Family Dynamics

  Family dynamics in a America in 2009 are different between different races. Latino men seem more engaged with their children than Anglo men. During my time at Holiday Park, I observed different interactions between parents of different races and their children. I noticed that the white parents would hardly take notice of their children. In fact, it seemed most of them were more concerned with their cell phones, than their kids. A White mother sat and watched her six year old play on the jungle-gym, looking bored and uninterested. The only White father at the park that day opted to spend his daughter's play time eyeballing a female jogger and chatting on the phone instead of taking advantage of the time he could have been spending with his little girl. The complete opposite was true for a young Hispanic father who spent the day running around playing football and soccer with his two young boys. This could be a result of the strong culture that continues to bind Hispanics together while White families are becoming less and less interactive on that intimate family level.  It seems White people have acted similarly for centuries. This can be seen by comparing the family dynamics of the English Europeans who came to settle in America and the Native Americans who were already living here. The Europeans wanted to have their own private estates where one man would have many acres of his own land.The Natives, however, could have had all the land they wanted yet they still chose to live close together in communal living spaces.