Response to Re-definition of Family

I really appreciated Lauren Swanson's blog about the 're-definition' of her own family, and with many of her points, I agree. The 'modern day' family image has completely transformed from the black-and-white T.V. shows of two loving parents, a couple o' kids, a dog, and a white picket fence. I think that this change is for the better...I think it is good to mix things up every once in a while. It keeps things fresh.

The show that particularly comes to my mind as a new take on family is ABC Family's "Modern Family." The show depicts the 'everyday' lives of one family, split into three different intermediate families.

Although one of the three immediate families is more traditional, with two parents and three kids, the other two families stray far from what would have been considered the norm in the "Honey, I'm home" era. One of the non-traditional families consists of two homosexual men who together, are raising children that they adopted. The other non-traditional intermediate family consists of an attractive Colombian woman married to a man that is probably twenty years her senior, and together the two are raising the Colombian woman's son from another marriage, along with a baby that the two had together.

As the show follows the different story lines of the family members, I can't help but realize that while yes, the show is meant to be a sitcom, 'Modern Family' is also a commentary on how the family dynamic does not have to be 'traditional' in order to work.

Families come in so many different shapes, sizes, and dynamics, and honestly, as long as from each family unit there is an outpouring of love (even though sometimes the love doesn't always seem to be there), then really, who cares if the family is not 'traditional'?