Small Family: Advantages and Disadvantages
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Introduction
A small family is not only necessary to keep ecological hazards and other economic problems at bay, but it is also essential to guarantee a better quality of life.
A small family promises well-nourished and healthy family affiliates. Furthermore, children in a small family will get more love and concentration from their parents.
Generally, a family is a group, which is made up of two parents and their kids living jointly as a unit. It also consists of all the successors of a common precursor. In general, a family is a social unit of two or more individuals, related by marriage, blood, or adoption and having a common pledge to the mutual relationship.
A family can be classified as joint family, undivided family, nuclear family, small family, etc. A joint family, which is also referred to as an undivided family, is an extended family system prevalent all through the Indian subcontinent, chiefly in India, consisting of several generations living in identical family, all bound by the common affiliation. A nuclear family consists of parents and one or more kids living together.
What is a small family?
A small family (also nuclear family) is a group of people, which is made of parents and one or two kids. Nowadays, most newly wedded couples plan to have only one or two kids when compared with three or more children in olden days. The reasons for this change include a drift toward later marriage, more effective contraception methods, more stress on careers for women, and the growing cost of nurture and educating kids.
Benefits / Advantages of a small family
Dominant civilizing norms habitually influence couples in their option of family size. Depending on the background, this option can be traced to cultural, religious, or socioeconomic reasons, like the necessity for support in old age. However, it is established that a family with two or fewer kids provides several benefits to both the children and the parents. Here are the top 10 benefits of a small family.
- Better life quality for children
Kids of smaller families get more attention to higher quality from their parents, causing higher achievements. Kids with one or no siblings can perform better in edification, as parents hold a restricted amount of emotional and economic resources these happen to be diluted, meaning their quality diminishes as the number of kid increases.
- Amplified economic success
Children with fewer siblings are capable of attaining amplified economic success and communal positions. Furthermore, the decision to limit the size of a family can be understood as a strategic option to perk up the socioeconomic success of kids and grandkids in modern societies.
- Better life quality for parents
Parents are greatly benefitted by a small family. The expenditure, such as of supporting a kid from cradle to university, such as schoolbooks, uniforms, trips, provisions, university fees, etc., is greatly reduced. Moreover, fewer kids create a more controllable impact on family finances, thus relieving strain and emotional pressure levels.
- Less pressure on family budgets
Parents of a small family experience less pressure on family budgets, making them to make both ends meet easily, and to make them doing essential shopping without any difficulty by buying quality products.
- Maximum level of happiness
The levels of happiness are maximized when the number of kids is limited to two for each family. Those who turn into a parent at their young age, which is habitually related to having a bigger family, reported descending happiness trajectories, whereas happiness levels were maximized when parents were older and had previously acquired financial and educational resources.
- Less strain for mothers
Mothers with one or two children experience less strain when compared to those having two or more children. This allows mothers to pay more attention to the welfare of their children.
- A small family is an ecologically sustainable option
The size of a family plays a vital role in preventing and highlighting climate change. Actually, it may be the solitary campaign for ecologically friendly lifestyles, which really counts. Considering further influences impacts of climate change, such as the loss of certain species, a small family makes even more ecological sense.
- Smaller families are inclined to have optimistic effects on the life of a woman.
Women are usually responsible for child rearing activities. A smaller number of kids would offer women additional time to develop individually and professionally. Smaller families could boost the empowerment of women, together with men, assuming more responsibility. Moreover, women who bear their first kid at their 30s tend to have fewer kids are better off professionally and economically, as well as in terms of welfare.
- Condensed health risk
Parents are much benefitted with a small family, which include abridged expenses on food, additional time to devote to leisure or work, increased caring attention per kid, and condensed health risk.
- Higher levels of education
Young individuals are more probable to attain higher levels of education if their family is restricted to one or two kids. While socioeconomic factors are pertinent, family size has a considerable impact on the encouragement and attention children get at home.
Disadvantages of a small family
Everything in the world has its own pros and cons, and a small family is no exception. Although a small family offers notable benefits to the children, parents, and to the society, it has its own shortfalls, as well. Some of the disadvantages of having a small family include:
- It prevents a child from becoming a well-rounded individual.
During the initial growing stage of a child, there will be not much trouble in developing a child. As the child grows, the odds of making the child a well-rounded individual are more in a large family. This is for the reason that every individual in a large family delivers something to it. Whether it is an interest, fervor, a unique character, or an immense talent Is possible if the child has more siblings and there is something added fun and thrilling at all times.
- It makes the child a selfish individual.
The most apparent disadvantage of a small family can be realized when the child is starting to get selfish. Devoid of that sibling relationship, the only child in a small family cannot learn the way to share. Although the child can involve in all activities with tons of kids where he/she can study his/her social skills, it is not equal to the steady companionship that a sister or brother can give.
- Sometimes, a small family makes parents overprotective and excessively attentive.
Sometimes, a small family makes parents over caring and excessively attentive, by not allowing their sole child to play or explore. It tends to create problems if the child becomes unwilling to be without his/her parents, as well.
- It prevents the kid from learning the responsibility.
A disadvantage of having a smaller family is that there is no chance for the child to learn responsibility earlier in his/her life. This is for the reason that they do not have younger siblings to take care of.
- The child may feel loneliness.
A small family with a single kid may offer the child a feeling of loneliness. This is because the kid has no siblings to speak to, and he/she cannot learn the difference between desires and requirements, as parents are incapable to stop everything to offer every child what he/she wants.
- Parents may face problem when they get old.
When the parents of a small family get old and require help, they do not have adequate children to take care of them. Moreover, when they need help, if there are additional children in the family, they can all assist each other out.
- No medical attention
In a small family, if the only kid becomes sick, there will not be any family member to look after him or her when his/her parents are working.
- The small family may show the way to the downfall of the child.
If a child in a small family is excessively pampered or showered with excessive love, the kid may go wayward, which may show the way to the downfall of the kid.
- The small family develops egoism in child.
Children in a small family can end become ruined and less accountable because as an only kid in the family, he/she is habitually associated with egoism and less developed communal skills.
Conclusion
There is a growing trend to have a small family around the world, rather than a big family. Over the preceding decades, birth rates have progressively declined. As a result, the days of nuclear families have reduced all over the world. Overall, there are both advantages and disadvantages of having a smaller family. As the sizes of the family are decreasing, most people believe that the advantages overshadow the disadvantages considerably.
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Joint Family System
The Joint family system is the oldest family system of India. In the days of the past, families used to be large and extended. The grandparents used to be at the head of the family. In Northern India, the system was patriarchal-with the male at the head of the family.
In some areas in the south even today there is a matriarchal society with the woman at the head of the family. Even in Shillong and other places in the East, women run the family.
The Joint family system has various advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are that the family remains united. As all the brothers and sisters live together with their parents and their own families, there is a constant interaction between them.
Whenever one person is sick or feeling unwell, he can never feel lonely while lying all alone in bed. There are many people who can take care of him. Children in a joint family can never get lonely. They have each other to play with. Their cousins are their friends and they never have to look to other families to make friends.
Even the elders in the joint family can have each other’s company. After spending a long day at work, when they come back home, they can all sit together and play cards or watch television or simply share their experiences during the day.
They can seek each other’s advice and in fact help and support each other in their work. Brothers can share all that they earn and this can make each one prosperous and materially adequate.
The disadvantages of this system are that there is always the risk of too much interference from others in one’s affairs. There is the threat of a lack of privacy because one is constantly being watched by one’s relatives.
If a couple wants to spend a holiday together with their own child it becomes difficult because they have to also consider the presence of the other members in the family. The spirit of competition can become quite strong and in case one brother is financially inferior than his other brother he can develop a complex about this.
His children also could compare themselves with their cousins. Another thing is that the family sticks together so .much that they lose out on the friendship of some outsiders who could otherwise prove to become very good friends too. Most people have opted for the nuclear family system now and the joint family is fast becoming a thing of the past.
