Family Structures in the United States

Nuclear

Description:

Named after the nucleus (the tightly connected core particles of an atom), the nuclear family consists of a man and a woman and their biological offspring under 18 years of age. In middle childhood, almost half of all children live in nuclear families.

nuclear family: family of four smiling and hugging each other

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Extended

Description:

If both biological parents are present and other relatives live with them (usually a grandparent, sometimes an aunt or uncle), that is an extended family. About 10 percent of school-age children live in such families.

Stepparent

Description:

Divorced fathers usually remarry; divorced mothers remarry about half the time. When children from a former relationship live with the new couple, it makes a stepparent family. If the stepparent family includes children born to two or more couples (such as children from the spouses’ previous marriages and/or children of the new couple), that is called a blended family.

Adoptive

Description:

Although as many as one-third of infertile couples adopt children, few adoptable children are available, so most adoptive couples have only one or two children. Thus, only 2 percent of children are adopted, although the overall percentage of adoptive families is higher than that.

Both grandparents, no parents

Description:

Grandparents take on parenting for some children when biological parents are absent (dead, imprisoned, sick, addicted, etc.).

Two same-sex parents

Description:

Some two-parent families are headed by a same-sex couple, with the biological child of one of them. [When same-sex couples adopt a child, that is listed as an adoptive family, above.]

Single mother—never married

Description:

More than half of all U. S. women under age 30 who gave birth in 2010 or later were unmarried. However, by the time their children reach middle childhood, often the mothers have married or the children are cared for by someone else. At any given moment, about 13 percent of 6- to 11-year-olds are with their never-married mothers.

single mother never married: single mother with her young son hugging her

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Single mother—divorced, separated, or widowed

Description:

Although many marriages end in divorce (almost half in the United States, fewer in other nations), many divorcing couples have no children. Others remarry. Thus, only 12 percent of school-age children currently live with single, formerly married mothers.

Single father

Description:

About 1 father in 25 has physical custody of his children and raises them without their mother or a new wife. This category increased at the start of the twenty-first century but has decreased since 2005.

Grandparent alone

Description:

Sometimes a single grandparent (usually the grandmother) becomes the sole caregiving adult for a child.