For my paradigm shift paper, I decided to focus upon the changes of the family dynamic from the 1950s to the present day. Families are not what they used to be, meaning that a family is no longer just made up of a father, mother, and child/children. In the present, a family can consist of more than just the standard family structure, or at least, what we consider standard.

In the 1950s, the traditional family consisted of the breadwinning father, the homemaker mother, and the children who lived in a typical suburban home. The father would start off his day getting ready for work. The mother would start off her day by cooking breakfast for her husband and children before sending them on their way. The children would wake up for their day at school and be cared for by their mother before starting their long day. The father was always seen as the dominant one in the family, making all the important financial decisions while the mother was more subservient, taking care of her husband children before herself, and taking care of the household by cooking and cleaning and being a good wife. The children would be expected to listen to their parents and as such, this became the prime example of the nuclear family.

Nowadays, the traditional family structure has been found to not have been upheld as it had been in the past. Besides having just a mother or father, a family can consist of more members. In the 1950s, it was unheard of for a mother and father to get divorced and get married. For families who do undergo divorce, the former spouses can get remarried, giving the children stepfathers and stepmothers. With this remarriage, children can gain stepbrothers and stepsisters. Families can now adopt children if they are not able to have children on their own, making them adoptive parents. Children can also have two homosexuals as parents, now as they have been given the right to do so.

As you can see the family structure has changed so much over time and will continue to change a little by little.