This second semester at METU has brought me the pleasure of taking a course on Family, Marriage, and Kinship Dynamics in Turkey. I cannot help but delve into the sources that describe the familial situations and relations in the US.
If you, like me, are born of parents from the savory freedom infued want all, have all, be all generation of the 60's and were raised in the 80-90s amongst the peers from the enormous American middle class then you too may have experienced going through a permeable family- one that pushes us to grow up at the speed of sound and never look back. Some of us burned out after highschool, others have stayed where they grew up-all though too big for their britches-, us other members ran to far off lands to actualize personal ideologies and make the most of our international generation. The search for like-minded people in post-modernity is something of a wild goose chase. Each individual in our exotic whirlwind of self-actualization and hurried over involvement becomes a rare species diversely extended in a rain forest, or in an actualization of the old adage, Every man becomes his own island.
Post-modernity's role in social science is obvious- slather indelibly over every informed academic work since the nineties. Post-modern science, the age of questioning all things, the harbinger of no absolute truth is taking the certain out of uncertainty and leaving us with 'un'. We have elaboration, ornamentation, pluralism, eclecticism, doubt, uncertainty, and instantaneous access to 'factual' simultaneously viewed and captured media. Now, before getting carried away, things most people value as indisputably necessary to a sound and prosperous society are characteristic of post-modernity: inclusiveness, democracy, religious freedom, mobility, and consumerism.
Amidst these pros and cons, I ask myself, here in Turkey, what does this mean for partners, families, and children were I come from?
The University of the United Nations based in Tokyo takes a good stab at addressing this in Their book "Strengthening Families- Implication for International Development". It can be accessed online. http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu13se/uu13se00.htm#Contents
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