On Monday, British Columbians will celebrate their fourth annual Family Day, making it a great time to consider the very definition of the word “family”.
Canadian historian Dr. Tina Block, whose research focuses on the history of religion, gender and family in postwar North America, says that the so-called traditional family has never really existed.
The collective narrative surrounding families proclaims that each generation is more dysfunctional than the next, but that “family crisis rhetoric” has been consistent through time, and doesn’t bear out in reality.
What does bear out, she says, is that families have always been diverse and changing.
“We look back on the 1950s as a time of peaceful domestic bliss, but if you look really closely, you’ll see the divorce rates were rising, married women were entering the paid workforce in higher numbers, and First Nations families were being torn apart by residential schools,” said Block, whose book, The Secular Northwest: Religion and Irreligion in Everyday Postwar Life, publishes in April.
The Secular Northwest: Religion and Irreligion in Everyday Postwar Life, publishes in April.
“People are always looking back to find this one golden time where families were traditional and unchanging. That time doesn’t exist,” said Block, who is funded in her research by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight Development Grant.
The bulk of Block’s research focuses on the history of religion in Canada, which has also impacted the shape and dynamics of the family.
“We heard in the postwar period that families who pray together, stay together, but again, we peel back those layers to see the realities. Not all families were religious. Even people who by race, class and sexuality fit within the idealized criteria felt very confined.”
More information
Dr. Tina Block
250-828-5329
tblock@tru.ca
The Research Support Fund provides a portion of the costs associated with managing the research funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, such as salaries for staff who provide administration support, training costs for workplace health and safety and maintenance of libraries.
