Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? The extended family (grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles) is less important now than it was in the past. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
The formation of a family nowadays is very different from the past. It usually consists by three generations such as grandparents, parents and their siblings, and young children and their cousins in one family in few decades ago. Nonetheless, the size of family today shifted from extended to small. From my point of view, the extended family indeed is less important now.
First and foremost, I would like to point out that since the medical technology has improved, the life span of human beings can last longer. In the past generation, because of the medical technology was not very well developed, neonate are not most likely to survive as easy as those in nowadays. Therefore, people used to give birth to many children in order to continuing their family’s breed. Moreover, in the agriculture era like my grandparents’ generation, children are also great assets to a family. More children mean more helpers, which can bring more income to the family. To demonstrate, my mother has four siblings and she told me that every child has its own duty in the family. Some may need to do house works for the whole family, while others work in the farm.
On the contrary, since the agriculture era has passed, people in this generation do not need as many children as they needed before in order to maintain the farm. Extended family seems to decline. Most modern family has one or two children only. For instant, the government of China even sets a policy to keep its population from rapid extends. Another point I would like to make is that because of the expense of raising a child extremely increased compared with the past, most people are not willing to have more children now.
Suffice it to say, no matter what kind of the structure of a family is, the most important fact is that every members in this family respect each other and be reliable on their role.
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