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How Do You Foresee The Future of Family Institution After Fifty Year?

The document discusses potential changes to the concept of "family" over the next 50 years based on emerging trends and technologies. These include: (1) less emphasis on traditional gender roles within families; (2) potential for clone or artificially intelligent family members; (3) larger, more diverse household structures with multiple families or generations living together; (4) space colonist families on other planets or generation ships traveling through space for centuries; and (5) the rise of virtual or mind-linked families through advances in neuroscience allowing direct brain-to-brain communication within and between families.

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Al Basti
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50 views3 pages

How Do You Foresee The Future of Family Institution After Fifty Year?

The document discusses potential changes to the concept of "family" over the next 50 years based on emerging trends and technologies. These include: (1) less emphasis on traditional gender roles within families; (2) potential for clone or artificially intelligent family members; (3) larger, more diverse household structures with multiple families or generations living together; (4) space colonist families on other planets or generation ships traveling through space for centuries; and (5) the rise of virtual or mind-linked families through advances in neuroscience allowing direct brain-to-brain communication within and between families.

Uploaded by

Al Basti
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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How do you foresee the future of family institution after fifty year?

Public debate over the condition of family as an American institution continues as we enter the
new millennium. A number of trends underlie this debate. Divorce is common, more Americans
are single or living with a partner outside of marriage, an increasing percent of children are
living with only one parent, and a growing percentage of married couples are foregoing
parenthood altogether. The result of all these changes is that far fewer families consist of a
married couple with children than was the case fifty years ago.

For many conservatives, these trends seem to portend the ultimate demise of family. A more
progressive view is that this institution is not dying, but rather, changing in form. Progressives
argue that the alarming rhetoric over changes in families comes from traditionalists who define
the institution only in terms of a stable marriage. Some traditionalists, such as David Popenoe,
restrict the definition even further, contending that children must be present within a marriage for
a true family to exist.1

American sociologist Talcott Parsons, whose theories dominated sociological thought during the
1940s and 1950s, advocated an even more conservative definition of family as a heterosexual
couple and their children united by lifelong marriage and prescribed gender roles.2 According to
Parsons, the husband’s role should be that of breadwinner and leader, with his status determining
the family’s place in society. The wife’s role should be that of the primary caregiver who
socializes the children and nurtures and sustains family members. For Parsons, the importance of
complementary roles for husband and wife was based on his view that society operates best
when its vital needs are fulfilled through task specialization. He saw society as interconnected by
a number of major institutions, all fulfilling complementary roles, with families as the nexus of
all others.

There are many definitions of “family” in popular dictionaries, which is not surprising given the
lack of agreement among scholars over what social arrangements constitute a family. Indeed,
some scholars (including the authors of this piece) are turning away from even conceptualizing
“the family” because it suggests that only one type of family will do. Instead, they are using the
term “families” in recognition of diverse family styles including marital couples (with or without
children), single parents and their children, cohabitating heterosexual couples, and gay and
lesbian couples, among others. Hence, the distinction between “the family” and “families” is not
trivial; it is loaded with moral and political significance.

Family life is changing. Two-parent households are on the decline in the United States as
divorce, remarriage and cohabitation are on the rise. And families are smaller now, both due to
the growth of single-parent households and the drop in fertility

Family is a moving target. Our ideas about what constitutes a “normal” family have changed a
lot since the 1960s, and there’s no reason to believe they’ll stop changing. How weird could
things get? Here are nine different ideas about the future of the family.
(1) Gender Fluidity in the Family

We are progressively moving towards a post-gendered society—and accordingly, the role


of the family as a means to “uphold” traditional gender roles is gradually starting to
dissipate.

(2) Clone Families

Assuming that human cloning can eventually be made safe and reliable, the public’s misgivings
about this potential reproductive practice will probably fade. And this could lead to families in
which offspring are the clones of a parental donor, or some other donor such as a grandparent, a
friend—or a celebrity.

(3) Robotic and Artificially Intelligent Caregivers

Films like Spike Jonze’s Her demonstrate the potential for intimate relationships between
humans and artificial intelligence. But there’s no reason to believe that children — from
infanthood through

(4) Multiple Family Households

Statistics show that multi-generational families are on the rise, mostly because housing and other
things are getting so expensive. Likewise, two or more family groups may wind up deciding to
live together in a single home, to save money. (Keep in mind that families and households are
two distinct things.

5) Extreme Multi-generational Families

The onset of radical life extension is set to have a profound effect on family structure and intra-
family dynamics. Eventually, humans will start to live well into their hundreds, and they’ll be as
vibrant and healthy as when they were half their age or even younger. Some “elderly” people
may even choose to have offspring during their later years, which should result in some
interesting and novel scenarios.

(6) Space Colonist Families

By mid-century, we should have a colonial presence on Mars, and possibly the Moon. These
habitats will likely be small and rudimentary, but it’s not unreasonable to assume that some
colonists will want to bring their families along, or start new ones. Eventually, we’ll start to see
the first generation of humans who have never been to Earth. Eventually, humans will want to
embark on long-term missions to the stars. Given the extreme distances involved, they’ll have to
develop so-called generation ships. These interstellar arks will travel below the speed of light,
and because it could take centuries or even millennia for these travelers to reach their destination,
the original occupants will likely age and die (advances in radical life extension
notwithstanding), leaving their offspring to continue the mission. 

(8) Mind-linked Families

Advances in neuroscience could irrevocably change the family unit as we know it today. Imagine
a family connected via mind-to-mind communication. It would be like Wachowski’s Sense8 TV
series in which the characters are mentally and emotionally connected, capable of
communicating, sensing, and using each other’s knowledge, skills, and language. Mind-melded
families would be greater than the sum of its parts. Of course, an assembly of interconnected
minds need not be limited to just family members; friends and colleagues could join in as well,
leading to highly interconnected and intimate communities that would exhibit very hive-like
behavior. This could very well represent the future family.

A recent breakthrough by researchers at the Center for Neuroengineering at Duke University


shows this future may be close than we think. In their experiment, the researchers connected the
brains of monkeys with electrodes, allowing them to coordinate their thoughts to carry out basic
tasks, like pattern recognition and moving a robotic limb. Remarkably, similar work has even
been done in humans (here and here), though less invasively.

(9) Virtual Families

Imagine a mind-uploaded family, or a family comprised of emulated brains (called ems) that
reside and interact within a powerful supercomputer. These virtual beings would live as avatars
within elaborate simulated environments. But because the constraints of the analog world won’t
apply in cyberspace (whether these constraints be biological or physical), virtual families may
not have the same needs or motivations for staying together as a single, related unit.

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