A Look At Conrad Kottak's Book

In the book "Mirror for Humanity", American anthropologist Conrad Kottak defines family as a group of people who are by blood in some way. This group includes parents, children, siblings, grandparents, etc. Or does it?  Kottak also says this group can include aunts, uncles, and cousins. But, it also doesn’t have to. Family is the unique creation of society. What family means is as diverse as the individuals who consecrate such a definition. Family dynamics can shift. One moment family could include an uncle, then the next, that uncle could estrange himself from the unit and no longer consider himself part of the family. Parents could divorce and remarry, again shifting the dynamics. Impermanent units, such as the common Western household of the nuclear family have ever changing members. But as individuals come and go, are they still a family? When one leaves the nest, do they still play a role in the customs and culture of their family?  The focus here is on college students. Going to university has become something of a milestone in the United States. Every year millions attend schools around the world and most leave home to go to these educational institutions.  While this study started out as an attempt to prove that students lose touch with their families and form something else entirely of their own, the results were surprising.  It seems that the exact opposite is the result, that instead when one leaves for school their bonds with their family both stays the same and in many cases, even strengthens.

Kottak provides the foundation of the hypothesis, stating, “North Americans leave home for college or work, and the break with parents is under way” . That break with the parents and as result, the family unit as a whole, combined with neolocality driving a student to schools sometimes hundreds of miles away from home seemed to create a perfect storm for independence. Neolocality traditionally applies primarily to workers with spouses moving. Though the school determining where a student lives can play just as big of a role as a job determining the location of a worker so it’s usage isn’t too far of a divergence in this juncture. And although the student may not be married, they still establish a home of their own. The reasoning was that students, even commuters who live at home and in this study’s initial opinion were thought to be the minority, are forced to become more independent as a result of the expectations and experiences of university. That independence would theoretically breed a desire to escape from the umbrella of one’s guardians and to break the veritable chains of the nuclear household.

Semi-structured questions were created to prove or disprove such a theory. The questions focused on a trend of change over time in terms of a student’s personal relationships with, frequency of communication, visits with, and reliance upon their parents and family members.  The questions were designed with the multitude of familial variables that exist in mind. Dependence or independence on the family before university was the most considered factor, as students who weren’t too close with their families to begin with would likely continue as they had. That was a mistake as the assumption that independence equates a distant relationship from one’s family members turned out to be a wildly incorrect claim. The subject in question who turned the study on its head was one Leslie Rockwell, a promising candidate for the interview as she had already been in university for several years. The Drexel senior came from a divorced family and described in detail how she was brought up to be self-reliant. Kottak mentions in great detail the growing divorce rate in the United States over the last three decades. He explains that even though contemporary Americans maintain social lives through work and hobbies, they’re growing isolated from their kin at an unprecedented rate .

Yet Rockwell’s experience proved to be the opposite of the study’s and Kottak’s opinions. She described at great length that even though her father lived in Florida for much of her life, she still remained close with him. And while she lived with her mother for most of the year, Leslie explained that her mother reared her to become a self-reliant person, even going to the extent of making provide her own food. Though that self-reliance didn’t result in any feelings of animosity or emotional detachment. On the contrary, Rockwell formed a close emotional attachment that lasts even through her years spent at university.

She even maintains close relationships with her sister and even her two half sisters. Stepsiblings were a bit of curve ball to study. Initially the assumption that because her stepsiblings weren’t blood related, Leslie wouldn’t maintain a close relationship with them, and that’s when things continued to get interesting. Leslie revealed that both her stepsisters were at least ten years older than she was. So not only was she just as close with members of her ‘step-family’ as she was with her blood sister, Leslie mentioned that she was in some cases even closers.

Such a dramatic age gap created the assumption on the study’s half that she wouldn’t be able to relate as well with them; perhaps even she would view them as a secondary authority. But like most assumptions the study made, this turned out to be completely wrong.  Close relationships were more a result of personality traits as Leslie and her eldest stepsister were in good standing and yet between her and her second, slightly younger, stepsister there was a history of animosity.

Cracks in the foundation of the study’s hypothesis appeared slowly at first. As the interview progressed, it seemed that every educated guess was incorrect. The questions asked provided copious amounts of very useful information giving a very introspective look into Leslie’s life. All in all, the study was a success. The hypothesis was proved wrong, but the study seemed to still be valid.

The years that Leslie spent at university haven’t driven her relationships with her family apart and it would seem that even once she’s graduated, the relationships formed with her family of orientation will continue to thrive and the bonds she formed continue to stay strong. The study’s hypothesis was incorrect. Yet all was not in vein, as an interesting look into the life of an everyday American and development of the family was left behind.

Kottak, Conrad. Mirror for Humanity. McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages, 2009. 143. Print.

Kottak, Conrad. Mirror for Humanity. McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages, 2009. 145-147. Print.