SOCIOL 2QQ3 - Test #1

Families

• Fams and intimate relationships are diverse, fluid, and complex (I.e. skip-gen/grandfams 

  • Increasing number of children that are raised by their grandparents/ppl who aren't their biological parents 

• Families rather than family 

  • Most sociologists prefer this term 

  • When you make it plural its more inclusive of the diversity we're seeing today 

  • Diverse fams seeing societal support and government recognition as opposed to earlier gens  

• Fams can exist across households (I.e. LAT relationships: living apart together couples) 

  • In a relationships with each other but don't live under the same roof (could ive in a dif country, city, etc 

  • Transnational fams 

    • One member of the fam might be living in another country (perhaps for work) so fam is separated for an extended amount of time 

    • Prevalent among migrant workers who leave their fams in search of work  

      • Separated for a long time  

Intimate relationships

• Intimate relationships can include but are not limited to: 

  • Dating 

  • Cohabiting (or common-law) 

    • Couple who are in a relationship and living together but aren't married 

  • Marital 

  • LAT (living apart together couples) 

  • Polyamorous relationships 

  • Casual sexual relationships 

  • On-off relationships 

    • Couple experienced breaking up and getting back together again  

  • Non-monogamous relationships  

• Relationships can vary over the course of a lifetime for a person or a relationship 

  • Ex. Common in Canada is serial monogamy  

    • Idea that many Canadians will experience over the course of their lives, multiple monogamous relationships throughout their lives 

  • Ppl can experience change within their own relationships  

    • Ex. Monogamous relationship to an open relationships with additional couples 

    • Or a couple that starts off as casual sexual partners but move towards monogamous cohabiting or marital relationship  

Relationships and families today

• Today, there's less alignment between relationship status, living arrangements, and sexual relationships 

  • Used to have total alignment between your relationship status, who you live with, and who you had sex with  

    • Ex. Couples in a monogamous relationship with each other but don't live under the same roof  

  • Sex outside of a relationship context 

  • Couples who have a child together but may have children from previous relationships 

  • Pandemic – saw large numbers of ppl who were in relationships or actual fams but were separate households living in separate countries  

• Families are socially constructed bc they change over time and place 

• Sociologists today focus on inclusive definitions of fams that are process-based definitions rather than definitions based on fam structure  

  • Fam process based definitions'  

    • What are the activities that fams do? What gets accomplished within fams   

  • This def is used by big institutions 

    • Ex. United nations, Vanier institute of the fam (in Canada) 

      • Look at fam process definitions  

• Fams have varied historically  

  • Living arrangements, roles 

  • All of our ideas abt children (I.e. how to take care of babies) have changed over time 

  • Economic factors are really important  

• Social reproduction 

  • The labour that's done within fams  

  • Labour can be physical (going grocerry shoppign), mental labour, emotional labour  

Challenges in families + The sociological imagination

• Fundamental challenge of fams is taking care of ppl (unpaid labour, caregiving) and providing economic support  

  • Care work includes not just childcare and elder care, but providing care from anyone who needs care (I.e. someone recovering from surgery, someone dying, experiencing a disability, etc) 

  • Unpaid labour is invisible 

• C. Wright Mills – The sociological Imagination 

  • Connection between personal troubles and public issues 

• Varied experiences within fams, for instance, abuse violence, trauma, estrangement, and economic exploitation  

  • Our culture tends to focus on an idealized version of families (loving, caring, sanctuary) 

    • But that’s not true for all ppl/families  

  • Definitions are important for protecting our rights under the law and our claims to benefits associated with government programs, benefits, employer benefits, etc 

• Stats Can defines fam as comprising a married or common-law couple (a couple can be opposite sex or same sex) with or without children, or a lone parent living with at least one child in the same home 

  • Includes a wider variety of families 

  • But still excludes many fams who don't meet this precise definition 

  • Gov using non-inclusion defs of fam 

    • Reason these defs are important are bc they can exclude ppl form receiving support 

    • Gov social policy uses specific defs that have historically excluded diverse relationships (LGBTQ+, cohabiting relationships)  

    • Has economic consequences for ppl 

      • In the past same sex and cohabiting partners were denied pension and medical benefits from government and employers 

Historical examples of narrow definitions of families

• Compassionate Care Program (2004) 

  • Gov introduced this program 

  • If you had a fam member that was dying, allowed you to apply and receive for employment insurance benefits in order to care for a dying fam member  

  • Restricted eligibility to spouses, children, and grandparents (back in 2004) 

    • Has since been revised bc of criticisms that it only included ppl above 

    • Now allows anyone to access the program as long as the person dying is someone you consider to be a fam member, even if you're not related 

• 2016, Ontario: all fams are equal act 

  • Wasn't until 2016, that the gov granted parental rights for same sex parents who are not the biological parents  

  • Before then, if you were the non-biological same sex parent of a child or children you had to go through the process of going to a lawyer to adopt your child in order to secure parental rights; wouldn't automatically be granted to you 

• TV programs and fams 

  • Historically overrepresented white middle and upper-class heterosexual fams 

  • See greater diversity in the 21st C 

  • Are examples of nontraditional fams in the 20th C 

    • Ex. The brady bunch (blended fam) 

  • Ex. The fresh prince of Belair 

    • Upper class black families 

  • Ex. 227 

    • Featured low income black families 

  • Don't always present fams in the most idealistic ways 

What's more normative today? 

• For ppl to have numerous intimate relationships, living arrangements, relationship breakups, family reconfiguration (breakup with partner, new relationship; fam structure might look dif) 

• Throughout most of the 20th C, heterosexual marriage that was the benchmark by which ppl were judged 

  • A lot of social pressure to pursue this conventional fam life  

  • Begin to see decline of traditional nuclear fam and ppl talking abt it (journalists, politicians, sociologists) 

• Examples of newer choices available to us (as compared to parents + grandparents gen) 

  • Non marital childbearing 

    • Having children and not being married 

  • Remaining voluntarily childless in marriage 

  • Cohabitation 

  • LAT relationships  

  • Divorce 

  • Living alone (esp for women + buying property) 

  • Non-monogamy 

  • Interracial relationships/relationships of inds with dif backgrounds 

  • Polyamorous relationships 

  • LGBTQ+ fams 

  • New reproductive technologies 

    • Embryo adoption creates genetic siblings that can be raised in dif fams by dif parents 

    • Article raises important issues such as the issue of open embryo adoption vs. Closed 

      • Open adoption – transparency + child is told abt the adoption 

      • Ethical and legal issues of the growing number of embryos in storage and fertility clinics unable to contact donors 

      • Donors who have ceased communication and payment  

Trends in fertility, childbearing, sexual relationships, emotional intimacy 

• Long term decline in fertility 

• Increase in the use of reproductive technologies 

  • No longer determined by your relationship status, gender, age, sexual orientation 

• Trend towards multiple partner fertility 

  • Refers to the fact that more ppl are having children with dif partners 

• Many inds + couples are deciding not to have children  

• Coparenting between multiple sets of couples, platonic parenting between two unattached parents, skip gen fams, polyamorous fams 

• Notable trends in intimate relationships + fams 

  • Seeing fluidity in sexual relationships + orientation 

  • Priorities change over time 

    • Ex. Person might place a high priority in finding a relationship in their 20s but not date in their 40s and 50s as their priorities change 

    • Person who's focused on career and traveling up until a certain age might decide they wanna marry or cohabit as they get loser to retirement 

• Ppl no longer rely on traditional romantic or marriage partnerships to establish emotionally intimate relationships  

  • Ppl find emotional intimacy often outside of their primary romantic relationship 

    • Ex. Online connections, friends, coworkers, etc

• Intersections between your relationship status and living arrangements are a lot more diverse 

  • Ex. Being in a romantic relationship doesn’t mean living with them or monogamy 

• Reason for changes 

  • Changes in ppl's attitudes  

  • Increased secularism (movement away from organized religion 

  • Social movements (I.e. for LGBTQ+ rights, new technologies) 

• Becoming normative for ppl to experience more intimate relationships, changes in living arrangements, changes in fam reconfiguration 

  • True at every age group (not just young adults) 

New trends in families and dating

• Greater number of children experiencing changing fam structures due to their parents relationships ending 

• More young adults are postponing marriage and childbearing bc of post-secondary education  

• Compared to earlier gens, their life course trajectory of when they completed major life milestones, was much more continuous in terms of linear 

• Younger gens are much more likely to experience discontinuity 

  • The sequencing by which you're doing things is far less straightforward then it was for earlier gens 

  • Most notable example of this returning to post-secondary to further your careers once you already have a fam to support them 

• Trends in intimate relationships 

  • Young ppl are more likely to delay marriage, remain single, live with their parents through their 20s + 30s,  

• Relationship/union dissolution  

  • Means that ppl are experiencing more breakups, series of relationships (including cohabiting relationships which are more common)  

  • More likely to have children with dif partners (multiple partner fertility)  

  • More likely to pursue LGBTQ+ relationships, polyamorous relationships  

• Remarriage 

  • Rates of remarriage for ppl who've gotten a divorce or ppl who's spouse has passed away, decline the older the person gets (declines with age but many seniors are re-partnering)

  • An increasing number of older Canadians are in same sex relationships, LAT relationships, dating relationships  

• Childbearing and parenting 

  • Adoption is a reality for many Canadians  

    • Can take dif forms  

      • Closed or open (the identity of birth parents is known to children) 

    • Some adoptive parents may agree to let birth parents participate in the life of their biological child  

  • Single parents can adopt, anyone of any sexual orientation 

Fertility and marriage

• Long term trend of declining fertility and as a result smaller fams in Canada 

• Most fams today are one child or two children fams  

• Women are having fewer children and later in life  

• Similar fertility trends can be found in other countries  

  • Due to rising female labour force participation, participation in post-secondary 

• Proportion of fams with children has decreased over time 

• The number of households made up of couples without children exceeded the number of households with children for the first time with the 2006 census  

  • Trend has continued since that time 

  • Linked to a number of things such as delaying marriage, delaying childbearing, women's paid employment, high costs of raising a child, high rates of relationship breakups, greater access to contraception and abortion 

• Some sociologists say that marriage and fertility are becoming increasingly uncouples meaning: 

  • Marriage and fertility used to go hand in hand 

  • More ppl have children outside of marriage and also an increasing number of married couples don't have children  

    • Challenges the idea that having children is the goal of marriage and that children provide marital satisfaction and fulfillment  

    • This idea is not supported by the research that looks at levels of relationship satisfaction following having children 

    • Relationships satisfaction plumets  

• High rates of marriages without children is not a new thing 

  • We've seen this before/it's been noted before  

Diversity in sexual relationships 

• The diversity we see in sexual relationships is unprecedented 

• Ppl have more partners throughout their lives 

• More Canadians experience sexual activity outside a relationships context 

• The lives of most Canadians in young adulthood through their senior years is characterized by serial monogamy 

  • Having one monogamous relationship at a time but might have multiple partners over a lifetime bc of breakups, divorce, death of a partner 

• Non-monogamy is a reality for both unattached single ppl and partnered ppl of all sexual orientations  

  • Swinging/partner swapping 

    • Single ppl and partners in relationships engage in sexual activities with others 

    • Research shows that the emphasis on swinging is on sexual activity rather than on building emotionally supportive and emotionally intimate relationships 

    • Focuses on sexual variety (less accepting of emotional intimacy) 

    • Research suggests that couples that swing forbid emotional intimacy with additional sexual partners 

    • Difference between early research and more recent research 

      • Early research suggested that it reflected men's greater power and decision making in marriage 

        • Men who were initiating convos and decisions abt swinging 

      • Later research challenged that idea 

        • Suggest that husbands and wives report similar levels of satisfaction with swinging  

Trends in sexual relationships

• Increasingly, sexual relationships, sexual relations occur outside of a relationship context 

  • True not only for single adults without children, single parents might opt for sexual relations outside of a relationships in order to maintain a separation between their family roles and their sex lives  

    • Ex. One night stands, hookups, friends with benefits   

• Casual sex common among adolescents, young ppl,  

  • In sexually active teens, sexual experiences occur in romantic or dating relationships and outside of a relationship or dating context 

    • Sexual activity increases with age 

    • Many sexually active teens have had a sexual experience in a non-romantic relationship  

  • What are the predictors in which teens might be more likely to participate in casual sex 

    • Study of casual sex among young adult Americans 

      • Found a relationship between how much education ppl had and their willingness/participation in casual sex 

        • More highly educated ppl in the study had fewer casual sexual partners 

        • Sometimes these kinds of relationships is mediated by other variables 

          • In this case it was actually mediated by attitudes towards sex and casual sex  

          • Ppl who had more favoruable attitudes towards casual sex were more likely to engage in casual sex  

            • Not a new social phenomenon  

              • We know that both men and women engaged in premarital sexual activity in the past  

              • How do we know?  

                • Kinsey reports 

Census results

• Census is taken every 5 years 

• Historically, has excluded any types of families, and continues to not keep track of certain things (+ stats Can)  

  • Ex. Cohabiting relationships, breakups/divorce, same-sex relationships, foster children, step-fams, trans/non-binary inds, multiracial fams 

• Census and other surveys don't capture all relationships Canadians are in  

• 2021 Census defined common law as two ppl who live together as a couple 

  • Excludes polyamorous relationships  

• Most common household structure are one person households  

  • Canada is not unique in this regard 

  • Very common in other countries like US, Europe, UK, Japan, Sweden, Norway, Germany 

    • Norway and Germany have the highest proportion (40-41%, prob has gone up) 

  • This increase has been happening for decades 

• For some of these ppl they were living with someone  

• Why this trend? 

  • Social attitudes 

    • More social acceptance for living alone that didn't exist for your parents and grandparents gen 

    • Esp for women  

  • Relationships ending 

  • Financial independence for women 

  • Pensions for retired ppl 

    • Having employer/company sponsored pension plans 

    • Allows them to continue to live on their own 

  • Longer life expectancy 

  • Provencial differences in the proportion of the population living alone 

    • Quebec has the highest number of ppl living alone  

Remaining single

• Remaining single 

  • Attitudes towards this have changed in a short time  

  • Spinster 

    • Name of NY bestselling book 

    • Worked used to describe women who remained unmarried almost in a derogatory way  

  • See with mainstream media and celebs who talk abt rewards of remaining single, 

  • More unattached ppl feel supported in their choice and remain single 

• Have celebs like Jennifer Aniston speaking out and talking abt women's role in society (idea that women need to be married, have a man, have children to be fulfilled and valued) 

  • Jennifer Aniston - In her essay she argued that women shouldn’t be judged on their marriage status, childbearing, appearance, and women can define happiness on their own terms 

  • Chelsea Handler – disclosed she remained single not from a lack of marriage proposals 

    • Likened an engagement or wedding rings to a paperweight weighing women down  

Ferguson - Earlier narratives about love

• Argues that we have new ideas or narratives abt love and how we find love that are dif from earlier narratives 

• Argues that in the past narratives abt love was this idea that love is smt you bump into randomly/unexpectedly/during a random encounter 

• Idea that love crosses social boundaries 

  • Uses the quote that the princess can fall in love with the peasant  

• Idea that there's someone out there for you but you have to go out there and find that person 

  • Kinda the same with online dating  

• Bc online dating is private, this changes the nature of relationships, whereas your grandparents, etc met someone 

  • Now ppl meet online 

  • She describes it as a radical break from courtship traditions  

• Ppl can keep their sex life outside of their public life, work life, and make sure ppl don't find out abt it 

  • Particularly salient for women 

    • Stigma around women's sexual behaviour  

• Argues a consequences of this is that online dating has made access to a casual sex easier 

• Makes the point that online, ppl tend to look for ppl similar to themselves in terms of race, social class, etc 

Lin et al. - Dating while Black: Online but invisible 

• Findings – black men and women were discriminated against compared to other racialized groups 

  • Authors talk abt problematic stereotypes applied to black men and women 

  • Results of findings found aht black daters had more inclusive and progressive thinking abt race and dating  

• Issue taken up in this piece 

  • Some dating apps have removed race and ethnicity filters 

  • Article asks the question, is there more that apps can do to address racism in their platforms 

Dating apps

• Union formation 

  • Increasing number of ppl have tried online dating 

  • Dating sites for specific niche groups (seniors, ppl who belong to certain religions, etc) 

• Dating apps provide numerous options 

  • Those looking for committed relationships, interested in marriage, casual sex, sexual practices that have historically been stigmatized 

• Implicated in relationships dissolution, providing greater opportunities for infidelity  

  • Ex. Ashley Madison  

    • Data breach in 2015  revealed that less than 1% were women (their activity was quite low) 

    • Claimed that Ashley Madison was using bots posing as women communicate with real men  

• Ppl are increasingly using software to hide infidelity 

  • Burner sim cards, burner phones, etc 

• Online spaces provide greater opportunities for emotional and physical infidelity  

  • Surveys asking abt emotion infidelity vs. physical infidelity, suggest that online affairs and emotional infidelity are viewed to be just as serious as sexual infidelity   

• Evidence that women view emotional infidelity as cause for breakup 

  • Although both men and women view online affairs as equally damaging as offline affairs 

• Social media used to find partners, identify relationship status, initiate contact with former partner 

  • Social media forces ppl to think abt how they may or may not want to display aspects of their private life to the world 

Sexting

• Sexting by teens 

  • Big concern – young ppl don't understand that there are laws around the distribution of images of children and that sexting by teens raises this concern that they don't know the laws around child abuse and child porn 

  • Sexting by youth can adversely impact their mental health and relationships 

  • Gender differences 

    • Looking at whether teen girls experience pressure or coercion around sexting 

    • Some have suggested that sexting is problematic around teens bc, it reflects what's happening in real life in terms of sexual coercion they're experiencing in real life 

      • Others have argued that may not always be the case for teen girls 

Breakups + social media

• I.e. ghosting 

  • Ignores all forms of communication from someone 

  • Done without warning, becoming more prevalent 

  • Causes emotional harm to person involved 

  • Unpredictability leaves ppl hurt, uncertain (not only abt future romantic relationships, ppl's sense of their ability to read other ppl and read social cues from others) 

  • Some ppl suggest that ghosting reflects this new time where ppl lack respect for others, and view ppl as disposable 

  • Some argue that social media facilitates ghosting bc if you've met someone online, friends in social circle will never find out 

• Zombing 

  • Person who's ghosted you reappears  

• Benching/cushioning 

  • Led others on without any intention of a relationship 

• Breadcrumming 

  • Person puts in minimal effort 

  • Irregular text with hope of luring a sexual partner 

• Social media provides an opportunity for ppl to pursue varied kinds of sexual relationships 

  • With convenience, anonymity, privacy, can be used by ppl in poly relationships to find new partners 

• Allow ppl to pursue particular sexual practices, etc 

• Can use dating apps for non-dating reasons  

Online dating problems 

• Bronwyn (2020) 

  • Looked at dating apps and racism experienced by Indigenous Australians 

  • 2 dating apps: Grinder, Tinder 

  • Experiences of gay men and het women 

  • Online surveys + in depth interviews 

  • Found that Indigenous ppl experienced racism on dating apps 

  • Experienced threats of violence + sexual violence 

    • Included Gay Indigenous men on Grinder, Indigenous women on Tinder 

  • Strong sense of danger felt by men and women who used these dating apps and dramatically impacted how they used these apps 

    • Making them very cautious  

  • Sometimes the racism they received forced inds to delete their accounts for fear of being harmed 

• Buggs (2016) 

  • Found that black women and multiracial women would ask ppl they were dating/communicating, their attitudes towards BLM movement as a strategy to vet potential dating partners 

    • Way to avoid communicating with/meeting up with/spending time with racists inds 

Romance apps/games 

• Popular in other countries  

• Allow for user driven storylines where the user is presented with various possible love interests that they select 

• According to various media accounts, these apps are popular in countries like Japan for specific reasons (what's happening in terms of relationships in these countries) 

  • Has a high rate of non-married ppl in their 20s and 30s, many of them have not had any sexual relationships  

  • Apps marketed to women  

  • Users who by these can receive text messages and emails from their fantasy virtual love interest 

  • Users are offered choices in terms of their romance fantasies 

• Suggest that they're used by women experiencing loneliness or disappointment from real life relationships  

• Some writers have talked abt whether these fantasy relationships might adversely impact real life relationships  

  • Concern is that actual real life ppl cannot compared in any way to fictional characters in romance apps 

  • What are the consequences of that for inds and real life relationships? 

    • The companies designing these apps/games, they do a lot of research (employ sociologists, psychologists) to figure out how to get ppl to pay for the product and get addicted 

• AI companions becoming more popular  

• Concern that so much of your life is online, there's now a growing interest in paying to hire someone to teach you how to be interpersonal (among our gen) 

  • Hiring someone to be your friend date over coffee to teach you how to be in real life with another person 

Sharenting (New issues around parenting)

• Used to describe how parents share everything abt their kids online  

• Concern that there's an overuse of social media to share pics and other info related to their children  

• One study (content analysis of insta posts) 

  • Researchers found that the parents' social media posts of their kids reinforced gender and racial stereotypes 

  • The kind of content parents post could be problematic 

    • I.e. Parent child conflict, cause embarrassment to child 

    • Inherent power difference between parents and kids 

      • Interest of parents will likely take priority in terms of decisions of what kind of content get posted on the internet 

• Big concern - Identity theft 

  • Parents not aware that they're jeopardizing their children by posting pics of their children as babies  

• Applying for things we care abt 

  • Do we want ppl to be able to track everything abt our lives? 

  • Raises issues abt how that might disadvantage inds if there's a public record of their life  

• So many ppl don't have a choice to not be on social media 

  • Kind of a privilege to not be on social media 

  • Sometimes the nature of some jobs is such that there's an expectation of a social media following  

    • Ex. Most of the ppl in Canadian radio, TV broadcasting, have a social media presence  

      • Employers aren't saying they have to be on social media, but they do bc of this pressure to share and children not having a say in it, almost like you're branding your fam life  

Selfies + social media as an agent of socialization

• Raise interesting questions for social scientists abt social media content and presentation of self 

  • Social media images criticized for pressuring women to look a certain way (thin, sexy, attractive) 

    • Issues not exclusive to women, social media constructs masculinity in ways that can be problematic for men  

• Researchers have explored how masculinity and sexuality are constructed and negotiated 

• Whether social media use and selfies adversely impact mental health and lead to issues like the objectification of women have been investigated by researchers 

• Social media allows children and youth to learn abt self-identity (gender identity, sexual orientation 

• Researchers have looked into the use of naked selfies 

  • How young ppl are using these to explore self, gender, challenge binary notions of gender 

• Social media will no doubt continue to be an influential agent of socialization 

  • Screen time is high for most children 

  • Increased dramatically during the pandemic 

  • Children and youth develop their sense of self through interactions with others (including their online environments) 

  • Social media isn't neutral 

  • Presents significant challenges eps for children now have to navigate everchanging online environment that parents aren't familiar with 

  • Children and youth are socialized online but ppl they know and strangers 

    • Cause for concern – children and youth could be exposed to dangers (online predators, privacy invasions, cyberbullying, tolling, negativity, inappropriate content) 

Social media + new reproductive technologies 

• Ppl are using social media to find donor sperm, eggs, embryos, surrogates, co-parents, grandparents 

• Going online to look for ppl to co-parent/platonic parenting 

  • Two ppl not in a relationship agree to raise a child together 

  • Work out legal agreements abt the things you'd expect ppl who are going to raise a baby with another person would want to work out in a legal contract (I.e. money, time)  

  • + look for surrogate grandparents  

  • + look for surrogate grandparents 

• Social media provides opportunities for families who've used new reproductive tech to connect with each other and share their experiences  

  • Andreassen article (2017) - How families with children conceived using donor sperm form close relationships  

Social media and grief

• Social media has transformed how ppl process grief and the death of a loved one and how we go through bereavement, find support 

  • Mitchell et al (2012) - studied grieving parents  

    • Death and grief online: virtual memorialization and changing concepts of childhood death  

    • Parents using virtual memorials to memorialize the child they had lost  

    • Contribute to a sort of digital afterlife, bereavement become more public 

    • Examined how the virtual memorials are indented to help parents maintain a relationship with their child who has passed away 

    • Ambivalent 

      • Can and do provide some measure of comfort to grieving parents 

      • But these are run by companies that are profit driven, may have negative consequences in terms of how parents might process grief over the long term 

  • Gibson (2016) 

    • Looked at young ppl who had lost a parent and posted a vid on YouTube abt their loss 

    • Some of these inds posted vids really quickly (ex. Within hours) 

    • Argues that YouTube might provide support they might not in real life get allows them to connect with others experiencing the same thing 

    • Argues that social media is a primary social place (not a secondary social space) where support is exchanged  

    • Social media gives ppl the where, how, and who to connect with their grief  

• Gibson (2015) #funerals 

  • Looked at this hashtag to understand the dif representations of funerals on the platform  

Cyber-bullying 

• Cyber-bullying, cyber-exploitation more commonly referred to as revenge porn 

• Cyber-bullying has become increasingly common  

  • Canadian data show that 33% of Canadians have experienced and witnessed bullying 

  • Number even higher among younger Canadians 

    • Number is prob higher in gen 

• 90% of Canadian parents are concerned abt cyber-bullying  

• The need to protect children and youth from the dangers of social media, new aspect of parenting 

• Cyber-bullying adversely impacts mental health 

  • One Canadian study (over 31,000 students in gr. 6-12) found that experiencing cyber-bullying adversely impacted emotional well-being 

    • Found that cyber-bullying more likely impacted the emotional well-being of females  

    • More likely to lead to behavioural issues among males 

    • Students who experienced both kinds of bullying were the most vulnerable in terms of the emotional consequences of their victimization 

  • Study that looked at Canadian pediatric patients who went to hospitals for psychiatric care 

    • Researchers found that abt 27% of patients experienced bullying 

    • 14% had experienced cyberbullying 

      • More likely to have suicidal ideation and higher rates of experiencing sexual, emotional, and physical abuse  

      • More likely to be admitted into hospital to in-patient treatment as opposed to referral or out-patient services 

    • Results tell us that cyberbullying have serious consequences for mental health and interventions are needed 

Revenge-porn

• Cyber-exploitation 

• Ind posts a nude pic, vid of another person 

• Often it’s a former partner to cause harm and control the ind  

• Often image is posted by someone else 

• Sometimes the images could be real or not real (deepfake tech) 

• Members of the LGBTQ+ community have a higher incidence of being the victim of revenge-porn 

• Law? 

  • Subject to criminal prosecution in this country 

  • Other countries have created laws to punish ppl who have engaged in this crime 

  • Causes serious harm to victims 

  • Growing number of civil litigations that have resulted in financial settlements

Romance scams/catfishing 

• #1 type of fraud in terms of the amount of money lost  

  • Don't know how much bc ppl are too embarrassed or are in disbelief/humiliated 

• Criminals/criminal organizations are using social media platforms + dating apps to find targets 

• A lot of these crimes are unreported (bc embarrassment and shame)  

• Often victims are older lonely Canadians 

  • Become easy targets 

• Criminals skilled in what they do, work in teams, have high degree of expertise in psychological romantic manipulation  

• Seniors more vulnerable due to lack of experience 

  • Younger ppl also victims  

    • Offender pretends to be romantically interested in their victim, then they engage in predatory tactics 

      • Use common strategies like love bombing 

        • Giving lots of attention to someone 

• Aim is to get the target emotionally attached and invested in the promise of a future  

  • Fake financial emergency 

• So convincing that it takes a long time for the victim to accept what's happened 

• Often the money is sent abroad and its impossible for police to recover the money   

• Takes a lot of time and patience to convince victims that it's a fraud  

  • Even when the target experiences doubt, they're skilled at manipulating the victim even further 

• Losses aren't only financial, they're emotional, a loss of a promised future together, loss of self-worth/esteem 

Privacy issues on social media

• Social media often being used in ways that we're unaware of  

• Creates challenges for parents trying to teach kids abt privacy and online safety 

• So many of us are losing our privacy, not bc its being taken away from us, but we're giving it up for free by showcasing our private lives  

• Smartphones + social media accounts raise new issues for ppl in romantic relationships  

  • Do partners have a right to access email accounts, passcodes, et 

  • Issues that couples now need to negotiate and can lead to conflict 

  • What impact might this have on relationships, ppl, children? 

• Seeing a blurring of public and private life of tech facilitating this 

Concerns regarding the usage of social media and new technologies

• Children and youth spending more time online 

  • Sedentary lifestyles adversely impact adults and children  

• Gaming companies, social media companies work hard to make products enjoyable to use and impossible to walk away from 

  • Leads to gaming addictions  

  • Don't have enough facilities to treat young ppl experiencing gaming addiction, parent shave very few resources to try to help  

• Many parents today are faced with new parenting challenges related to limiting the screen and gaming time of children and youth and wanting to protect them from content that's problematic  

  • For instance, violent content, sexual content, other content 

• Socialization experiences of children different from the socialization experiences of early gens who were active and spent time outdoors 

• Mental health experts say it's important to spend more time outside  

• World health organization added gaming disorder to its list of gaming disorders  

  • Criticized for the way they described it/criteria too broad  

  • Debate abt what symptoms constitute gaming disorder 

  • Criticism that the criteria they use include too many ppl  

• Those that participate in e-sports are generating income  

  • Not problematic 

• Increasing number of colleges and unis that have varsity e-sports 

  • Argument against gaming being problematic 

  • Rather than creating social isolation, gaming builds online social networks that’s not properly understood  

• Medical technologies 

  • Websites you can go to find care providers 

    • Produces convenience  

  • Tech can be used to monitor patients vital signs from a distance 

    • Home blood pressure machines 

Sex work + artificial intelligence

• Sex work 

  • Social media used to facilitate sex work (ex. only fans) 

  • Websites to help sugar daddies find sugar babies 

  • Advocates of these social media platforms argue that they're abt consensual sex between adults who both understand the economic exchange that underlies the sexual relationship 

    • Critiques argue that these social media platforms blur the distinction between dating and relationships and sex work  

    • Critiques charge that these social media platforms profit at the expense of economically disadvantaged inds  

    • These platforms put ppl and women at risk of sexual assault 

    • Anti-trafficking activists argue these platforms are used in sex trafficking where victims are often underaged  

• Artificial intelligence 

  • AI increasingly used in the manufacturing of sex robots and toys 

  • Ethical and legal questions arise in the kinds of products being manufactured 

    • Have the potential to build or simulate practices that are against the law (sexual assault of children for example) 

    • Ethical and legal framework lags behind in these industries  

  • Ex. AI and Wi-Fi connectivity of sex robots and toys have raised privacy issues bc the confidential info of users may be violated or hacked by others  

    • Seen civil lawsuits in terms of cases that involve the breach of privacy for ppl who have purchased sex toys  

Dating apps (Vermes) 

• Argues that dating apps have turned dating into a game 

  • Technological affordances 

    • Suggests it promotes hookup culture  

• Dating apps give us the illusion of power in a process that’s traditionally filled with vulnerability and uncertainty 

  • Historically dating/liking someone, that process is filled with vulnerability and uncertainty without intention or thoughtfulness 

  • Dating apps can easily become a pocket size dopamine machine for distraction and self-validation  

• Younger ppl are more likely to have tried dating apps than older inds 

  • Gen Z doesn't know how to date  

  • Gamification of dating apps leads to ppl looking to others as less than human/objects/commodities  

Dating apps (Sales, Nancy Jo.) 

• Dating apps have made our love lives hell. Why do we keep using them 

• Argues that dating apps are harmful in many ways 

  • Most offensive behaviours have become normalized 

    • Ghosting, demands for nudes, etc 

• Dating apps do very little to protect ppl from their harms 

• Has been contacted by ppl who have had bad things happen to them 

• Dating apps don't help including not protecting ppl from sexual violence 

• Co-founder of Tinder said these apps are addictive just like slot machines at casinos  

AI, virtual reality, etc. - Rachini, Mouhamad 

• Using AI simulations to reconnect with deceased loved ones 

  • VR tech has allowed ppl to reconnect with deceased loved one  

  • Using AI companion chat bots to communicate with loved ones 

    • Marketed as friend replacements that provides support and emotional connection, laughter, convo without any of the negative aspects that accompany real life friendships (conflict, drama, etc) 

      • Drawbacks: Might lose ability to interact in real life, lack experience to engage in face to face convo  

• Our society doesn't do a good job in addressing grief 

  • Sometimes fams can't talk abt grief when they've lost a loved one, leads ppl to not have support 

    • Social media fills that void  

Loneliness epidemic

• Link lower rates of dating, marriage, cohabitation to other social trends 

• Increased secularism (movement away from organized religion)  

  • Ppl aren't meeting ppl in places of worship 

• Remote work 

  • Fewer opportunities to meet ppl at work 

• Decline of the third place 

  • Places that facilitate social interaction, might meet the regulars or new connections 

  • Centre of the village or town where ppl go to have coffee, meet up, etc 

  • Tied to the decline in funding for free public places like pubic gathering places (ex. public libraries, public park space, etc) 

    • More places have become privatized 

    • The only way to get there is to pay  

  • Has affected dating 

    • Financial pressures on young ppl  

      • Dateflation  

        • Idea that young ppl don't have money and have to date on a budget 

        • Getting creative (list of things you can do that are cheap) 

• Housing crisis 

  • Ppl can't afford to rent their own apartment 

  • Makes dating and sexual relationship challenging  

• Pornography 

  • Relationships adversely impacted by porn 

  • Gender differences in pornography use 

  • Evidence that it negatively impacts relationships 

    • Dependent variables – how happy you are in your relationship/satisfied, issues around trust 

Pornography

• 2020 American study on het couples 

  • Experiences and attitudes towards porn 

  • Found that 1-5 couples reported conflict related to porn  

  • 1 in 4 men hide their pornography viewing from their partner  

    • 1 in 3 women are concerned abt their partner's pornography viewing 

    • Seeing conflict related to pornography, men in these heterosexual relationships, they're actively hiding their pornography viewing from their partner  

  • Large differences in frequency of viewing pornography 

    • Large differences in terms of frequency of pornography use 

    • Also the type of porn/content they're viewing  

  • One study found that men were more likely to view extreme/hardcore pornography on a regular basis as compared to the women  

  • Found that women were less accepting of pornography  

  • Most common among young men (big differences in terms of age) 

  • Associated with lower relationship quality  

  • Couples that had most relationship satisfaction, stability, commitment were couples where both couples report that they don't use porn  

  • General finding/pattern they found was that relationship satisfaction, stability, consistently was reduced as the frequency of porn use increased within couples  

    • Gender differences there, leads to conflict, has implications for relationship satisfaction 

Transitions  

• Transitions have been transformed by cohabitation is more popular compared to your parents gen 

• Growing diversity in the kinds of relationships we can create 

• Profund ideological change and how we think abt our private lives  

• How we think abt issues like what constitutes personal fulfillment 

  • Can think abt change in how we think abt things like life goals, sex lives, sexual relationships, sexuality, how we think abt intimacy and intimate relationships, how we think abt fams 

    • Media has played a role in that 

• Often ppl experiencing breakups in their relationships, often subsequent relationship formation, often family reconfiguration is happening 

  • Experiencing new relationships, families 

  • Sometimes bc of unforeseen circumstances or circumstances that we choose 

  • Sometimes its bc of circumstances we haven't chosen (I.e. someone breaks up with you) 

• Really at a point in history where ppl are questioning how they want to be defined in relation to their intimate relationships, connections to fam, etc 

• Not only is there greater choice, more ppl are living alone and defining their lives in ways that differ from previous gens 

• All of these changes that we're seeing: greater choice for us, however, also means bc so many choices are available to us that weren't for earlier gens, we may not be able to look to earlier gens in terms of examples or role models 

• Many ppl face enormous economic/financial challenges, and how to provide care to the ppl that they love 

Fam transitions are varied 

• Can be planned, unplanned, person experience new living arrangement, new intimate relationship, new fam structure, some other substantive change in their fam life, new caregiving role, new realities that are faced when a fam member has a change in their life 

• Transitions can shrink a household (empty nesters) 

• Can expand a household (multigenerational households) 

• Caregiver roles change over our lifetime 

  • Including care over children, aging parents, loved one with an injury, illness, who's dying 

  • Can be predictable 

    • Parent caring for a child or aging parent 

  • Sometimes they're unpredictable 

    • Grandparent raising a child, or young adult caring for a partner who's ill/experiencing a disability 

• Sandwich generation 

  • Describes a growing number of ppl who are simultaneously caring for young children and aging parents 

  • What makes them experience a lot of stress is that they're often working full time  

• Factors that lead to transitions 

  • Ex. Relationship dissolution 

    • Can be mutually agreed upon, unilateral, and with a lot of conflict 

      • Ex. When violence or emotional abuse necessitates exiting a relationships 

• Sometimes transitions are welcomed and anticipated life events 

  • Planned marriage  

• How ppl adapt to various transitions will vary depending on how much support ppl have 

  • Kinds of resources each of us have to deal with the challenges we face are important 

  • Resources can be economic (having the money to outsource domestic labour) 

• Each of us have our own level of individual resiliency to personal challenges 

• Stress of transitions 

  • Not exclusive to smt that is unplanned 

  • Challenges and stresses can accompany things you're really looking forward to  

    • Planned for life fam transitions 

Transition to parenthood + marriage 

• Events like marriage or birth of planned child 

• Planned parenthood 

  • Research suggests that for het parents there's clear gender differences 

  • Many women feel unprepared for the demands of parenting 

  • Prevalence of postpartum of if not clinical postpartum depression, some ppl refer to it as emotional difficulties or baby blues 

    • Mothers who have social support and greater social support, less likely to experience severe postpartum depression 

• Research on newly married couples reveals that many ppl experience stress with planning a wedding bc of the time and the labour and expenses involved 

  • Couples often underestimate how expensive a wedding will be leading many into debt (can be stressful and impact the relationship 

• Root causes of transitions are varied 

  • Can be economic (I.e couple breaks up cause they have conflict over money), ideologies (het couple, gender ideologies abt appropriate roles for men and women) 

  • Evidence to suggest that some couples cohabit out of economic need 

• Research on divorced women finds that those with low income are likely to re-partner bc they require economic support  

  • Divorced women with higher incomes have lower rates of re-partnering 

  • Opposite true for adult men 

    • Partnership common among high income men  

    • Re-marriage/re-partnership is more likely among higher income men  

• Transitions are tied to our gender ideologies  

  • Evidence that transition to marriage is based on traditional ideas abt gender esp in het relationships  

    • Ex. In het relationships, research suggests that women wait for men to propose 

      • Not just abt gender but abt power 

      • Women don't always have power in het relationships to move it towards marriage  

• A lot of social change in expected relationships in our personal lives 

  • Becoming more normative to experience more numerous relationships  

  • Numerous relationships, but living arrangements and family reconfiguration (happen when there's a breakup and you're re-partnering and the fam is reconfigured 

Younger gens + transitions

• Younger gens experience a prolonged transition to adulthood 

  • In post-secondary education bc of credentials  

  • Results in the postponement of childbearing, marriage, etc 

• Faced a more continuous lifelong trajectory  

• Younger gens more likely to experience a discontinuous life course trajectory 

  • The sequences by which you do things is less straight forward than earlier gens 

    • Ex. Ppl returning to post-secondary education to further their careers or bc of a career switch or to build new careers 

    • Bc of barriers they're facing in the labour market like low income, economic restructuring, cooperate downsizing, job dissatisfaction, etc 

  • Young adults are more likely to live with their parents in adulthood or return to live with mom or dad sometimes more than once 

  • More likely to cohabit as compared to getting married as their first relationship 

  • More likely to experience more numerous relationships  

  • Many of young adults will have a number of dif partners bc of relationship dissolution or bc of the death of a partner  

• Many ppl who were previously divorced opt for dating rather than maintaining a monogamous relationship with one person 

• Know that sexual relationships aren't' always in the context of an ongoing relationship  

  • Not only true for single attached ppl who are childless but also true for lone parents 

    • Might opt for sexual relations outside of a relationship in order to maintain a separation between their family roles and their sex lives 

    • Time pressures of single relationships may preclude romantic relationships  

• Increasing number of Canadians have sex outside of a relationship context 

• Single, cohabiting, and married inds and parents move into and out of polyamorous relationships which involve multiple partners 

Trends in younger gens 

• Young adults are more likely to delay marriage, remain single, have fewer children, cohabit, experience relationship dissolution as compared to early gens 

• Younger gens are more like to have children within the context of a cohabiting relationship  

• Younger adults are more likely to have children with dif parents 

• More likely to be a step parent as compared to early gens 

• Growing number of Canadian children have been born to unmarried parents 

  • Particularly true in Quebec 

• Fam transitions continue through adulthood following divorce and widowhood 

• One important change is the increase in divorce and relationship dissolution among older ppl 

  • Hence the term grey divorce 

• Rates of remarriage for divorce or widowed inds decline with age 

  • Yet many senior Canadians re-partner 

  • Significant recent change is that rates of remarriage or cohabitation following divorce are declining 

  • Divorced Canadians are taking longer to remarry or cohabit with a new partner 

  • Increasing number of divorced inds (those with children) are not re-partnering 

• Life expectancy was a lot shorter and ppl remarried following the death of a spouse to maintain their economic viability as a household 

  • If spouse died you would need to re-partner 

• Had remarriage, blended fams, adoption/fostering in the past  

  • Blended fams and some sociologists called them reconstituted fams in the place  

  • Tended to come about bc of parental death  

  • Whereas today blended families reconstitute fams (mean the same thing, both previously divorced with child)  

  • Today these fams are primarily the result of divorce or a breakup rather than the death of a parent 

  • Cause of fam reconfiguration has changed 

    • One thing that has remained historically constant is the economic vulnerability of lone parents, esp female lone parents 

Immigrant families + transitions

• Fam transitions have always been a reality for newcomers to Canada as they're confronted with enormous economic and social challenges that happen with the settlement process 

  • Immigration experiences  

    • Has the potential to strengthen or strain fam relationships 

    • Has the potential to challenge or undermine parent child relationship 

    • Has the potential to redefine relationships between spouses 

    • No singular uniform immigrant experience 

• Immigration in the 20^th C after the second world war (coming from Europe)

  • Experienced more upward social mobility as compared to most recent waves of immigrants (I.e. our grandparents) 

  • So many recent waves of newcomers experience downwards social mobility bc that their educational credentials, foreign work experience, etc aren't recognized 

    • Radicalized newcomers face system discrimination in our labour market 

  • Consequence of that, rates of childhood poverty for children of newcomers as compared to the children of Canadian born parents 

• Settlement process for newcomers can challenge gender and marital relations 

  • Many highly educated immigrants who arrived since the 1990s have faced underemployment and unemployment 

  • Newcomers who may be accustomed to traditional nuclear fam arrangements of a male breadwinner may face difficulty, challenges in adapting to female employment experience in Canada (wife and mother has more secure employment than father) 

    • The possibility of gender relations being challenged is true when wives have an easier time finding and keeping employment as compared to husbands 

• Earlier research emphasized greater opportunities for women, not always the case  

• Transnational fams 

  • Include fams not only immediate or extended kin mapped out geographically  

  • Often its bc of immigration policy preventing fam members from reuniting  

• Transnational couples are separated when a migrant spouse comes to work in a country leaving behind a spouse 

  • Migrant parents might leave children in their country of origins  

    • Might also leave behind older parents or siblings  

• Transnational – not new 

• One thing that has changed is that bc tech has changed, the availability and cost of tech allows from transnational fams to have closer and stronger ties bc they can use Whatsapp, etc to stay in contact 

Transnational caregiving 

• Entails much of the same kind of care work down in families who aren't separated geographically  

  • Ex. Meeting the emotional needs, health needs of fams 

• Astronaut fam 

  • Describes fams where the husband/father has gone back to their country to work and support fam in another country 

• Satellite kids 

  • Used to describe older teens/young adults who stay in Canada while their parents have returned to the country of origin (often bc of employment) 

• Parachute kids 

  • Used by writers to describe unaccompanied youth (older teens) 

  • Not living with fam members 

• Sometimes these young adults are left in the care of relatives or not 

  • Absence of their parents and daily parental supervision might give the idea of a parachute (Parachuted on their own into the country) 

  • May include minors under the age of 18 studying in another country  

  • Could be hired help 

• Offer a challenge to notions that fams live under the same roof (co-residence) 

  • Contemp defs of fam, does not mandate co-residence (living together) 

• One example that fams are socially constructed and membership isn't limited to co-residence 

  • Fam is not defined by co-residence 

Transitions for children  

• Children can experience all kinds of transitions 

• In the event that parents break up, many Canadian children will live in more than 1 type of fam structure before they leave home 

• Needing to adjust to changing fams is becoming more normative/familiar to Canadian children 

  • Some experience multiple transitions throughout their childhood 

    • Could be from a two parent home to a lone parent home, blended fam arrangement with new fam members like step siblings or step parents or step grandparents  

• With the legalization of same sex marriage in Canada and increases in same sex couples and LGBTQ+ relationships, and an increasing number of same sex couples adopting children and being raised by same sex parents 

  • Don't have stats on this in Canada 

    • But there are a growing number of children who have experienced dif types of fam structure  

      • Ex. May have experienced the transition of a fam with opposite sex parents to same sex parents 

  • Many fams headed by same sex parents have children within the content of a previous het relationship 

• Popularity and instability of cohabiting relationships mean that some children have lived with or spent considerate time with numerous partners of one or both parents 

  • Children who have formed an attachment to parent's previous partner might experience disruption in their lives and caregiving relationship when parents in that relationship might end  

• Children born to parents with children from previous relationships, don't always live with both parents 

  • Some are living with one parent due to constraints preventing the couple from sharing a home 

• Some Canadian children whose parents are legally separated still live under the same roof bc parents can't afford to live in separate residences (growing phenomenon)  

• Transitions have become normative for a growing number of children and fam structure/composition is one type of transition 

• Children experience transitions in their care arrangements 

  • Might come abt bc of parental relationship dissolution and might follow changes in the employment status of parents 

• Majority of children are taken care of by mothers on maternity and parental leave 

• Most Canadian experience transition at the age of 12-18 months or earlier bc a lot of Canadians can't afford to take parental leave bc it's not enough to pay bills 

  • From a parent or another kind of care 

  • Most women return to paid employment following the end of leave 

  • Government working towards $10 a day daycare 

• More fathers are caring for newborn children becoming stay at home fathers (even though caregiving is performed disproportionately by women)  

• One of the more positive outcomes of relationships dissolution 

  •  is that increasing joint physical custody of children may pull more fathers who were previously less involved in caregiving into greater levels of caregiving and develop closer relationships with children 

  • There's the potential for greater accountability and parenting/oversight in situation where there were problematic circumstances that children were experiencing (I.e. abuse, addiction) 

    • Potential for these problems to be addressed by outside ppl whether it is mediators, lawyers, fam court judges, child welfare officials 

Changes related to childbearing and parenting 

• Childbearing was expected to occur within the context of marriage 

• Unmarried women who became pregnant faced enormous stigma if they tried to  raise baby on their own, leading many to place their babies for adoption 

• Dating couples confronted with unplanned pregnancy, did decided to get married bc of pregnancy 

• Today marriage and fertility no longer go hand and hand 

  • Uncoupling of marriage and fertility is revealed in the increase of cohabiting coupes who have couples 

  • Increase in married couples who are voluntarily childless 

  • Women, men, and LGBTQ+ inds deciding to have children as lone parents 

  • Rise in the number of ppl participating in platonic parenting 

    • Has expanded to include two or more ppl wishing to raise a child together  

    • Provides greater parenting options to single inds and LGBTQ+ fams 

• Marriage and heterosexuality are no longer prerequisites to parenthood due to things like new reproductive techs (IVF, Vitro fertilization, surrogacy, and women's increased financial independence) 

  • Ex. Single gay men are increasingly pursuing surrogacy to become parents 

• Same sex marriage legalized in 2005, always been LGBTQ+ fams but discrimination prevented ppl from pursuing nontraditional non het relationships 

• What's new is that LGBTQ+ fams receive greater social recognition and support and policy entitlements like pension, medical benefits under the law  

  • While we've always had these kinds of fams, today they receive greater societal recognition and support including policy entitlements 

• LGBTQ+ fams continue to face discrimination by the larger society 

  • Some evidence to suggest that those living in urban settings have greater access to support as compared to those living in rural areas  

• New reproductive tech like IVF are expensive, costs not affordable for low income fams 

• In 2010, Quebec became the first province to offer a program to cover all of the costs fo IVF treatments but then made reductions to coverage  

  • Ontario introduced some financial support for women needing IVF 

  • Other provinces like Manitoba offer tax credits to help offset the cost 

  • There is some government financial support for IVF 

• There's been an increase in the number of older mothers + an increase in older single mothers 

  • Bc overall there's been an increase in ppl who've never gotten married (including never married women in this country)

• Rates of adolescent pregnancy have been on the decline  

  • Due to access to contraception and abortion  

• Numbers of single women in their 20s, 30s, 40s who become parents that's both planned and unplanned pregnancies are reflected in those numbers 

  • Contrast between Can and the US 

    • Lone parenting in Can looks dif than in the US (larger number of single parents) 

    • Lone parenting happens at earlier ages (women are younger) 

  • Research shows that in the US, earlier childbearing esp as a teen are associated with higher rates of poverty 

    • Children raised in poverty associated with other poor outcomes for children 

      • Ex. Like how much education they attain 

Impact of divorce on kids 

• Early research looking at fam structure (raised by 2 parents vs. 1 parent) and how fam structure predicts things for kids (I.e. Educational attainment, other kinds of risk factors like addiction, substance abuse, other kind of risk taking behaviour or things like delinquency) 

• Was taught that fam structure predicted poor outcomes for children of single parents 

  • But that's not true 

  • This body of scholarship can't be taken as proof that lone parent households are disadvantageous for children bc it's impossible to methodologically disentangle the impact of fam structure from the impact of SES and other important things (I.e. children's exposure to parental conflict + kids' experiences with fam transitions  

• Children raised by lone parents may have had to endure parental conflict before parents split up, experience difficult financial circumstances, might have had to experience multiple transitions like moving (impacts schools they attend)  

  • Transition to lone parent home is multifaceted  

    • often for many kinds leads to more strained financial circumstances 

    • Might also be beneficial in terms of protecting children from parental conflict and abuse 

  • Lone parents may be effective in parenting bc they're not parenting in a space of conflict, no longer have to compromise their parenting, live with spouse they don't get along with  

• A lot of variation in lone income fams 

  • Shifted discourse around lone parenting, bc for this group, economic vulnerability not a salient issue for those parents 

  • More options today to become lone parents (I.e. new reproductive parenting) 

• Until recently, adoption processes favoured two parent het families 

  • No longer true 

  • Lone parents not explicitly excluded from domestic adoptions and not always explicitly excluded from foreign adoption as they always where  

• Fostering provides another avenue for Canadians to pursue a child they have cared for as a foster parent 

• Foster care 

  • Know that Indigenous and black children are vastly overrepresented at all levels of the child welfare system 

New reproductive tech 

• Fundamentally challenged the idea that parenthood is defined by biology  

• Can use these tech without having a biological connection to children 

• Surrogacy has become increasingly popular as ppl struggle with infertility 

  • Offered new possibilities for ppl to have more children who they may or may not have a biological connection to  

• For most of human history you needed a younger age and het sexual relationships (requirements for procreation) 

  • Today, age and sexual orientation no longer determine childbearing determine childbearing 

  • new reproductive technologies open up greater possibilities for parents to be determined socially rather than biologically  

• New techs are allowing for the possibility of having 3 biological parents as was the case of the first baby born who had DNA from 1 father and 2 mothers due to a hereditary condition carried by the woman 

  • The DNA of the mother was removed and replaced by the DNA of another women in order to avoid the baby inheriting the disease 

  • Transformed parenthood and lead to an increase in challenges for parental rights 

• Despite same sex legalization, automatic parental rights for same sex parents didn’t exist until 2016, when all families are equal legislation was passed 

  • Prior to that, what parents had to do was hire a lawyer to formally legally adopt their child bc those automatic parental rights were not given to them  

• A lot of concern over exploitation for new reproductive tech 

  • These tech are expensive and there's big questions abt financial exploitation  

  • Many groups including feminist groups express a lot of concern abt potential over who becomes a surrogate, that poor women are more likely to be exploited as surrogates 

    • Argument that fertility has become commodified and that poor women can be exploited  

  • Legal scholars have written abt the solutions to all kinds of questions that have arose that aren't being looked at by governments and can't keep pace with the rapid changes in tech and science 

    • Example of this is issue of children being born to anonymous donors 

      • Do they have the right to know the identity of the donor to again access to the medical history of the donor 

  • Inds have argued that they have the right to know their biological lineage/medical history  

    • So that they wouldn't procreate with someone that they're biologically related to 

  • Increased likelihood of inds who were produced using donor egg and sperm and wanting to ensure that the person they partner with are 

  • Have been calls for voluntary or  

  • Don't have any kind of regulatory framework to navigate these issues have yet to be established  

Canadians in mid/life 

• Diversity in what their fams look like 

• Some are in their first martial or cohabiting relationship while others are in second or subsequent relationships  

• Parenting status can change from being childless to being a parent or step parent of a young child to being the parent of an adult child or being a grandparent 

• With longer life expectancies and declining fertility many of us will spend more years caring for aging parents than raising children  

• Many Canadians will spend more years caring for aging parents than raising children  

• Many Canadians will have more parents than children  

  • Many young ppl have 2 parents and no children or maybe 1 

• Most seniors live alone or with a spouse 

• Empty nests are a reality for most Canadians but are occurring later than in the past 

• Senior Canadians tend to live in small households with one or two ppl 

• Senior women more likely to live alone because of widowhood 

  • many senior women live on low incomes and this reflects lower lifetime earnings and retirement savings  

• The reason why we see senior women living in poverty is bc of the caregiving they did when they were younger 

  • Has this cumulative lifelong impact  

  • Invisible sacrifice they give their children  

• Following the death of a spouse or divorce, women become financially vulnerable 

  • women without husbands are more financially vulnerable than men without wives 

• Many mid-life and senior Canadians have experienced divorce or relationship dissolution  

• More men remarry than women  

  • Chances of remarriage declines with age 

• An increasing number of Canadians are raising grandchildren often bc the parents of these children are unable to do so bc of various reasons (ex. Addiction, health)  

  • Majority are senior women parenting on limited income  

  • example of an unanticipated transition which can be stressful when grandparents are dealing with difficult circumstances affecting their adult child 

    • Could be on a fixed income and dealing with their health issues 

Widowhood

• Widowhood is an expectable life event, occurring later in life than it used to (bc of longer life expectancy) 

• Older men with health problems are more likely to have a wife at home who can care for them 

  • Older women with health problems are less likely to have someone care for them and are more likely to move in with relatives or into a care facility 

• Male widowers are more likely to remarry than widows 

• How long does it take ppl to remarry after spouses died 

  • Remarriage more likely to occur within 10 years of spouse dying 

  • After this, remarriage uncommon 

  • Widows and widowers more likely to remarry than to cohabit  

• In Quebec, cohabitation is more common  

• Diversity at mid-life is further revealed when we consider that some in midlife are empty nesters, while many have adult children continuing to live with them or have come back to continue to live with them (perhaps with grandchildren) 

• In the past, earlier gens of adult children established their own households for reasons having to do with employment, marriage, and childbearing 

  • Today, young adults are often leaving the parental home for education and employment opportunities or to live on their own 

• Research suggests that when you look at which adults  

  • Adults children who leave home due to marriage and childbearing and are less likely to live with their parents as compared to the adults who live for other reasons (live alone, bc of their job) 

  • May live with their parents for emotional and financial support 

  • Might also return to live with parents following relationship dissolution if they need emotional support from parents or if they have children and need help with childcare 

• Popularity of cohabitation tends to be more unstable than marriage 

  • Another reason that ppl return to live with parents in 20s, 30s, etc 

  • Stigma around this has eroded 

  • Researchers say its incorrect to characterize these relationships bc often ppl living with their parents provide support and companionships so there is reciprocity 

  • Some have suggested that the fam home and parents are becoming a safety net for young ppl who can't establish themselves in their own independent homes