Families in Micronesia

Families can be defined as a group of related people willing to live and work together in the same place or house. It can also be identified as "a group of people connected by blood or marriage and sharing common ancestry." Today, there are many different kinds of families in Micronesia. Micronesia means small islands. It is one of the four names of island groups in the Pacific known as Melanesia, Polynesia, and Indonesia. Micronesia are consisted of many small islands in the Pacific Ocean. Among many different kinds of families in this entire world, Micronesian families are still keeping or holding their old ways of life or the culture. Families can be classified into many different categories according to the level of education, size, marital status and many more. In this essay, it will be mostly about the size of the Micronesian families. Micronesian families can be classified into three large groups based on size. Some of the specific details that can be used to explain the size of the Micronesian families are the number of the family members, number of rooms in a house, the cost of the needs for the whole family, and how their life is like in a house.

Small families consist of only a few members in a family including a father, a mother, and their kids. Usually, there are not more than five members in small families. Their house is quite small to fit the exact number of members in a family. There are three rooms in their house. It consists of two bedrooms and one living room. One bedroom is for the mother and a father and the other one is for the kids. In small families, it is very easy for them when it comes to the cost of their needs, because they do not have to worry about many things. For example, they can shop twice a month, and have a fifty pound back of rice for a whole month or two. As for the shopping of their children’s needs, it

won’t cost too much because there are only two or three kids. When it is time to pay the bills, it also cost only a little amount of money, because there are only few things to use that have to do with bills. For example, they use the washing machine for a little time because of the fewest clothes, and there are not so many kids to watch TV every hour. Usually, small families spend a hundred dollars on their needs for a month. As for their lives, they have the easiest way of living. The mother won’t be very busy in cooking foods, washing clothes, watching after many kids and something that has to do with mother’s job. Small families are considered as a good family size.

The second group of families are the Medium-families or the average size families. The number of members in medium-families are about six to ten. It includes a father, a mother and six to eight kids. The house is usually consisted of three bedrooms and one living rooms. One bedroom is for the parents, one is for the boys, one is for the girls, and the other one is the living room and a small kitchen. In this kind of families, sometimes it could be easy, and at other times it could be hard, but most of the times it is kind of a hard. They have the average cost of their needs, meaning that they do not spend more or less money on their needs. For example, they can shop for twice a month, use the electricity regularly, and also pay the bills for an average amount of money. It could be more than a hundred dollars that a medium family can spend on their needs by monthly. As for their ways of life or the way they live together as a family, most of the times, it is good for them. When it comes to work, there are many of them who will do the work together and it will be finished in a fast way. Everyone always cooperate in working. The mother will assign each of them to be in charge of something, so it won’t be hard for her to take care of the whole things in the house.

There is also a group of large families and they’re known to be the last size among the Micronesians families. In large families, it consisted of grandparents through their grandchildren lived together in the same house. This kind of family contains a large number of family members which could be from ten and up to twenty. In large families, there are the grandparents and some couples with lots of their own kids. Inside the house, there are four or five bedrooms with a living room and a kitchen. One of the bedroom is for the grandparents, the other three or four are for the couples or the married ones, and the other one is for the ones that are not married. Sometimes during the night, the boys can use the living room as their bedroom and leave one of the rooms for the girls. One of the thing that is usually hard for the large families is when it comes to their needs. Because of the large number of people of large families, they do really need to care about many things. They have to budget their money and use it wisely because it is kind of expensive to the large families. There are many things that they need regarding the foods, clothes, bills, and others that has to do with money. It could be about a couple of hundred dollars by monthly. But when it comes to their ways of life in a family, everything is easily done because of the large number of people. There are many people to do the work together. Sometimes it could be hard for the large families and at other times, it could be easy.

There may be more other general areas that the Micronesian families could be categorized into like the educational level and marital status, but this report states mostly about the large groups based on size. The three large groups that are based on size are the small families, medium families, and the large families.