Growing up, their assumptions about what is right and wrong often reflect the beliefs, values and traditions of their family culture. Most take for granted their family’s ways, and they carry into adulthood numerous attitudes and behaviors acquired in childhood.

Even those who later reject all or part of the family culture often discover that they are not entirely free of their early influences. No matter that they promise themselves they will never repeat the mistakes of their own family—certain cultural attitudes and responses are so ingrained in family members that they continue to affect their thinking and behavior, whether or not those individuals are aware of such influence.

To say that families have identifiable cultures, however, is not to suggest that they are static. Families are in a constant state of transition as each member moves through the cycles of life and the family itself moves from one stage of development to the next. Marriages, births, divorces, and deaths change the family constellation and, in profound ways, alter the family culture. Simultaneously, larger political, economic, and social forces also impinge on the family culture. The social revolution that began in the 1960s, for example, changed—among other things—attitudes and expectations about the roles of men and women. The boy or girl raised in a family in which mother and aunts are professional women are exposed to a very different family culture from the one their grandparents knew.

Organizational Cultures

In the 1980s, management theorists and consultants popularized the concept of organizational culture. They described corporations in anthropological terms, pointing to their social structure, norms and laws, language, dress codes, and even their artifacts. Organizations with distinct cultures invariably bore the imprint of their founders. The corps of clean-shaven IBM executives dressed in white shirts and blue suits reflected the personality, beliefs, and style of Thomas Watson, Sr., just as the bearded Apple employees wearing jeans, T-shirts, and Birkenstock sandals reflected those of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

Like corporations, family foundations have distinct organizational cultures, and they are as varied as the families that generate them. They run the gamut from formal, with tightly run meetings held in foundation boardrooms, to informal, with gatherings around a family member’s dining room table. As in corporations, the values and norms of the founders and their families determine the focus of the foundation as well as how it is governed, how conflicts are handled, and how emotions are expressed.

To recognize the effects of family culture on the style and direction of a family foundation, Chapter 1 will look at four particular cultural attributes: values, norms, traditions, and conformity . Each is examined below.

The values of the family set the basic tone for the family foundation. They inspire the choice of mission as well as the foundation’s policies and practices. Typically, the values of the individuals who have created the family’s wealth predominate. Entrepreneurs with the single-mindedness and drive to amass fortunes often have powerful and compelling personalities to match. Not surprisingly, then, they shape foundations in their image and according to their values, philosophy, and preferred style of management—just as they did their business.

One such man was A. Lincoln Filene, who founded the Lincoln and Therese Filene Foundation in 1946. Born shortly after the assassination of President Lincoln, he was named by his immigrant parents in honor of the fallen president. Filene remained true to his namesake; throughout his life, he held progressive political views and acted on them.

Innovative businessman Lincoln Filene and his brother Edward built a major retail business, Filene’s department store in Boston, which had been started by their father. Later, Lincoln Filene joined with other store owners to form Federated Department Stores. The Filene brothers were the first to employ a full-time nurse in their store as an employee benefit in an era when most workers could not afford good medical care. They also promoted the creation of credit unions to help workers generate purchasing power.

Lincoln Filene was as engaged in the world as he was in his store. In the 1930s, he established programs for Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany with the dual purpose of helping them get jobs and learn what it means to be an American. In the 1950s, he created the Filene Center for Civic Participation at Tufts University, and he also helped establish the first public broadcasting station in Boston.

Fifty years after the family foundation was founded, Filene’s social and political commitments still prevail. Lincoln Filene would be pleased that today, members of the third, fourth, and fifth generations of the family serve side by side on the board and on program committees carrying out the work he began on issues involving civic education, public broadcasting, and job training.

The values of entrepreneurs who have created their family’s wealth do not always inspire family members to follow in their footsteps. In some cases, they motivate them to take an opposite course. Charles Demeré, the founder of the Debley Foundation in St. Mary’s City, Maryland, is one who took a different path from that of his father and brothers.

Demeré grew up hearing the story of his father Raymond’s rise from rags to riches. Forced to leave school to support his family, Raymond began delivering oil from a single barrel on the back of a truck. He eventually built his one-man business into the largest oil company in the Southeast. Yet even as a young man, Demeré recognized that his father was unhappy.

“I’d see my father reading books about how to gain peace of mind,” says Demeré, “but I could see that he didn’t have it. He spent his health in gaining wealth, and then spent his wealth to regain his health. I realized that wealth alone didn’t make life satisfying. I decided to look for meaning elsewhere.”

While his brothers followed careers in business, Demeré turned to spiritual pursuits. Ordained as an Episcopal priest, he and his wife, Margaret, chose to raise their family in modest circumstances. In 1962, after Demeré and his brothers dissolved a business partnership they had inherited from their father, Demeré used 10 percent of his money to endow the Debley Foundation. The name Debley, which combines the surnames of his father (Demeré) and his mother (Mobley), symbolizes the family philanthropic effort that Demeré hoped the foundation would foster. He invited his brothers, along with his cousins from the Mobley side of the family, to sit on the board.

“My idea was to pool our money and ideas,” says Demeré, “and in the process, to strengthen ties between the two sides of the family. It never happened. They’d just ask me what I wanted to give to, and then they’d rubber-stamp it and adjourn the meeting.”

Demeré’s dream of involving the extended family in creating a family culture built on philanthropic values never took hold. Later, he would try again, inviting his children on the board when they came of age. Today, two of Demeré’s four children serve on the board, along with his wife and two cousins.

It is not only the values of the person who creates the family wealth that stamp the family culture. The O’Neill family in Cleveland traces the value it places on family unity to Hugh O’Neill, who emigrated to the United States in 1884. Settling in Ohio, Hugh O’Neill raised his children to respect and maintain family ties. His grandson, William (Bill) J. O’Neill, Jr., explains that when he was growing up, “all the branches of the family lived nearby. We were almost as close to our cousins as were to our own brothers and sisters. My grandfather passed on his value of family cohesiveness to his children, who passed it on to us. Now my generation is doing the same for the next generation.”

O’Neill family members worked together in the family business, Leaseway Transportation, a publicly traded company started by Bill’s father and his two uncles. They, with Bill and some of his cousins, built the trucking and warehouse business into a billion-dollar-a-year operation. After the family sold its shares in Leaseway, Bill set up a family office to manage the family’s investments.

In 1987, the family discovered yet another way to tie its members together. Bill and his mother, Dorothy, the principal donor, established the William J. and Dorothy K. O’Neill Foundation. In keeping with the clan mentality, their goal was to involve every family member in the foundation at whatever level they could participate. Bill and his mother are the only trustees, but his five siblings sit on the disbursement committee, along with Bill’s wife and three members of the third generation. Whether or not they are active on committees, adult members of the family’s six branches are invited to attend meetings, and all receive detailed minutes of each foundation meeting explaining what was decided and why.

Norms are the spoken and unspoken rules of cultures. Reinforced over time, they operate as invisible constraints on family members’ behavior. Norms set standards for how family members dress, talk, and act. They also set limits on what is permissible or impermissible behavior under different circumstances and conditions. More than just rules of etiquette, norms provide family members with a guide for living both within the home and without.

When families establish foundations, they bring with them the rules of behavior that have governed the family culture. In 1985, John and Marianne Vanboven (not their real names) set up the Theodore Vanboven Family Foundation in honor of John’s father, a Dutch immigrant who built the family fortune. Originally, the board was composed of John and Marianne and their two children, Thomas and Alexandra. Then, two years, ago, the children’s spouses Joan and Michael, were added to the board.

“In our family, good manners count for everything,” says Thomas. “As children, my sister and I learned not to raise our voices, never to ask personal questions, and to avoid dissension at all costs. If we violated those rules, my parents would only have to raise their eyebrows to let us know that our behavior was out of line.”

When Thomas and Alexandra went away to college in the 1970s, they encountered a different set of norms. There, free expression was not only encouraged but considered healthy. Both Thomas and Alexandra spent several years in therapy learning how to express their feelings, and both married spouses who grew up in family cultures in which arguing and shouting were commonplace. Nonetheless, when Thomas and Alexandra are in the company of their parents, they still follow the rules of behavior they were taught as children.

Before the spouses joined the board, meetings to discuss allocations ran smoothly. The foundation funds higher education and church-run social services programs. Although Thomas and Alexandra wanted to be more adventurous grantmakers, they were reluctant to introduce proposals outside their parents’ purview.

When the spouses joined the board, however, they had a different understanding of what their roles would be. They expected that as trustees, they would be free to debate ideas and grant proposals. Joan quickly caught on to the Vanbovens’ unspoken norms and backed away from controversy. But Michael persisted in arguing his positions, sometimes quite aggressively and long after they were voted down by the board.

“It was evident from my parents’ silence and body language,” says Thomas, “that they were uncomfortable when Michael raised his voice or banged his fist on the table, but Michael seemed oblivious to their signals. When I mentioned his behavior to my mother, she denied that anything was wrong. That’s the way my parents are. They close their eyes to what they don’t want to see, and then hope that the problem will clear up by itself.”

As hard as the Vanboven family tries to avoid controversy, the Jacobs family welcomes it. They refer to themselves as a “loud and feisty bunch,” and there is no mistaking who inspired that image. Joe Jacobs, a child of Lebanese immigrants, grew up in poverty in Brooklyn. After earning a degree in chemical engineering, he started a small consulting business in 1947 that he built into the billion-dollar Jacobs Engineering Group.

As an undergraduate student, Joe was trained in Socratic dialogue, and this discipline sparked a love of intellectual sparring that he passed on to his three daughters. Over the years, the family has had plenty of opportunities to practice its debating skills. Joe is a political conservative and advocate of the free enterprise system, and his daughters are liberals. One rule guides the family’s arguments: say what you have to say with passion and heat, and then give others the same opportunity.

Once, in a particularly fiery argument between Joe and his daughter Linda, an exasperated Joe asked Linda what made her so opinionated. Her instant reply was, “Where do you think I learned that, Dad?” A few days later, Linda gave her father another answer. She presented him with a plaque imprinted with a quote from Jonathan Swift: “We love each other because our ailments are the same.” Joe hung it on the kitchen wall.

In 1989, Joe and his wife, Violet (Vi), set up the Jacobs Family Foundation in San Diego, California, and invited their daughters, and later their two sons-in-law, to serve on the board. Until the family discovered a common interest, funding microenterprises, their arguments over the foundation’s mission were long and furious. But they all agreed that they wanted their foundation to break new ground in philanthropy; and once again, the norms of the family culture prevailed. Joe had taken risks in building his business and wanted the foundation to do the same in philanthropy. For years, he kept on his desk a cartoon of Babe Ruth at bat; its caption read “Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times.” As Joe says, “Defeat can’t be avoided. It’s part of daring. That’s why I tell my family: Listen kids, we may get knocked on our behinds fighting the system, but we’re going to do it.”

The Jacobs Family Foundation has had many successes as well as its share of disappointments. In sticking its neck out, it has made mistakes and misjudged the capacity of certain individuals for leadership. But what some families might regard as failures, the Jacobs see as valuable lessons. Undaunted, they are confident they are on the right track.

All families have traditions that are passed down from one generation to the next. In the past, when the extended family all lived in one place, traditions were built into the routines of daily life and kept alive by family elders. As family branches diverged and the elders died, the traditions often died with them.

With family members scattered around the country, families now have to work hard to create and maintain their traditions. The O’Neill family, for example, holds reunions every three years for the entire clan—some 235 relatives who live in the United States. For one family branch of the clan whose members want to meet more regularly, there is also an annual weekend gathering every summer, which nearly half the family attends. Typically, one person in the family takes the initiative in organizing family events; in the O’Neill family, that person is often Bill O’Neill. To keep track of this large family, he prints and distributes a clan telephone directory, which he updates annually.

Several trustees interviewed for this guide mentioned traditional summer gathering places where the family comes together for fun and relaxation, usually at the summer home of the grandparents or at a family camp. It was through childhood experiences of those places, some say, that they first developed the sense of belonging to something larger than their immediate family.

For example, the Pardoe family has maintained a family farm in New Hampshire for 200 years. Purchased in 1796, the farm had been continually occupied by family members until the death of the family matriarch, Helen Pardoe, in 1988. Now the ownership and management of the farm have passed to the younger generation. Although younger family members live on both coasts, they still regard the farm as their symbolic family home.

“My grandmother was a large presence in the family,” says Charles Pardoe II, “and we were all close to her. The farm symbolizes the values my grandmother lived by and passed on to us: tight-knit family, hard work, and a positive attitude.”

The farm continues to be a family gathering place, and because the current owners of the farm are also the directors of the Samuel P. Pardoe Foundation in Washington, DC, at least one of the foundation's meetings is held there annually. The family foundation is now exploring ways to fund educational and charitable programs that use the farm’s fields, barns, and livestock in their activities.

Not all traditions are formal practices or celebrations; some are customary ways of doing things that go unquestioned. Often family members think and behave in certain ways because “that’s how it’s always been.” When families set up family foundations, they generally structure those foundations according to the same traditions. Foundations that do not have private offices, for example, often hold meetings in the home of the family elders (the traditional meeting place). Similarly, families with a tradition of vesting authority for business and investment decisions exclusively in the hands of the men in the family or the family elders generally set up a similar hierarchy in the foundation.

However, traditions respected within the context of the home may be challenged when carried over to the foundation. Coming together under different circumstances and in a wholly different arena, family members who have been excluded from decision making may no longer be as willing to abide by the usual traditions when they become trustees. Sometimes, even the family leaders themselves recognize that a different management structure is needed for the foundation.

Family cultures vary greatly in their tolerance of differences. Some demand total allegiance to the values of the culture and regard any divergence from the norm as threatening to the well-being of the family. Some even go as far as to cut off all contact with family members who embrace different philosophies or styles of living.

When families of this cultural type set up foundations, they impose the same demand for conformity on trustees. Typically, little if any debate takes place, and new voices or perspectives on issues are discouraged. One trustee, the granddaughter of the founder of a large foundation in the South, tells of her experience of joining the board when she was well into middle age. Married at age nineteen to escape what she described as an oppressively proper family life, she lived on the West Coast until her divorce several years ago. Back in her hometown, she was eager to serve on the family board, seeing the foundation as a way to reintegrate into the community.

In her absence, the control of the board had passed from her grandmother, the founder, to her father, and then to her three brothers, who, for the past eight years, had followed the same “cookie-cutter” approach to broaden the foundation’s grantmaking. She began meeting with members of the community to learn more about the foundation’s funding areas and to explore new approaches that the board might take in supporting local groups. Excited by her findings, she recommended that some of these individuals be invited to speak to the board at its next meeting. The board turned down her suggestion.

“They reacted as if I were a traitor to the family,” she says. “They regard any changes from the way my grandmother and father did things as betrayal. It’s frustrating that they shut the door to new ideas because with the amount of money we give away each year, this foundation could be a real force for change in this town.”

Other families, like the Stranahans, go to great lengths to ensure that everyone’s voice is heard. In 1956, Duane and Virginia Stranahan formed the Needmor Fund in Boulder, Colorado, with money earned from the family business, Champion Spark Plug, started by Duane’s father and uncle. The Stranahans are a large family (Duane and Virginia had six children who had sixteen children of their own), and their politics run the gamut from conservative to progressive. Despite their diversity, they place great value on inclusiveness.

“My grandfather is a quiet man who set an example of not imposing his views on others,” says Abby Stranahan, the current board chair. “He wants the family to work together, and he trusts them to make good decisions.”

The family’s tolerance for diversity was tested during the 1970s when the family and the foundation were in turmoil. Duane and Virginia divorced, as did several other family members, and others moved away from the family home in Toledo, Ohio. Meanwhile, Virginia left the board, and members of the third generation, politicized by the events of the times, had their own ideas on how to give money away.

To preserve unity and encourage family participation, the foundation revised the trust agreement. Under the new guidelines, any family member who contributed $1,000 to the foundation was considered a voting member of the foundation. Moreover, the family felt a need to develop a broad mission that would include the wide sweep of political philosophies. To that end, they hired a strong and experienced executive director who helped them cut through their political differences to find a common interest in funding grassroots empowerment.

“Ironically,” says Stranahan, “the board’s impulse to move toward a more unifying and less politicized mission led us to more progressive funding. What was dividing the family was not values but rhetoric. Once family members discovered they had similar concerns and that those concerns cut across political differences, they were able to focus on foundation goals.”

This brief introduction to family culture points at the many strands that weave together two systems, the family and the foundation. As will become clearer in later chapters, that influence does not move in one direction but rather is reciprocal. The family is changed by the experience of running the foundation, and the foundation, in turn, is influenced by the changes in the family. Founders die, and with them often go their styles of leadership and management. In-laws join the family, importing beliefs, norms and traditions from their own family cultures, The younger generation comes on board, reflecting a new set of values and experiences and, often, different funding agendas. Conflicts erupt, circumstances change, and new challenges arise that require trustees to rethink their old ways or to devise different strategies for managing situations.

And so life moves inexorably forward as both internal and external forces continuously shape and influence the cultures of the two systems—the family and the foundation.

Natalie Ross

Vice president, membership, development and finance.

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Understanding how your family's cultural upbringing shaped your own

By Shamima Afroz

Woman with long dark hair staring confidently into the distance in a story about family cultural identity.

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One weekend when I was 14, I anxiously sat on the couch with my parents watching TV, waiting for an ad break to ask a question I had been dreading.

But my nerves got the best of me, and my well-rehearsed plea to attend my friend's birthday sleepover turned into word vomit.

Before I could finish, my parents shut it down.

"Didn't you see Ashley last week? Will there be alcohol? Drugs? Why do I want to sleepover at someone else's house? Don't you have exams soon?"

They didn't say the word, but I knew their answer was no.

Growing up with traditional Bangladeshi parents, this was one of many parties, school discos, sleepovers, camps and weekend coast trips I had to miss — events I saw as rites of passage for my Aussie friends.

I should note that although my parents were strict, they were never short of giving us unconditional support, care and love growing up. My parents encouraged my brother and me to make the most of all the privileges we had access to growing up in Australia – however, within their boundaries.

For my parents, setting rules and keeping a tight rein on us was one way to preserve culture and tradition while they tried their best to balance two cultures: one they were so familiar with yet so far away from, with another that was foreign and unknown.

Understanding your family's cultural upbringing

Your parents' identity, shaped by their own culture, plays a vital role in their parenting practices.

"People learn how to be parents from the type of parenting they received," says counsellor Sandi Silva, who specialises in culturally sensitive therapy.

Both my parents grew up in Bangladesh, where it is common for parents to make decisions for their children without much input or consultation.

This power imbalance in the family often means children are expected to comply with their parents' decisions without much room for negotiation. Pushing back or questioning the decision is considered rude and an act of disobedience.

Additionally, some of my parents' decisions or expectations of their children were at times driven by a need to be seen or accepted by their Bangladeshi community. There's a common Bangla saying, "manush ki bolbe?", which translates to "what will people say?"

"One main driver for immigrant parents to be strict is fear — fear of the unknown, fear of losing cultural identity, or fear of losing face within their community," explains Ms Silva.

As I got older, pushing back against my parents' expectations became more difficult, but necessary.

In my early 20s, when most of my Bangladeshi friends were getting married, I decided to quit my secure and well-paying job to volunteer in a developing country for a year.

This life decision didn't make sense to my parents, and they were not on board. One of their main concerns was what the Bangladeshi community might think. Their unmarried, 25-year-old spinster daughter quit her job and left her parents behind to live on her own in another country. Manush ki bolbe?

By pushing back and following my own path, I embraced a culture that wasn't prescribed by my parents or the expectations of the community I grew up in.

In doing so, I became friends with people from different backgrounds with different perspective on life. I listened to their stories, learnt about their culture, and shared my own with them. In the process, I began to understand and appreciate my own culture and identity.

Striking out and making your own friends

Neela*, who moved to Australia from Bangladesh when she was 18 months old, found individuating from her conservative parents took time.

"They always told me that as a Muslim-Bangladeshi, I was different to my Australian peers, and therefore should act and think differently.

"I felt like I didn't belong in either culture and desperately wanted to fit in. This only emboldened my curiosity and secret rebellion."

From her early adult years, Neela has tried to distance her upbringing in her own friendships.

"My relationships now are based completely on my values and preferences, rather than the version my parents approve," she says.

The more emphasis a family has on passing down specific cultural and religious traditions, the higher the concern about losing face in front of family members or their community, explains psychologist Monique Toohey.

"In these circumstances, parents are less likely to encourage their children's development of friendships or intimate relationships with members of different outgroups."

For my parents, perhaps limiting my interactions with my Australian peers growing up was a way for them to protect me from the 'unknown' or from losing my Bangladeshi cultural identity.

'I always did what my parents wanted me to'

Samira*, another first-generation Bangladeshi-Australian woman, tells me of her experience growing up.

"I always did what my parents wanted me to do — from school, to work, to marriage. Mainly because I didn't want to disappoint anyone, but I also didn't know what I wanted."

Now as a wife and a mum, Samira says she struggles making decisions, and often turns to her parents or husband for advice.

"If you have always had decisions made for you and weren't given the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them growing up, then it can cause a real sense of dependence as an adult," explains Ms Silva.

It can also cause a difficulty connecting with your authentic self — and you can struggle distinguishing your own voice.

Trust your own voice and have compassion

"The process of unlearning who you were told to be and uncovering who you truly are can be a confusing yet empowering process. Taking the time to introspect is key," says Ms Silva.

She suggests asking yourself: "What old stories and messages am I still carrying from my upbringing? Is this serving me or limiting who I want to be?"

"A big advantage of looking inward and developing your own sense of self and values is that you develop more self-awareness and have more conscious and genuine interpersonal relationships," she says.

"Trust that you are capable of having a voice that matters. Have compassion for yourself and the experiences you found a way to live through, and if it helps your healing, have compassion for your parents' best attempts at raising you."

I embraced my Bangladeshi culture, but I also learned it was OK to form my own cultural identity that served me, even when it differed to my family's.

And my parents found ways to compromise.

Instead of letting me go to Ashley's sleepover that day when I was 14, they suggested I invite some friends to our place instead.

Our Saturday started with my dad dropping us off at the cinema to watch a 10am screening of Coyote Ugly, then ended in prank calls and choreographing dances to Destiny's Child. This was my parents' way of letting me embrace Aussie culture within their protected boundaries — and for that, I'm still grateful.

* Names have been changed for privacy.

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Essay about Family Values & Traditions: Prompts + Examples

A family values essay covers such topics as family traditions, customs, family history, and values.

A family values essay (or a family traditions essay) is a type of written assignment. It covers such topics as family traditions, customs, family history, and values. It is usually assigned to those who study sociology, culture, anthropology, and creative writing.

In this article, you will find:

150 family values essay topics
Outline structure
Thesis statement examples
“Family values” essay sample
“Family traditions” essay sample
“What does family mean to you?” essay sample.

Learn how to write your college essay about family with our guide.

👪 What Is a Family Values Essay about?
💡 Topic Ideas
📑 Outlining Your Essay️
🏠️ Family Values: Essay Example
🎃 Family Traditions: Essay Example
😍 What Does Family Mean to You: Essay Example

👪 Family Values Essay: What Is It about?

What are family values.

Family values are usually associated with a traditional family. In western culture, it is called “ a nuclear family .”

A nuclear family represents a family with a husband, wife, and children living together.

The nuclear family became common in the 1960s – 1970s . That happened because of the post-war economic boom and the health service upgrade. That allowed elder relatives to live separately from their children.

These days, the nuclear family is no longer the most common type of family . There are various forms of families:

Single-parent families
Non-married parents
Blended families
Couples with no children
Foster parents, etc.

How did the nuclear family become so wide-spread?

The nuclear family culture was mostly spread in western cultures. According to many historians, it was because of the Christian beliefs .

However, many people believe that Christianity was not the only reason. The industrial revolution also played a significant role.

Nowadays, the understanding of the term varies from person to person. It depends on their religious , personal, or cultural beliefs.

Family Values List

Cultural background plays a significant role in every family’s values. However, each family has its own customs and traditions as well.

The picture contains a list of 6 most common family values.

Some common types of family values include:

Some moral values are:
Having a sense of justice
Being honest
Being respectful to others
Being patient
Being responsible
Having courage
Some social values are:
Participating in teamwork
Being generous
Volunteering
Being respectful
Featuring dignity
Demonstrating humanity
Some work values include:
Saving salary
Prioritizing education
Doing your best at work
Maintaining respectful relationships with coworkers/ classmates
Some religious values are:
Being caring
Willing to learn
Treating others with respect
Being modest
Some recreational values are:
Family game nights
Family vacations
Family meals
Some political values are:
Being patriotic
Being tolerant
Following the law
Being open-minded

💡 150 Family Values Essay Topics

If you find it challenging to choose a family values topic for your essay, here is the list of 150 topics.

Social family values and their impact on children.
Divorce: Psychological Effects on Children .
Do family values define your personality?
Toys, games, and gender socialization.
The correlation between teamwork and your upbringing.
Family Structure and Its Effects on Children .
What does honesty have to do with social values?
Solution Focused Therapy in Marriage and Family .
The importance of being respectful to others.
Parent-Child Relationships and Parental Authority .
Political family values and their impact on children.
Postpartum Depression Effect on Children Development .
The importance of patriotism.
Social factors and family issues.
Is being open-minded crucial in modern society ?
Modern Society: American Family Values .
What role does tolerance play in modern society?
Does hard work identify your success?
Family involvement impact on student achievement.
Religious family values and their impact on children.
Native American Women Raising Children off the Reservation .
What does spiritual learning correlate with family values?
Modest relations and their importance.
The role of parental involvement.
What is violence , and why is it damaging?
Myths of the Gifted Children .
Work family values and their impact on children.
When Should Children Start School?
Does salary saving help your family?
Family as a System and Systems Theory .
Why should education be a priority?
Child-free families and their values.
Family violence effects on family members.
Why is doing your best work important for your family?
School-Family-Community Partnership Policies .
Moral values and their impact on children.
Does being trustworthy affect your family values?
Gender Inequality in the Study of the Family .
Can you add your value to the world?
Your responsibility and your family.
Family in the US culture and society.
Recreational family values and their impact.
Balancing a Career and Family Life for Women .
Family vacations and their effects on relationships.
Family meal and its impact on family traditions.
Children Play: Ingredient Needed in Children’s Learning .
Family prayer in religious families.
Family changes in American and African cultures.
Hugs impact on family ties.
Are bedtime stories important for children?
How Video Games Affect Children .
Do family game nights affect family bonding?
Divorce Remarriage and Children Questions .
What is the difference between tradition and heritage culture ?
How Autistic Children Develop and Learn?
The true meaning of family values.
Egypt families in changed and traditional forms.
Does culture affect family values?
Are family values a part of heritage?
The Development of Secure and Insecure Attachments in Children .
Does supporting family traditions impact character traits?
Parents’ Accountability for Children’s Actions .
Does your country’s history affect your family’s values?
Do family traditions help with solving your family problems?
Impact of Domestic Violence on Children in the Classroom .
Does having business with your family affect your bonding?
Family as a social institution.
Different weekly family connections ideas and their impact.
Different monthly family connections ideas and their impact.
The importance of your family’s daily rituals.
Group and Family Therapies: Similarities and Differences .
Holiday family gatherings as an instrument of family bonding.
Should a family have separate family budgets ?
Parental non-engagement in education.
Globalization and its impact on family values.
The difference between small town and big city family values.
Divorce and how it affects the children.
Child’s play observation and parent interview.
Family fights and their impact on the family atmosphere.
Why are personal boundaries important?
Single-parent family values.
Gender Differences in Caring About Children .
Does being an only child affect one’s empathy ?
Grandparents’ involvement in children upbringing.
Use of Social Networks by Underage Children .
Same-sex marriage and its contribution to family values.
Does surrogacy correspond to family values?
Are women better parents than men?
Does the age gap between children affect their relationship?
Does having pets affect family bonding?
Parenting Gifted Children Successfully Score .
Having a hobby together and its impact.
Discuss living separately from your family.
Shopping together with your family and its impact on your family values.
Movie nights as a family tradition.
Parents’ perception of their children’s disability.
Does being in the same class affect children’s relationships ?
Does sharing a room with your siblings affect your relationship?
Raising Awareness on the Importance of Preschool Education Among Parents .
Pros and cons of having a nanny.
Do gadgets affect your children’s social values?
The Role of Parents in Underage Alcohol Use and Abuse .
Pros and cons of homeschooling .
Limiting children’s Internet usage time and their personal boundaries.
Is having an heirloom important?
Divorce influence on children’s mental health.
Is daycare beneficial?
Should your parents-in-law be involved in your family?
Children’s Foster Care and Associated Problems .
Pets’ death and its impact on children’s social values.
Clinical Map of Family Therapy .
Passing of a relative and its impact on the family.
How Do Parents See the Influence of Social Media Advertisements on Their Children ?
Relationship within a family with an adopted child.
Discuss naming your child after grandparents.
The Effects of Post-Divorce Relationships on Children.
Discuss the issue of spoiling children.
Discuss nuclear family values.
Parental Involvement in Second Language Learning .
Children’s toys and their impact on children’s values.
Discuss the children’s rivalry phenomenon.
Family Educational Rights & Privacy Act History .
Relationship between parents and its impact on children.
Lockdown and its impact on family values.
Financial status and children’s social values.
Do parents’ addictions affect children?
Corporal punishment and its effects on children.
Discuss step-parents’ relationship with children.
Severe diseases in the family and their impact.
Developing Family Relationship Skills to Prevent Substance Abuse Among Youth Population .
Arranged marriages and their family values.
Discuss the age gap in marriages.
The Effects of Parental Involvement on Student Achievement .
International families and their values.
Early marriages and their family values.
Parental Divorce Impact on Children’s Academic Success .
Discuss parenting and family structure after divorce .
Mental Illness in Children and Its Effects on Parents .
Discuss family roles and duties.
Healthy habits and their importance in the family.
Growing-up Family Experience and the Interpretive Style in Childhood Social Anxiety .
Discuss different family practices.
Dealing With Parents: Schools Problem .
Ancestors worship as a family value.
The importance of family speech.
Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?
Mutual respect as a core of a traditional family.
Experiential Family Psychotherapy .
Should the law protect the family values?
Family as a basic unit of society.

Couldn’t find the perfect topic for your paper? Use our essay topic generator !

📑 Family Values Essay Outline

The family values essay consists of an introduction, body, and conclusion. You can write your essay in five paragraphs:

One introductory paragraph
Three body paragraphs
One conclusion paragraph.

Family values or family history essay are usually no more than 1000 words long.

What do you write in each of them?

Learn more on the topic from our article that describes outline-making rules .

Thesis Statement about Family Values

The thesis statement is the main idea of your essay. It should be the last sentence of the introduction paragraph .

Why is a thesis statement essential?

It gives the reader an idea of what your essay is about.

The thesis statement should not just state your opinion but rather be argumentative. For the five-paragraph family values essay, you can express one point in your thesis statement.

Let’s take a look at good and bad thesis statement about family values templates.

Need a well-formulated thesis statement? You are welcome to use our thesis-making tool !

🏠️ Family Values Essay: Example & Writing Prompts

So, what do you write in your family values essay?

Start with choosing your topic. For this type of essay, it can be the following:

Your reflection about your family’s values
The most common family values in your country
Your opinion on family values.

Let’s say you want to write about your family values. What do you include in your essay?

First, introduce family values definition and write your thesis statement.

Then, in the body part, write about your family’s values and their impact on you (one for each paragraph).

Finally, sum up your essay.

Family Values Essay Sample: 250 Words

🎃 family traditions essay: example & writing prompts.

Family traditions essay covers such topics as the following:

Family traditions in the USA (in England, in Spain, in Pakistan, etc.)
Traditions in my family
The importance of family traditions for children.
My favorite family traditions

After you decide on your essay topic, make an outline.

For the introduction part, make sure to introduce the traditions that you are going to write about. You can also mention the definition of traditions.

In the body part, introduce one tradition for each paragraph. Make sure to elaborate on why they are essential for you and your family.

Finally, sum up your essay in the conclusion part.

Family Traditions Essay Sample: 250 Words

😍 what does family mean to you essay: example & writing prompts.

The family definition essay covers your opinion on family and its importance for you.

Some of the questions that can help you define your topic:

How has your family shaped your character?
How can you describe your upbringing?

In the introduction part, you can briefly cover the importance of family in modern society. Then make sure to state your thesis.

As for the body parts, you can highlight three main ideas of your essay (one for each paragraph).

Finally, sum up your essay in the conclusion part. Remember that you can restate your thesis statement here.

What Does Family Mean to You Essay Sample: 250 Words

Now you have learned how to write your family values essay. What values have you got from your family? Let us know in the comments below!

❓ Family Values FAQ

Family values are the principles, traditions, and beliefs that are upheld in a family. They depend on family’s cultural, religious, and geographical background. They might be moral values, social values, work values, political values, recreational values, religious values, etc. These values are usually passed on to younger generations and may vary from family to family.

Why are family values important?

Family values are important because they have a strong impact on children’s upbringing. These values might influence children’s behavior, personality, attitude, and character traits. These can affect how the children are going to build their own families in the future.

What are Christian family values?

Some Christian family values are the following: 1. Sense of justice 2. Being thankful 3. Having wisdom 4. Being compassion 5. Willing to learn 6. Treating others with respect 7. Modesty

What are traditional family values?

Each family has its own values. However, they do have a lot of resemblances. Some traditional family values are the following: 1. Having responsibilities to your family 2. Being respectful to your family members 3. Not hurting your family members 4. Compromising

Home / Essay Samples / Life / Family Values / My Family: Traditions and Values

My Family: Traditions and Values

Category: Life
Topic: Family Values

Pages: 2 (880 words)

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The Tapestry of Family Traditions

The values that define us, the lessons learned, the enduring impact.

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