TPO是美国教育考试服务中心(ETS)专为参加
The extended family (grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles) is less important now than it was in the past.
1. With the process of urbanization, the concept of family has been blurred than ever before. Different from that of past when the whole family live in a big house, more and more people move to the cities for better opportunities and that in turn separate family members geographically. Then there’re someone arguing that the extended family members who do not live with us are less important now. I can’t quite agree with that kind of point.
Family members, whether you are parents or your grandparents and uncles are all important parts of your life. The centralization of cities seems to have located people nearer than before, however, the high pace of modern life and great stress of work life virtually have made people further away to each other. People are more indifferent and care little about those surrounding them. It is not surprising that having lived so many years in the apartment you don’t even know who your neighbor is. The indifference between one another leads to distrust among people, not to mention getting familiar with each other. Luckily, family is place where you can gain real love no matter who you are or what you have achieved, it’s like a harbor where you can throw all your anxieties of modern life out and really focus on the fostering true love between each other. In this sense, family is becoming more important as a place to hold our stress as well as our emotional feelings.
Also, extended family member may have a greater influence on our life than our parents. To be able to lead a comfortable life in the city, the topmost concern of a family is to earn enough money to maintain a living. Thus it’s very likely than both of our parents have to work day and night, not having time to look after us or care about our studies at all. At this time, it’s the extended family that can help us out. Our grandparents who already retired from their work have plenty of time to care about our upbringing, so most kids in the cities spent most their childhood life with their grandparents. As childhood life is a time when a person begins to learn about the outside world and to form one’s own personality, our grandparents plays a critical role in what we’ll become in the future. Thus the influence of grandparents is undoubtedly greater than parents.
To conclude, extended family is actually playing a greater role in everyone’s life than even before, because modern living have rendered people indifferent to each other and we need some who we trust to share our feelings, also the extended family is an essential part of everyone’s growing up. So extended family relationship should be well cherished rather than abandoned.
2. For most people lifestyles have changed considerably in the last few generations as technological and social progress tears along at an astounding pace. This has impacted all walks of life including careers, leisure activities and in particular the family.
Generally speaking, while there is little doubt that parents, and perhaps grandparents, still play a crucial role in one's life, the contact with and reliance on the extended family, such as uncles and cousins, seems to be diminishing as lifestyles alter. One reason for this may be the fact that families are increasing scattered across the country and sometimes even across nations. Usually, occupational and educational reasons are responsible for this relocation, but, for some, it is also a matter of wanderlust. Modern communications and transportation permit us to maintain ample ties with our nearest and dearest although fees and time actually impose a charge on this contact. Consequently, these costs curb our relationships to the innermost members of the family circle being siblings and parents. Another reason is, perhaps, as a result of the fierce competition in the job market; limiting our free-time and the opportunity for casual encounters with our peripheral family members.
In former times, most families lived and worked in the same town or village for generation-upon-generation. Family reunions were frequent as a part of local life and the influence of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins could be significant. Many children were schooled with their cousins and followed in the footsteps of their parents, and their parents’ sisters and brothers, into family occupations. So, extended families held many interests, social circles and jobs in common unlike today.
In conclusion, changes in society and work mean that families are increasingly dispersed resulting in difficulties in maintaining family bonds. Except for the occasional family events such as weddings and funerals, there is little chance to reunite or communicate with our extended family whose association is often maintained only through our parents.
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