German Families VS American Families

Families all over the world are very different. In the following I will examine some of the similarities and differences between German and American families.

In the United States many families hyphenate their last names when they marry. Their children, however, usually have the father’s last name. This also gets more common in Germany. However, the children get both last names, not only the father’s last name, which makes the names very long. The Germans also try to copy the Americans in many ways like giving their children 1,000 middle names.

In my opinion, families in the U.S. are very complicated. The divorce rate is one out of two marriages, which is a lot. The reason for this could be that the couples here marry very young and the words ‘Do you want to marry me’ just slip over their lips very easily and Americans always just seem to live for the moment and don’t think that much about the future. Later on they realize that it doesn’t work out. There are a lot of families with only one parent or with stepparents. That is also a reason why most kids spend their days in day care, beginning at a very young age. Even though most families try to eat their evening meals together at home, it is often not possible because of the parents’ work schedules or the children’s after-school activities like homework. Since divorce in Germany is very expensive most people that stayed together for a very long time and fell out of love just stay married out of comfort. Some people stay married but they live in separate homes or even countries like my parents. Ca 30% of the married people in Germany get divorced each year. But the divorce rate is increasing each year. Therefore it is less common in Germany than it is in the U.S. There are also a lot of single parents in Germany mostly women.

I also noticed that there are many couples living together without being married. Also homosexual couples with children are increasingly common but they rather live in larger cities where the tolerance is higher. This is also becoming more common in Germany. There are many partners living together for years without being married. Homosexual couples with children are unknown to me. I am sure it exists in Germany too but I don’t know a homosexual family.

From my point of view the families in Germany are more stable than the ones in the U.S.. Even though both parents work they might find a way to take care of their children by going to work at different times. The time management is more efficient in Germany. Parents always find time between work and the household to take care of their children. There are also exceptions but most people want to take care of their children themselves instead of putting them into day care. To me it seems that American families just don’t find the time and most of them are not capable of managing their time. For instance I spend one month at an American family in San Francisco, California. It was a single mother with three kids. She had a cleaning lady and a nanny for the kids. She had enough money that she didn’t have to work. Still she was too overwhelmed with the three kids and that’s why she needed help. My mother on the other hand is a single mother too and she goes to work and she also has three kids. She managed to cook for us, clean the house and go to work. This is just an example and I don’t want to imply that all American families are lazy or bad. There are always exceptions in every culture.