The nuclear family is to twentieth century Canada what words are to a book; supposedly, it was what made Canada what it is. The ‘traditional’ dynamic of the heterosexual couple, a breadwinning husband and a homemaker of a wife, along with the fresh faced, white suburban children, make up the image of the early twentieth century. This, however, also made judging parents fashionable based on the state of their family and the behaviour of their child/children.
In 1921, the nuclear began to be normalized as the Canadian ideal, used to show off the economic and social prosperity of the nation[1] and tools for the assimilation of post-war immigrants[2]. If the vast majority of families in Canada could afford to have only one breadwinner so that mom can stay at home with the kids, well then surely the country must be in prime condition. However, this thought process also lead to the increase of societal judgement towards single-parents and parents with odd children.
The term ‘single-parent’ used to only extend to the unmarried, biological parents of the child/children in the family[3]. This changes to also include divorcees, widows and adults raising children that aren’t theirs in the ratio of single vs. nuclear parent families used by the media as evidence for the increase of family breakdowns plaguing the country[4]. Thus, resulting in single parenthood being categorized as ‘not normal’ and increasing the interest in how the children in these households are raised and their behaviour[5].
Similar concerns were also awarded to the parents of university students who did not adapt well to the moralized and often Christian associated campus life. During and after the second World War there is a clear shift in university student’s attitudes towards sexual liberation[6]; they liked having premarital sex for pleasure. At the time, university students were expected to be independent, disciplined, and to abide by the heteronormative way of life[7]. Those who didn’t were once again labelled as ‘abnormal’ and studies such as the Hazen report blamed parents for the emotional immaturity, homesickness and hysteria displayed by their children[8]. The report linked these faults with overprotective or disciplinary parenting styles and encouraged parents to emotionally prepare their children for university life[9].
In conclusion, the new found emphasis on the family dynamic in Canada created a subculture of parent bashing and child expectations.
[1] Bradbury, “Single Parenthood in the Past: Canadian Census Categories, 1891-1951 and the ‘Normal’ Family,” Historical Methods, 33, 4 (Fall, 2000): 212-214.
[2] McPhail, Deborah. 2009. “What to do with the “Tubby Hubby”?“Obesity,” the Crisis of Masculinity, and the Nuclear Family in Early Cold War Canada.” Antipode 41, no. 5: 1027, 1034.
[3] Bradbury, “Single Parenthood in the Past: Canadian Census Categories, 1891-1951 and the ‘Normal’ Family,” Historical Methods, 33, 4 (Fall, 2000): 211.
[4] Bradbury, “Single Parenthood in the Past: Canadian Census Categories, 1891-1951 and the ‘Normal’ Family,” Historical Methods, 33, 4 (Fall, 2000): 212.
[5] ibid
[6] Gidney, “Under the President’s Gaze: Sexuality and Morality at a Canadian University During the Second World War,” Canadian Historical Review, 82, 1 (March, 2001): 38.
[7] Gidney, “Under the President’s Gaze: Sexuality and Morality at a Canadian University During the Second World War,” Canadian Historical Review, 82, 1 (March, 2001): 45.
[8] ibid
[9] ibid
