Family Life Cycles

Family Life Cycles              

Introduction 

A family cycle is defined as the pattern of evolution that most families undergo through over some time. Although most families practice this pattern, some don't due to different family settings. For instance, families made up of gay couples, lesbians, cohabiting couples, or single-family face a challenge in undergoing through some of these family life cycles as a result of differences in their attributes. Also, in marriages where children are not produced don't fulfill the seven stages of the family cycle. These stages of family cycles include establishing a family, enlarging a family, developing a family, encouraging impendence, launching children, post launching children, and lastly, retirement, respectively (Wood, 2015). This essay provides an in-depth analysis of each stage of the family life cycle, establishing its importance to the family setting and explaining how it applies to the current family structure. 

Stage 1: Establishing a Family 

This is the initial stage of the family cycle that involves couples coming together to make a home with shared expectations, family goals, and routines. If couples are married, it is necessary for them to get accustomed to being perceived as husband and wife. As a requirement by the legal and social recognition of these labels of getting accustomed to being perceived as husband and spouse, this stage offers them such an opportunity to do that. This stage is important since it offers the couple with a chance to get used to the societal constructs of the way couples should behave in public or within their residents, allowing them to fit well into the society before carrying on to the next stages of the family cycle (Murphy & Staples, 2015). Also, the stage allows the couple to come up with a home where they would raise their children and grow their family. Also, they are given an opportunity for them to set goals and expectation for their family. 

Stage 2: Enlarging a Family 

This is the second stage of the family cycle where children are introduced. In this stage, the roles of the parents change, as the husband will become a father and the wife becomes a mother. The roles of the couple as a mother and a father also change since they now have to spend more time with their children and look after them. Also, the expectations and goals they had set for the family start changing since the abilities of the children are to be matched. This forces the parents to work harder to provide for their young ones while at the same time shaping them into supportive members of society (McGoldrick, Preto, & Carter, 2016). Other than bringing joyful moments and tough times after getting children, the couple will be equipped with the capability to calmly handle situations such as a sick child, a father being transferred to a new branch at work, older son getting arrested for drug abuse, all happening at the same time . As such, they are able to learn from their failures and build on their success. Also, parents will have to develop some authority by creating rules which are to followed by their children as they come of age. By getting involved with authority, they can have some control that helps when guiding their children towards responsible behaviors. Also, the stage allows parents to establish some sort of identity in their family, especially racial identity, pride, and history, which is mostly seen among African American Families (Murphy & Staples, 2015). 

Stage 3: Developing a Family 

This stage usually involves parent-child relationships since the parents become the first form of human relationships that the children have in their lives. Usually, parents like to label their children as 'sweet little girl' and 'big strong boy.' Although it might be just a way of expressing love to their young ones, these names play a vital role in directing children on how they are supposed to be in the society and family setting; thus, a form of identity. This stage as well allows parents to create a strong bond with their kids since it is postulated that modern parents spend more time with their children than previous generations (McGoldrick, Preto, & Carter, 2016). As a result, parents will be given a chance to teach the children of their respective roles in the society or the family. Also, through having more time together as a family helps children to build good behavior and experience better emotional wellbeing that is important in steering through future life challenges (Wood, 2015). 

Stage 4: Encouraging Independence 

As children approach  adolescence, they tend to feel autonomous, which consequently makes them search their personal identities and have less time with their family and more time with their agemates. This behavior raises tension between the parents and the children as the parents don't tolerate such activities or friends their children have; however, their children feel their parents as being intrusive and overly protective. Although it seems inconvenient for their parents, this stage is very important as it enables them to become independent in life, an attribute that will be of help when facing life challenges such as financial responsibilities in paying rent, expenses, and other bills when they become adults (Murphy & Staples, 2015). Also, parents will be able to learn from this stage the importance of letting their parents explore their identities while keeping a watchful eye on them from a non-intrusive distance. 

Stage 5: Launching Children 

In this fifth stage of the family life cycles, children begin leaving home for college or get into marriages. The stage as well marks the return to 'normalcy' for the parents as a couple. A lot of time is created for them to spend together as family gradually grows smaller as children begin to leave home one by one. However, this transition doesn't happen to children with special needs as they need more care from their parents. Through this stage, kids leaving home will have a chance to practice independence and realize their abilities. However, parents will be offered a chance to rediscover themselves as a couple and adjust to their previous living without children around. Even though this seems important to some families, this setting can take an unexpected turn when 'boomerang children who cannot cope with the increased independence and financial constraints and thus, forced to get back to their parent's home. According to Murphy & Staples (2015), a lot of freedom and not following rules has made children hard to control. It becomes more complex on the side of parents when the 'boomerang children" have their own kids in their parents' home. As such, this stage doesn't apply to all families, just like other stages of family life cycles. 

Stage 6: Post Launching of Children 

Bad or good can be experienced in this stage according to the couple's decisions since this stage involves the departure of children which gives more time and space to their parents to rediscover themselves as a couple. Some couple will rediscover their love, making it the happiest time in their marriage, while others will experience the saddest marriages since the only thing that was keeping them together was children who have now departed. Such a couple will end up divorcing after the last child has left home. However, this stage is important to the parents as it provides them with an opportunity to relearn how to be a couple again, which will consequently make their marriages stronger and make a home that can last long after the loneliness years are gone (McGoldrick, Preto, & Carter, 2016).     

Stage 7: Retirement 

This is the last stage of the family life cycle that involves parents retiring and focusing more on their lives, giving them a chance to explore some of the activities they had not engaged in before. In this stage, parents start participating in physical or social activities such as community service, volunteering, and other different hobbies and interests. However, this doesn't apply to all families since some of the families end up in boredom and inactivity after retirement, a situation that usually creates tension leading to divorce more often than not. Others are given a chance to grow again, adding grandchildren that might help them further develop in their later lives (Murphy & Staples, 2015). 

Conclusion 

Current couples don't follow the same cycles as 20 years ago because of the modern family settings such as same-sex marriages and single-parent families. Currently, there is no single model representation of modern families, which shows that the family cycle doesn't apply to all families. I also predict that marriages will have a significant change in the next 15 years based on the cultural trends and evolving values of the new generation that highly rely on technology. As a result of overreliance on communication using technology, the level of emotional connection between couples and their children will as well reduce. These days children grow less independent, making them incapable of establishing financial autonomy. As such, the level of boomerang children is expected to rise, which will put family settings will be disrupted at stage four as most of these children will keep returning to their parent's home after they fail to succeed independently in life. Thus, the family life cycle will most likely be rendered useless in the next 15 years, and then a new bunch of loosely woven family ties of different family cycles will be developed. 

References 

McGoldrick, M., Preto, N. A., & Carter, B. A. (2016). The Expanded Family Life Cycle: Individual, Family, and Social Perspectives (5th ed.). London, England: Pearson. 

Murphy, P. E., & Staples, W. A. (2015). A Modernized Family Life Cycle. Journal of Consumer Research, 6(1), 12. doi:10.1086/208744 

Wood, J. T. (2015). Interpersonal communication: Everyday encounters. Nelson Education.