traditional family
...but heavy blows for the children, and he struck Anna (mother) too often to remember” (6). In extreme cases, incest is considered part of some male’s view of their patriarchal duties. Griswold writes, “father-daughter incest is a manifestation of patriarchy at its worst and will cease only when male supremacy gives way to egalitarian relations” (475). Incest is has become more common and according to Griswold, “45,000 out of every one million women are victimized by their fathers before their eighteenth birthday” (475). This idea of a patriarchal rule contrasts to the realities of some modern and contemporary families. Women run the majority of single-family households, when men die, or abandon their families, women lead support their families the same way a man would. Griswold recorded “in 1991 almost 15 percent of single parents were fathers,” (480) which means the remaining 85 percent of single parents were mothers. Another difference is that in both modern and contemporary families child and spousal abuse are seen as taboo. Nazli Kibria retells the story of a Vietnamese woman’s family, in which her husband beats their son and has to deal with police for it. “My husband was very sad that Tin (son) called the police, and he didn’t understand why that police thought he was doing a bad thing, hitting his son”(428). Although male dominance is till a common trait it isn’t a factor in all-modern and contemporary families. Another element of the traditional family present in both modern and contemporary families is the idea that women were to stay at home to cook, clean, take care of children, and not work. In the essay “Puerto Rican Women and Their Families in Chicago” author Maura I. Toro-Morn writes that “women’s work (trabajo de mujer) [is] as the caretakers of the home and children” (421). Children are seen as the mother’s responsibility, in “Yonnondio” Jim (father) yells “keep your brats from under my feet” (7) at his wife Anna when one of their children began to bother him. The reason children are the mother’s responsibility is because mothers in traditional roles are considered morally superior to the men. Men are taught from birth that it is the woman’s job to make sure that her children grow to be strong moral people. Fred Farina, quoted in Griswold’s “Patriarchy and the Politics of Fatherhood,” confesses, “I thought that as a man you couldn’t raise children. It never came to my mind that children could be raised by their father and live with their father. I always thought it was a natural thing for kids to be raised by their mother” (472). Even today it is seen as a social norm for women to get custody of their children following a divorce. Griswold states that “woman receive custody of their children in about 90 percent of divorce cases” (480). Women are considered the nurturers, while men are considered the suppliers. Women are considered responsible for the house also. Cooking and cleaning is seen as part of a woman’s job. In “Yonnondio” when Jim goes to work, Anna already has breakfast ready, “What’ll ya have? Coffee and eggs? There aint no bacon” (1). There is no rest for the wife even if she is sick. While Anna was sick she still had to clean the house, “She had wrapped a rag around the broom and swept down the walls, and swept the floors, and scrubbed the toilet bowl, and put the diapers to soak, and was filling a tub with water preparatory to scrubbing the floor” (85). Women are not expected to work either. Even though the family in “Yonnondio” could have used the money Jim refused for Anna to work. These practices still occur today; in my family my mother does most if not all of the cooking and cleaning. In most modern and traditional families men raising children along with or in substitution for a mother is not an uncommon practice. It is a new age of father involvement. Raising children is not a burden as it once was; men want to be involved in their children’s lives. Fred Farina, quote from Griswold’s “Patriarchy and the Politics of Fatherhood,” says “I wanna be more than just a father image. I wanna be involved in the raising of [my] kids” (472). Men are also trying to gain custody of their children after a divorce. Griswold reports that “in a California study from the late 1970s, 63 percent of fathers who requested custody received it, up form 35 percent in 1968 and 37 percent in 1972” (480). The roles of women are changing as well in the majority of modern and contemporary families; women are going to college and getting good jobs. Children in poor families like c...