Personal Life Perspective

• Personal Life: Assumptions

  Influenced by the interactionist ideas and argues that in order to understand family, we must begin from the point of view of those we are studying and the meanings they give to situations. Contrasting the top-down approach of the structural theorists.
• Beyond Ties of Blood & Marriage:

  Take a wider view of family relationships, not limited to relationships based on blood or marital ties. E.g. in a crisis people are unlikely to turn to family they don't feel close to, and some are willing to care for individuals who aren't related to them. Without knowing what these relationships mean to the individual, we cannot understand how they may act. Hence they focus on meanings, looking at a range of personal and intimate relationships which aren't conventionally 'family' but still are seen as significant to the individual, giving them belonging.
• Beyond Ties of Blood & Marriage:

  Relationships with Friends- people say they are 'like a sibling'. Fictive kin- close friends who are treated as relatives, like a mother's friend being referred to as 'auntie'. Gay and lesbian 'chosen families'- made up of a supportive network of close friends, ex-partners and others who aren't related by blood or marriage. Relationships with dead relatives- people live on in people's memory, continuing to shape their identities and affect their action. Relationships with pets- Tipper found that children frequently saw their pets as 'part of the family'.
• Donor-Conceived Children:

  Research Questions- raising questions about what counts as family from the perspective of the individuals involved. E.g. Nordqvist and Smart's research on donor-conceived children explores "what counts as family when your child shares a genetic link with a 'relative stranger' but not yourself or your partner?".
• Donor-Conceived Children:

  Nordqvist and Smart found the issue of blood and genes raised a range of feelings. Some parents emphasised the influence of social relationships over genetic relationships in forming family bonds. E.g. mother of an egg donor-conceived child defined 'mum' in terms of the time and effort put into raising their child. Seeing the role of the mother as not being defined by the 'cell which started it off'.
• Donor-Conceived Children:

  Difficult feelings can emerge for a non-genetic parent if someone were to state that their child looked like them. Differences in appearance led parents to wonder about the donor's identity, possible 'donor siblings' , and whether these should count as family. When couples knew their donor, they had to resolve questions about who counted as family- do the donor's parents count as grandparents? And do the donor's children become their child's half siblings?
• Donor-Conceived Children:

  For lesbian couples, there are additional problems. Including concern over the equality between the genetic and non-genetic mother, and that the donor may be treated as the 'real' parent.
• Evaluation of the Personal Life Perspective:

  It does help us to understand how people construct and define their relationships as 'family', rather than imposing traditional sociological definitions of the family from the top-down.

  It can be accused of taking too broad a view. Critics argue that by including a wide range of different personal relationships, it ignores what is special about the relationships which are based on blood or marriage.
• Evaluation of the Personal Life Perspective:

  The personal life perspective rejects the top-down view taken by other perspectives, such as functionalism. Though they do see intimate relationships as performing important functions of providing us with a sense of belonging. However, unlike functionalism, they do argue that the significance of the relationship isn't always positive. E.g. people may be trapped in violent, abusive relationships where they suffer harm and a lack of respect.