Should children be given more free time or not?

[Oruc]

Agreed and agreed.

From what I've observed in developing societies - and from my recollections as a kid in a big extended family - child rearing really works best as a communal endeavor. In fact, especially for a couple's earlier children, it seems most of the upbringing is left to the grandparents and younger siblings of the parents as working age parents are too busy bringing home the bacon.

The idea that parents raise children in isolation - the dreaded "nuclear family" - is really only a product of the atomized nature of late industrial and post-industrial societies. How to remedy this disconnect now that we've got it, I ain't got the foggiest.

My aunts, uncles and grandparents(well my nana, I never met my grandad) on my mothers side all helped looked after me and my sister when my parents were working or needed a break I suppose. Maybe that's because they came from a large working class family, seven kids is quite a lot.
Everyone seems more distant now though.

 

[Borachio]

Nuclear families, I believe go back to the C17th. And industrializaton did make them more financially viable.

Recent UK experience seems to show a decline in the nuclear family with families composed of multiply-parented children existing in a complex matrix of changing family structures. We're in a post-nuclear age.

(Hey! I've expressed that appallingly. Never mind.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_family

 

[cybrxkhan]

Nuclear families, I believe go back to the C17th. And industrializaton did make them more financially viable.

Recent UK experience seems to show a decline in the nuclear family with families composed of multiply-parented children existing in a complex matrix of changing family structures. We're in a post-nuclear age.

(Hey! I've expressed that appallingly. Never mind.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_family

I think it's not just nuclear families, it's nuclear families in isolation. You can still have a nuclear family but live close to other relatives, help each other out (and in ways deeper than "yo bro so we're having a party at uncle Bob's next month, you coming?"), etc.