Who do we really consider family?

     Today in class we discussed families.  I thought it was very interesting how at the beginning of class Professor Whitson had us sketch a picture of our own families.  Almost everyone, including myself, drew just their parents and siblings.  Many people did not think to include members outside of their immediate families such as grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Although I do consider everyone outside of my immediate family as part of my whole family, they are not the first people I think of when someone asks "how big is your family" or "who is in your family".  For me, all of my family besides my parents and siblings live over on the west coast, thousands of miles away from me.  Although they live far away it doesn't mean that they aren't a part of my family.  I am still close with them but I consider my family to be the people that I grew up with, the ones who raised me.  Being the youngest child I had a lot of influence from my older brothers and my parents which is why I consider them more of my family as opposed to my aunts and uncles.  I thought it was really interesting how almost everyone drew their families the same way. After then discussing it in class, I realized that we all portrayed our families the same way because that is how society has structured families.  However in the "Family and Women's lives" article, Lehrer mentions that only 25% of Americans reflect the nuclear family; also know as married couples and their children.  Now, work plays the most important roles in families.  It is not as important as it used to be that people have nuclear families.  In class we talked about how families are there as sort of financial support.  This wasn't very surprising to me especially because of the economy we live in now where money is almost more important than anything else.  In Lehrer's article, she mentioned a very interesting statistic that I was actually a little surprised by.  She said that in 2000, both parents were employed in 64.2% of married-couple families with children under 18, while the father, but not the mother was employed in only 29.2%.  I would've thought that the scenario where the moth is not employed for children until 18 would've been much higher than 29.2%.  I know a lot of parents, including my mother, that did not want to work while their children were younger because they wanted to care for them and take care of the housework and chores instead.  Overall, I thought it was interesting how much the definition and purpose of family has changed so much and a lot of it having to do with money and also how people's definitions of family can differ so much from one another.