Changing Definitions of Families

1. The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection
by society and the State (United Nations, 1948).
2. Societys definition of family is rapidly expanding and has come to include single parents,
biracial couples, blended families, unrelated individuals living cooperatively, and homosexual
couples, among others. Unfortunately, family policy has been slow to catch up to changing
trends in modern lifestyles (Crawford, 1999, p. 271).
3. Ultimately, I define family as the smallest, organized, durable network of kin and non-kin
who interact daily, providing domestic needs of children and assuring their survival (Stack,
1996, p. 31).
4. !an employees spouse and dependent, unmarried children under age 19 (age 23 or 25 if a
full-time student and dependent upon the employee for support) (Abbott, 2002, p. 3).
5. Societys definition of a family has expanded to include single parents, biracial couples,
blended families, unrelated individuals living cooperatively, and homosexual couples, among
others (Crawford, 1999; Kenyon et al., 2003, p. 571).
6. Most uses of the word family in research indicate that it was often defined as spouse and
children or kin in the household. Thus family as defined in economics, sociology, and
psychology often was a combination of the notions of household and kin! An exception to
this standard definition of family is in clinical and counseling psychology, where family
includes ones family of origin (parents and siblings) in addition to spouse and children
(Patterson, 1996; Rothausen, 1999, p. 818).
7. There are diverse types of families, many of which include people related by marriage or
biology, or adoption, as well as people related through affection, obligation, dependence, or
cooperation (Rothausen, 1999, p. 820).
8. We define family as any group of people related either biologically, emotionally, or legally.
That is, the group of people that the patient defines as significant for his or her well-being
(McDaniel et al., 2005, p. 2).
9. A family consists of two or more people, one of whom is the householder, related by birth,
marriage, or adoption and residing in the same housing unit. A household consists of all
people who occupy a housing unit regardless of relationship. A household may consist of a
person living alone or multiple unrelated individuals or families living together (U.S. Census
Bureau, 2005).
10. !the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) adopted the definition of a network of
mutual commitment to connote the new structures that are the reality of families in the 1990s
(Pequengnat & Bray, 1997, p. 3).
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