Otázka: Position of family in today’s world
Jazyk: Angličtina
Přidal(a): Benny
Position of family in today’s world
My name is Ondřej Beneš and I will start with a basic information about my family. My parents are divorced, so I live with my mum, her boyfriend and with my brother in our flat. My father lives with his girlfriend and with my stepsister in their flat in Jundrov. My brother is 14 years old and my stepsister is 2 years old. This is my nuclear family and now i would like to tell you something about my extended family. I have two grandmothers and one grandfather. I have an uncle, aunt and cousins from my mother´s side too. My grandmother Jana from my mother´s side lives in a village Přibice with my uncle Petr, aunt Táňa and cousins Dan and Andrej in one house. We visit them about once a month. My grandparents from my father´s side live in Brno and we visit them once a week. Relationships between my family members are very good, but sometimes I argue with my brother. I live with my brother in one room and sometimes it is really hard. For example if I want take my girlfriend in to our falt I don’t have a room where I can stay with her.
There are many types of familirs nowadays. Usuallly it is a nuclear family, where you have mum, dad and two or one children. There are a lot of advantages when being (when you are) an only child. For example you have more money, room for yourself etc., but sometimes you may feel alone and you miss some siblings. Your grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephew, etc. are you extended family. It is very important to spent some time with your grandparents to keep good multigenerational relationships. Sometimes parents get a divorce or one of the parents dies (passes away and a nuclear family is now only a single-parent family. When you are an orphan and and some couple adopts you it is your stepfamily. There are some other types of family, for example childless family, unmarried couples, etc.
I don’t spend much time with my family, because I have a lot of activities. For example volleyball training, part-time jobs, etc. The best age to leave your parents is when you finish a univesity and you earn lot of money to support yourself.
One hundred years ago family didn’t look like today’s family. For example the position of women in family in fact in society was completely different. Young women were taught to cook, sew, keep house and perhaps to sing or play a musical instrument. There were some jobs, which women could do like teaching or looking after other people’s children. Becoming an actress or singer was immoral. Woman also had to attract a man who asked the woman’s father for the permission to marry her.
In the middle of 19th century the suffragette movement started. These were women who wanted the right to vote and also better education for girls. At the beginning they were peaceful; they only wrote letters to parliament and organize petitions. But nothing happened until one woman called Emmeline Parkhurst encouraged women to break the law. The new-style suffragettes marched through the streets and wrote inscriptions on the walls. Many of them went to prison where they refused to eat. Gradually, members of parliament wanted right to vote for women. But still nothing happened. The First World War was a big change in women’s lives. They filled places of men at war. They worked in offices and also in factories where they did hard manual labour. They proved that they were just as good as men. But when the war was over everything was the same and women returned to housekeeping. This also happened during the Second World War. In 1918, the British Parliament passed a law which gave women of thirty in Britain the right to vote. (In 1928, 21 years old women could vote.) In 1960s another movement called Women’s Liberation grew. They struggled for equality with men.
Todays women are theoretically liberated, they can vote or find work, but I must say, they still have less social, political or economic power. In some jobs women receive less money than men for the same work. However, women and men are becoming more and more equal. But there are still duties and jobs like upbringing the children which are mother’s rather than father’s responsibility.
