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The concept of parental authority has changed. Today, no parent can take their children’s respect for granted: authority has to be earned. Several studies have shown the following problems.

Trust: A lot of young people say their parents don’t trust them. Some of them have no privacy: their parents read all their emails, and enter their rooms without knocking. All of these actions demonstrate lack of respect. Consequently, these teenagers have little respect for their parents.

Communication: Hardly any teens discuss their problems with their parents. That’s because very few teens feel their parents really listen to them. Instead, most parents tend to fire off an immediate response to their kids’ first sentence.

Freedom: Interestingly, most rebels come from very authoritarian homes where kids have very little freedom. Teens need fewer rules but they have to be clear and unchangeable. Also, if the mother and father don’t agree about discipline, teens have less respect for both parents. They also need a lot of support and a little freedom to take their own decisions. None of them enjoy just listening to adults.

Role models: Teens don’t have much respect for their parents if neither of them actually does things that they expect their children to do. Like everybody, teens appreciate people who practise what they preach.

Parents have to earn much money in order to have parental authority.

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That parents read their children’s email may be considered that they don’t have much trust in their children.

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The more parents violate their children’s freedom, the less respect they can get from their children.

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Children often face the problem that their parents are not willing to listen to them.

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The more discipline parents put on their children, the more obedient they are.

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Family rules should be brief and consistent.

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All teenagers like making their own decisions without their parents' help.

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Children would like their parents to be supportive but not dominant.

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The situation in which parents have different opinions about discipline may lead to some problem in the family.

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That parents set a good example to children makes them have less respect in their parents.

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Men have played a significant role in American society as the main breadwinner, and protector of the family. But the traditional role of men has slowly been transferred to women. Society is changing with women going to college, and gaining jobs. It may even happen in several years’ time when women are given sole earning responsibility in American society as the main breadwinner of the family. That is due in part to women gained working privileges equal to men in the 1970’s.

Up until the 1970’s, men were the traditional family breadwinners, while women stayed at home, raised the kids, made dinner every night, cleaned the house, and ran all of the errands. Men went to work every day, making enough money to buy a nice home, buy a new car every so often.

Once women were afforded the opportunity to work in the same jobs men once held, men’s more traditional foothold in the workplace was loosened. Women were given bigger jobs with more responsibility, but women take jobs with major responsibly with less pay than men.

The role of men in American society is changing with more women going to college, and obtaining careers; men are playing more untraditional roles at home.

Women are still giving birth to the kids, but are going to work to earn money to pay the bills, while men are staying home raising the kids, running errands, cleaning, making dinner. Young children, boys as well as girls, are being raised with dad at home taking care of the kids.

Millions of families are also raising their young with mom and dad sharing all of the responsibilities. Today’s role of men in American society is more of a shared role, with a more undefined role.

The traditional role of men was ……………..

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Women used to stay at home doing housework because………….

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At work, women take …………

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The shared role of men nowadays is ………

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The word “foothold” in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to ……….