Read the following discussion and give your response:

After reading the article, Introduction: Social Class and Family Patterns in the United States, I have come to the conclusion that social class does affect the family and in many ways than I might have thought before reading the article. The authors, Marcia J. Carlson and Paula England, stated many great points as to how social class affects the family. They state that people that are more educated are more likely to get married where as people who are not as educated are more likely to be divorced. This statement made me think of my own family, neither of my parents finished high school and about 5 years ago they got divorced. So I guess I can see how this statement could be true. Does that mean that this is what happens in all cases? I do not believe that it happens in every situation. Social class can also determine how a child will be raised. I feel that a child that is born into a wealthy family and a child that is born into a poor family are most likely going to live different lives.

I feel as though class is an important social factor to consider when discussing the family because where you are socially in world can affect the entire family. For example I read an article called, Family Structure: The Growing Importance of Class, and basically in this article the author talks about the different ways that social class can affect the family and she gives many great examples. One of these examples was how today's women are also working, so because of this the parents must decide who stays home when the child is sick, who makes dinner, who cleans, who takes care of the child at night, and much more. This has all the possibilities of either a positive relationship or a negative relationship. The positive could be that the family works out great because both parents are working together to accommodate all the needs of the family but the negative could be that one parent is expected to do more than the other and it becomes a daily argument over who is going to make dinner and who is going to stay home if the child is sick. Now that the times have changed where both men and women have paying jobs sometimes that means taking on the responsibilities of doing what is best for the family.