TOEFL® essay: Family life all over the world is changing fast

[Minh12meobeo]

Family life is not the same in every time and every place, including my country-Vietnam. I’ll show you some differences between a Vietnamese traditional family and a modern one.

The Vietnamese household traditionally was deeply affected by Confucian ethics. Firstly, it followed the extended multigenerational pattern. In this structure, frequent contacts were maintained, and this constant closeness to family was emphasized from childhood and continued to be important to Vietnamese throughout their lifetime. Secondly, divorcing and single-parent families were quite rare. It may be attributed to a hard life with low income and cultural attitudes. Besides, the husband provided the main source of income for the household and the wife was expected to do housework. If they divorce, the wife will have nothing. Thirdly, children must have obeyed their parents absolutely and did everything their parents arranged, including their marriage, studies without being considered what they thought.

But now, family life differs from earlier traditional forms on many aspects. Wives have higher position in their families. Especially, in many ones, they decide more important things and earn more money than husbands. In addition, divorce and single-parent families are rising rapidly as a result, in part, of not being affected by backward opinions as much as in the past. Besides, children are increasingly independent and free. They can make important decisions on their marriage and other big events. Finally, most of the modern families usually have smaller sizes with only parents and their children without grandparents and other relatives.

As time goes by, many things have changed, including family life. But the provision of affection and emotional support by and to all its members continues to survive. Everyone of a family still lives happily with each other. Parents are still responsible for the socialization of children. These changes are only a positive movement to be more suitable in our industrialized era.