The personal life perspective on families

Personal life

They criticise structural theories for assuming that the nuclear family is the dominant type of family, ignoring family diversity. They assume that family members are passive puppets & are manipulated by the structure of society to perform certain functions.
Beyond ties of blood & marriage - Relationships with friends, 'fictive kin' who are friends treated as family, gay & lesbian chosen families, relationships with dead relatives who continue to shape lives, Tipper; pets who are treated as family especially by children; are all important types of family.
Nordqvist & Smart; research on donor-concieved children explores "what counts as family when your child shares a genetic link with a 'relative stranger' and not your partner.
Heath; there are growing 'neo-tribes' among 20 somethings who live together in long-lasting intimate relationships.
Older, divorced parents choose to centre their lives on children & friendship networks, with romantic lives seperate, called a 'living apart together' (LAT) relationship, where they live with children & visit their lover.
Budgeon; people are starting to centralise their friends & move away from the conventional family because it limits their relationship choices.

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Usefulness - Recognises that some relationships can be negative, e.g, abusive unlike functionalism.
It sees intimate relationships as performing the important function of providing us with a sense of belonging & relatedness.
Helps us to understand how people themselves construct & define their relationships as 'family' rather than imposing traditional sociological definitions from the outside.
Criticisms - Can be accused of taking too broad a view, by including a wide range of personal relationships we ignore what is special about blood ties or marriage relationships.

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