Step by Step2000 第四册 Unit 2 Happy Family Life (II)

Unit 2 Happy Family Life (II)

Part I Warming up

A.

Man Relationships with Woman

1 a. Parents 1

3 b. Neighbors 4

4 c. Boy & girl friend 2

2 d. The other members of the family 3

Tapescript:

W. Which of these relationships are most important to you?

M. Mm, parents.

W: Parents, why?

M- Because I think they are the closest people to me or to everyone in the world because you know from the beginning, from the first day you are born, they look after you and they keep you safe all the time, they give you what you want, everything you need.

W: Yes, I agree with you, parents must be important to us all the time, yes you are right and I think the least important relationships is others, no, neighbors. What do you think?

M. No, neighbors I think should be the third position.

W: Why?

M. Because they are close to you, maybe you live with your parents, and neighbors a long time, maybe you are with your neighbors for ten years or fifteen years and you know them well and they know you well and if you want something from them or they need anything, you're all together.

W: And what do you think about boy friend and girl friend?

M. Boy friend and girl friend, I think it's the relationship.

W. Can you explain further, please?

M. Yeah, because I think boyfriend or girlfriend sometimes have arguments or possibly change after three years or something, it's not important to have a girlfriend or a boyfriend, he or she may be one of many in your life, and you know the argument, if a girl saw her boyfriend look at another girl, she'd be jealous or something like that. I don't think it's the most important thing in your life.

W. I think for me it's the most important after parents because we share lots of things all the time and we're always together, I think it must be important.

M. There is one thing, a lot of things that are more important than boyfriends and girlfriends.

W: Like what?

M. The other members of your family are more important than them. Your sisters, your brothers, your grandfather, they're all more important than having a boyfriend or a girlfriend because you all live in the same house.

B.

1. fond memories of childhood

2. seemingly spoil us

3. always tell me to do this and do that 4. get on well with mum

5. talk very openly

6. remember very much about childhood 7. very close

8. talk very much

9. let me do what I want

Speaker 1> not remember very much about childhood / not very close / not talk very much

Speaker 2 > get on very well with mum / talk very openly

Speaker 3 >(mum) always tell me to do this and do that / (father) let me do what I want

Speaker 4-> fond memories of childhood / seemingly spoil us

Tapescript:

1. I don't remember very much about my childhood, actually. My wife's always asking me "When you were a boy, did you use to... "and I reply "I don't know, I can't remember." We didn't ... we didn't use to talk very much, we weren't very close, or if we were, we didn't show it. I remember I used to have my hair cut every Friday. My father and I would go together. I had the shortest hair in the school. When they'd finished cutting it, they'd burn the ends with a sort of candle. Oh I'll never forget that smell.

2. I got on very well with my mother. I used to tell her everything- or nearly everything -- and she'd talk to me very openly too. Sometimes she'd say to me "Don't go to school today. Stay with me." And we'd go out shopping or something like that.

3. I'm not a very tidy person, but my mother's very house-proud, so she's always telling me to pick things up and put them away, and do this and do that. She goes on for hours about "Cleanliness is next to godliness." My father isn't like that at all. He lets me do what I want. I think he's learned not to pay attention.

4. I have very fond memories of my childhood. To me it represented security. We used to do a lot together as a family. I remember walks, and picnics, and going for rides on a Sunday afternoon. Every Friday, when my father came home from work, he had a treat for each of us. My mother used to say he was spoiling us, but why not? It didn't do us any harm.

C.

1. So mothers end up feeling very rejected and very upset and take everything very personally and so that's where the challenge starts.

2. For many of the women I interviewed -- this is mothers as well as daughters -- it was a stake in the maternal 1 heart if the daughter didn't follow the mother's domestic example, i.e. marriage, children, you know, food, meal planning.

3. What really should be noted 2 is that, say, the remarkable 3 stability and a lot of the numbers in the past ten years, compared to the structure of households 20 or 30 years before.

Part II Mothers and daughters

A. & B. (omitted)

Tapescript.

The second Sunday of May is officially designated Mother's Day here in the United States. While Mother's Day is a happy occasion in most families, it is NOT happy in those where there is serious conflict between the mother and her children. Some scholars believe relationships between mothers and daughters can be especially strained.

Lynn Davidman, professor of women's studies at Brown University in Rhode Island, was 13 when her mother died of cancer. She has spent many years studying the immediate 4 and long-term impact of a mother's premature 5 death on those she leaves behind. The result of her research is a book titled Motherloss .

Lynn Davidman says over the years most of her samples, including herself, have constructed an idealized and culturally stereotyped 6 view of their mothers?

"Most of the people I interviewed told me that their mothers were the most perfect, the most wonderful, the most loving, nurturing 7 people that could have ever lived?

Lynn Davidman says this is because people who lost their mothers during the early teens were old enough to remember her love and nurturing, but too young to experience some of the conflicts that come as children start growing up.

Clinical psychologist Roni Cohen-Sandier who specializes in women and adolescent girls says mother-daughter conflicts start with the onset 8 of the daughter's puberty. She says at that age daughters often become critical of their mothers?

"You know, they are trying to figure out who they are and they are looking at their mothers who are supposed to be this role model and they are seeing what their mothers are doing and not doing and they are getting very critical. And oftentimes they think everything they are saying is so wrong, you know. So mothers end up feeling very rejected and very upset and take everything very personally and so that's where the challenge starts."

Roni Cohen-Sandier says when daughters go through adolescence 9, mothers usually remember their own and want their daughters to benefit from the mother's experience. Daughters typically reject that. Their common complaint is. "Mother is just not listening to me."

Sociologist 10 and author Victoria Secunda says she has never been able to have a cordial relationship with her mother. Ms Secunda, who wrote a book titled When You and Your Mother Can't Be Friends, says her research shows that conflicts between mothers and daughters are much more wide-spread than it is believed.

Victoria Secunda says her research and her own experience show that many mother-daughter conflicts start much before the daughter's puberty. They include the mother's early criticisms of the daughter's looks, clothes, behavior, or friends.

She says many mothers expect their daughters to follow in their footsteps and a generation or two ago it meant getting married, having children and staying at home.

"For many of the women I interviewed -- this is mothers as well 'as daughters -- it was a stake in the maternal heart if the daughter didn't follow the mother's domestic example, i.e. marriage, children, you know, food, meal planning. So that they felt in a sense betrayed -- the mothers often did -- because they felt as if their daughters, by living a very different kind of life, were somehow betraying the mother."

According to Victoria Secunda, another factor in a mother-daughter relationship is the role of the father. She says despite new trends, childcare and upbringing are still traditionally a mother's role in the United States as well as in many other countries.

Roni Cohen-Sandier agrees that the father's role is very important. Among other things, fathers can diffuse 11 some of the mother-daughter tension and serve as mediators.

Both authors agree that as daughters mature, mothers have to learn to let go. Roni Cohen-Sandier says both mothers and daughters can benefit from viewing conflict as a good impetus 12 for healthy change.

Part III Family

A.

The Family

I. Functions of family

A. Providing necessities of life

B. Offering affectionate joys

C. Raising children to adulthood 13

D. Giving protection in times of emergency

II Patterns of family

A. Extended family -- uncles, aunts, cousins and in-laws

B. Nuclear family -- a husband, wife and their children

C. Polygamous household- a husband, several wives and their children

D. Divided residence -- husband and wife living separately with children raised by mother's brother

E. Nayar way of living -- brothers and sisters and sisters' children

F. Communal 14 living group- persons not biologically related

III Factors influencing family structure

A. Economic conditions

e.g. No aid from society or state -- extended family

B. Industrialization and urbanization

e.g. Creation of many specialized 15 jobs -- nuclear family

C. Inheritance customs

e.g. 1. Property inherited by eldest 16 son

2. Property inherited by all of sons

Tapescript:

Throughout history the basic unit of almost every human society has been the family. The members of the family live together under the same roof, they share the economic burdens of life as well as its affectionate joys, and it is the family which has primary responsibility for the important task of raising children to adulthood.

The family is not a uniform concept in all societies. In many places it is an extended group which includes uncles, aunts, cousins and in-laws. The family head usually has considerable influence in arranging marriages, selecting careers and determining all important moves and purchases by any member of the family. Particularly in conditions where society or the state does not give aid and where consequently the responsibilities of the family are greater, this larger group provides better protection in times of economic or other emergency.

In many other societies, including most industrialized ones, the "nuclear family" is the basic social unit. This term refers to a husband and wife united through marriage and their dependent children, whether natural or adopted. Industrialization and urbanization create many specialized jobs which tend to scatter 17 family members among different employers and thus to separate residences as soon as they become wage earners. The small family, which has only one -- or if the wife works also, two -employed members, is better able to adapt to rapid change and to move when the job moves.

The nuclear family is almost universal and the nuclear group of father, mother and their children is recognized even when it is part of an extended family. There are cases, however, which strain the definition. Polygamy, for example, brings several wives and their children into the picture. But polygamous households are not common in any society. More difficult to explain are the cases of divided residence. Among the Ashanti people of Africa, where the wife and husband do not reside together, the child gets training and affection from the mother's brother and learns that his mother's husband is "not his family." An even stranger situation existed with the Nayar of India before being changed by outside influence. There the household consisted of brothers and sisters and the sisters' children. The sisters were not married and the brothers simply took care of whatever children their sisters had.

Inheritance customs also have an influence on the structure of the family. In England the farm was passed on to the eldest son in order to keep the family land intact. Younger sons had to go out and start a new farm or join the army or move to town and take up a trade. They provided a large part of the labor 18 supply during England's industrialization process. In many areas of the European continent all of the sons shared equally in the inheritance and more extended households were common.

Although the exact form varies from place to place and time to time, we can say that the family is the original and the most natural social group. The ties we develop by long intimate association with the small group of persons who are biologically related to us cannot be matched in any of the forms of communal living which are tried every now and then.

B. (omitted)

Questions:

1. What's the average number of people per household in 2000? Why did the American household hit a record low?

two and a half / the aging of the American population / the rising number of people living alone

2. What are some of the reasons for the declining number of married-with-children households?

a. men and women / delaying marriage and having children

b. the number of single-parent families / growing

3. How do some sociologists explain the growing number of one person households?

Some say: increasing social isolation 19

Others: a sign of prosperity / an expression of American individualism

Tapescript:

In many cultures, traditional families, that is, married couples with children, represent the core of their society. Until a decade ago, that was also the case in the United States. But the U.S. Bureau of Census 20 reports people in more than three quarters of American households now live in some other arrangement.

For the first time in history, the number of Americans living alone has surpassed the number of historically dominant 21 households -- married couples with children.

In 1960, 45 percent of American households consisted of married couples with children. Today it is less than 25 percent. In the past ten years, the number of non-family households has grown faster than the number of family households.

But the statistics don't indicate that the American family life is disintegrating 22. Although the rate of married-with-children households is still declining, it is declining at a slower pace than during the 1960s and 1970s, and married couples with or without children still make up more than half of all American households.

"What really should be noted is actually the remarkable stability in a lot of the numbers in the past ten years, compared to the structure of households 20 or 30 years before. And for example, in 1960, if we go back 40 years, about 75 percent of all households were married-couple households. The number sharply dropped to 69 percent in 1970, and down to 60 percent in 1980. But then over the past two decades, the rate of decline has slowed down quite a bit: It went down to 55 percent in 1990, and 52 percent in 2000."

The number of married-with-children households is declining for several reasons. More than ever before, men and women are delaying both marriage and having children. Also the number of single-parent families is growing much faster than the number of married couples. The 2000 census shows that single fatherhood is a growing trend.

First the aging of the American population and the growing number of both young and old people living alone are the main reasons the average American household hit a record low in 2000, just over two and a half people per household. Some sociologists fear that the growing number of one-person households means increasing social isolation. Others see it as a sign of prosperity and an expression of American individualism.

Part IV Listen and relax

Tapescript:

I am an identical twin and as children we looked exactly identical. So identical that we had to wear initials on our shirts so that teachers could tell us apart in school. And I think that's quite often the case with identical twins -- that when they are young children they tend to be more identical physically 23 than when they grow up and I think that twins tend to diverge 24 more as they get into adolescence and then into adulthood.

And I think it reaches its climax 25 when you're an adolescent because as an adolescent you are striving to be an individual but of course everybody looks upon you as one of a pair, so you have this real problem of identity.

My theory is that twins actually look alike physically but often they complement 26 each other when it comes to their personalities 27 and natures, if you like. And I think in our experience we complemented 28 each other, we were the mirror image of each other. So my brother was more introvert 29.., was more academic, schoolish. I was, perhaps, or still am, you know, extrovert 30, more extrovert than him. And I think that's what we carried through our childhood really.

As children going through primary school we got on very well. We were.., we always played together, we had common interests. Our parents actually encouraged that, so that when we were, you know, young children we had piano lessons and we did this and we did that together, and we were just like very, very close friends. And it was natural for us to play together rather than to play with other children.

When we got to adolescence, then that's where the truly competitive element came in and we found ourselves more likely to want not to be together. Not that we argued tremendously but that we just were searching for our own identities and therefore we would clash more.

Up until the age of eighteen we were always together, but when we left school I went to teach in France for a year, my brother went straight to university to read sciences -- I was doing languages. So that when I came to go to university, he was a year ahead of me and by sheer chance we ended up in the same college in the same university, so the interesting factor was that we had deliberately 31 aimed not to go to the same university ... to be separate.., but because I had this year off and he went straight in and through a quirk 32 of the selection process, we ended up in the same college. And this college, one of the Cambridge University colleges, seemed to specialize in twins because there were about half a dozen sets of twins in the college in that year and ... but what we discovered was that we were very unlike them because in virtually all cases those sets of twins in our college were reading the same subjects, lived in the same rooms, wore the same clothes, went to the same lectures and we actually felt quite different, because my brother was doing sciences, I was doing languages, we had different rooms, we had different friends in different years. So we realized that we were actually not anything like as close as other twins that we came into contact with.