Family minivan sticker sets signify a common fallacy in considerations of family life: the belief that “the family” is composed of certain people (and not others), and that it exists in a certain form (and not others). In fact, the stickers themselves–along with the vans to which they are often affixed–are part of an elaborate, and often very public, performance of family. Families are conceptualized in competing ways in sociological research. A great deal of scholarship presents “the family” as an enduring relationship form that structures our lives. Talcott Parsons mistakenly theorized the “traditional family” as though it was a timeless universal—or that it ought to be—glossing over the very real diversity in family forms and family relations.
The problems with Parsons’ understanding of gender and family life are now well-documented (see here and here for two of my favorite critiques), but much of the transformation in gender and family sociology stems from how these apparently static forms (Parsons’ perspective) are actually produced. Speaking of “the family” is already an illusion as the term itself inhibits consideration of the diverse forms families take. Considering “the family” as a collective accomplishment rather than an objective state of being opens up new kinds of questions. Are the joys of the accomplishment of families equally distributed to all of its members? Are the burdens? How are spaces mobilized by families and put to use in the ongoing drama of family life? Do different groups, living in different social contexts, with different kinds and amounts of economic and symbolic resources have equal access to accomplishing the families they want?
Inequality by (Interior) Design 