Negotiating Family Responsibilities

Download or read book Negotiating Family Responsibilities written by Janet Finch and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-09-02 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Negotiating Family Responsibilities provides a major new insight into contemporary family life, particularly kin relationships outside the nuclear family. While many people believe that the real meaning of 'family' has shrunk to the nuclear family household, there is considerable evidence to suggest that relationships with the wider kin group remain an important part of most people's lives. Based on the findings of a major study of kinship, and including lively verbatim accounts of conversations with family members concepts of responsibility and obligation within family life are examined and the authors expand theories on the nature of assistance within families and argue that it is negotiated over time rather than given automatically.