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Family life in Britain today
A “typical” or ‘conventional” British family used to consist ofmother, father and two children, but in recent years there have been many changes in family life. Some of them have been caused bynew laws and others are the result of changes in society. For example, since the law made it easier to get a divorce,the number of divorces has increased. In fact one marriage in every three now ends in divorce. This means that there are a lot of one-parent families. Society is now more tolerant ofunmarried people, unmarried cohabiting couples and single parents than it used to be. Another change has been caused by the fact that people are living longer nowadays, and many old people live alone following the death of their partners. As a result of these changes there are many householdswhich consist of one person or one person and children. You might think that marriage and the family are not so popular with the contemporary generation as they once were. However, the majority of divorced people marry again, and they sometimes take responsibility for a second family. Members of the family – grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins – keep in touch, but they see less of each other than they used to. This is because people move away from their home town to work, and so they family becomes scattered. Parents and society Relationships within the family are different now. Parents treat their children more as equals than they used to, and children have more freedom to make their own decisions. The father is more involved in bringing up kids, often because the mother goes out to work. Although the family holiday is still the important part of life (usually taken in August, and often abroad) many children have holidays away from their parents, often with a school party or other organized group. The generation gap
The amount of freedom given to young people varies from society to society. In general, each generation is keen to become independent of parents in establishing its own family unit, and this fact can lead to social as well as geographical differences within the larger family group. Since 1950s teenage views of life and parent’s opinions have been in conflict. This is called the generation gap. Teenagers in Britain today still say “Our parents do not understand us”. By comparison with young people in other nations, British teenagers have a great deal of independence. Schools, the media and young people themselves place a lot of importance on being independent. Many teenagers have Saturday jobs and lively social lives, and most students over 18 live and study away from home. Young people even leave home to share a flat with friends. Who looks after the older generation?
There are about 10 million old-age pensioners in Britain, of whom about 750,000 cannotlive entirely independently. The government gives financial help in the form of a pension but in the future it will be more and more difficult for the nation economy to support the increasing number of elderly. At the present time, more than half of all old people are looked after at home. Many others live inOld Peoples’ Homes, which may be private or state owned. Class system
British society is said to be very class-conscious. People say that the class system in England is breaking down. But it isn’t. The English are snobs. Some things about Britain make sense only to the British. Of these, probably the strangest is social class. They know a person’s class as soon as he or she says anything. The pronunciation tells all. You are not upper class just because you have money. Some upper-class people are quite poor, and some working-class people (especially pop stars) are quite rich. Your class is a result of your family, your school, your job, your house, and above all, your pronunciation. The English are very interested in class. They like books and TV programs about upper-class people and their servants in the old days. But class is not a laughing matter. Working-class children do not do so well at school. And upper-class children, even the not-so-clever ones, have a much better chance of getting a job. The British society can be roughly divided into seven basic classes: There are three main class divisions in Britain with some ‘in between’ variations (such as ‘upper middle’): upper, middle and lower or working class. And people in Britain are very conscious of class differences. 1) Upper class. The traditional upper-class was always closely associated with the aristocracy. They lived in stately homes and had their character shaped on the playing fields of Eton. There were hereditary elite whose wealth and position were based on property and title. It includes people, usually from rich families, at the top in society, top-government people, PR people, highly-paid managerial elite (often dubbed ‘City Fat Cats’). They may have noble titles such as ‘Lord’ or ‘Lady’, and they had attended fee-paying public schools such as Eton, Harrow, and Rugby, and most of them had been to Oxford or Cambridge (education). Many people often think of them as having a particular way of speaking (accent). Because of their connection with the land and the countryside, they are often associated with country sports such as shooting and horse riding. 1% of households 2) Upper middle class. The class of people in British society between the middle class and the upper class. Its members include people such ascompany directors, professors or barristers, who have a high social status and may earn a lot of money;senior civil servants, senior management and finance, large property owners, managers in large establishments, doctors and lawyers. In modern Britain, however, it is less common to identify people in this way.3% 3) Middle-class. Middle managerial, is extremely fragmented – in particular, has great fluidity and mobility. The social class between the working class and the upper class. It consists of people who are generally regarded as having an average status, education, income, etc. in society. This group includes a) higher professional doctors, journalists, senior architects, accountants, and business executives); b) salaried professionals (sometimes known as ‘The Salatariat’) (university and college lecturers, school teachers, local government officials, civil servants, and social workers). In Britain, the middle class is often divided into upper-middle and lower-middle. 16 % 4) Lower middle class. Junior managerial, clerical, non-manual workers. a) Routine non-manual employers, clerks, other office workers – a kind of routine white-collar labour force. Clerical work is now becoming female-dominated. Some clerical jobs such as secretaries or telephone operators are almost totally held by women. b) lower grade of administrators and officials, managers in small businesses and industrial establishments, self-employed such as small businesspeople and shopkeepers (but not professional people), salesmen working in shops and similar services. 26% 5) Skilled working class. Oddly enough, it is the working class, at the bottom of the social pile, who have been most closely examined as a class. More ink has been spilled about them than about any other group in British society. They have been portrayed in novels, plays, films, and television documentaries. The working class includes mainly people who do physical work: skilled manual workers in all branches of industry - blue-collar workers. It’s regarded as below the middle class in education, background and culture, but many people from working-class families, including those who are well educated and rich, are proud of their family background. Small businesses including self-employed skill-workers, electricians, plumbers, car mechanics, builders, carpenters, decorators. 25% 6) Semi-skilled/Unskilled working class. In all branches of industry and agricultural worker (farm or building labourers,bakers, hairdressers, seamstresses, dressmakers, casual workers picking fruits and vegetables). 17 % 7) Residual/Underclass. Dependent on state benefit, unemployed, occasional part-time. No jobs, no accommodation. Come from the inner city – slums. 12%
The different classes in Britain tend to eat different food at different time of the day (and call the meals by different names), they like to talk about different topics, they enjoy different pastimes and sports and have different ideas about the correct way to behave. The easiest way to guess the class to which the person belongs to is to listen to the way he speaks. A person’s accent in Britain is an identity card. Other people will be able to say what social background you come from, where you were born or educated, and what kind of job you do. Changing an accent is difficult, even for actors. To achieve the desired accent, a British person must speak it from childhood. This is one of the reasons why people still send their children to expensive private schools. It is not that the education there is better, but because, as adults, they will have the right accent and manners. A person’s vocabulary is also very important. Here is a good class-test you can try: when talking to an English person, say something too quietly for them to hear you properly. A lower-middle or middle person will say “Pardon?”; an upper-middle will say “Sorry?” (or perhaps “Sorry – what?”); but an upper-class and a working-class person will both say “What?” The working person, however, will drop the “t” – “Wha’?” “Toilet” is another word that makes the higher classes exchange knowing looks. The correct upper word is “lavatory” or “loo”. The working classes all say “toilet”, as do most lower-middles and middle-middles, the only difference being the working-class dropping of the final “t”. Here are some more examples: Upper Non-upper napkin serviette sitting-room lounge sofa settee pudding desert, sweet lunch/luncheon dinner (about midday meal) scent perfume Mother, father Mum, Dad
An interesting thing about the class system in Britain is that very often it has nothing to do with money. A person with an upper-class accent, using upper-class words, will be recognized upper-class even if he or she is unemployed or homeless. A person with working-class pronunciation, who calls a sofa a settee, and his midday meal “dinner”, will be identified as working class even if he is a multi-millionaire living in a grand country house. No wonder, the richest people in Britain are pop stars, actors, writers and members of the Royal Family. Paul McCartney is the world’s first rock star billionaire. British titles
“Princes” and “princesses”are members of the Royal Family. There are different kinds of “lords” (peers), e.g. dukes, earls,andbarons. These titles usually go from father to son. The titles “Sir” for men and “Dame” for women are given to people who have given special service to the country (Paul McCartney, David Beckham and his wife).
Date: 2016-04-22; view: 2533
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