Notes:Most children don’t have a choice in the type of family they grow up in. Your family of orientation, the family in which you are raised and socialized due to birth, adoption, or a blended family, was chosen for you. By comparison, your family of procreation, the family you choose to create through marriage, agreed-upon relationships, or the birth or adoption of children, will be your choice with few limitations. Families are based on kinship, a social relationship pattern based on blood, marriage, or adoption, and consist of two primary types of families — extended, a family with other kin such as grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins living in the same household or nearby. Blended families, families in which one or both spouses have children from previous relationships.
neolocal, a living pattern in which a couple establishes their own residence independent of their parents, residence instead.
matrilocal, a living pattern in which a couple resides with or near the wife’s parents, residential structure
patrilocal, a living pattern in which a couple resides with or near the husband’s parents