:00:07. > :00:11.It was better then. The traditional family.
:00:12. > :00:13.People stayed together. One husband, one wife who knew her
:00:14. > :00:19.place. A man and a woman.
:00:20. > :00:20.Children who knew their place. The way it was.
:00:21. > :00:32.Families sticking together. And today?
:00:33. > :00:34.All gone. Fractured.
:00:35. > :00:36.Gay marriage. Divorce.
:00:37. > :00:39.Living in sin. Children in care.
:00:40. > :00:44.Broken families ? not happy families.
:00:45. > :01:08.Or is it? Myth or reality?
:01:09. > :01:16.Happy families, who can doubt it? Mum, dad, a few kids together, but
:01:17. > :01:20.how typical? I'm Steve Evans and I'm going to search for the myths and
:01:21. > :01:29.the reality of family life in Wales today.
:01:30. > :01:32.You may feel you know the Phillips family from Cardiff.
:01:33. > :01:35.You've seen them somewhere. Their television good looks mean
:01:36. > :01:42.companies pay them to star in adverts
:01:43. > :01:50.for holidays or cars or coffee. They are perfect family.
:01:51. > :01:58.The average family describe that image and describe reality. I think
:01:59. > :02:03.clients and people like to see this image of 2.4 children, a perfect
:02:04. > :02:07.family, smiles, happy which in reality most days we are, but there
:02:08. > :02:11.are, you know, as most parents know, there are days where it is tough and
:02:12. > :02:15.it is hard and you have got children and you know, you have got to
:02:16. > :02:20.entertain them or try and do things and take them places. They choose us
:02:21. > :02:25.a lot because we've got a couple of children to choose from, but they
:02:26. > :02:30.tend to only choose two. Today, it is 2014, they still want traditional
:02:31. > :02:35.values for they want what is perceived as traditional values as
:02:36. > :02:40.2.4 children. I get the impression that families mix and match now.
:02:41. > :02:47.There is former partners. Mixes of children. Grandparents getting
:02:48. > :02:51.involved. It's complex in a good way. I think it is only recently
:02:52. > :02:57.that it has become accepted that, you know, like even us, my wife,
:02:58. > :03:00.we've got three children together, but I've got an older child from a
:03:01. > :03:06.different relationship and he's 15. He comes in and out of family easy.
:03:07. > :03:11.It is quite normal, but I don't know if that's a good thing for him or a
:03:12. > :03:17.bad thing and I won't know that until we're older. We're modern as a
:03:18. > :03:20.family. In today's age, we see same-sex families in the boys
:03:21. > :03:25.school. Like you say, you want the best for your children, but the
:03:26. > :03:33.initial thing you want is for them to be happy. We do seem to be happy.
:03:34. > :03:37.Perhaps surprisingly happy. A poll commissioned for BBC Wales found
:03:38. > :04:11.that 79% of those questioned are happy with family life.
:04:12. > :04:19.What do he we mean by a family? The statisticians have a tight
:04:20. > :04:24.definition. They mean people living together in a close relationship. It
:04:25. > :04:28.could be a couple, married or unmarried, with or without children.
:04:29. > :04:33.Same-sex or different sex or it could be a single person with
:04:34. > :04:39.children either their own children or even their grandchildren. Student
:04:40. > :04:42.homes don't count as family. People in close relationships, living
:04:43. > :04:49.together, do. There are nearly 900,000 families in
:04:50. > :04:54.Wales. The numbers living together are increasing, but there is still
:04:55. > :04:58.more than 500,000 married couples. The norm for children growing up in
:04:59. > :05:02.Wales is to live with both their birth parents. They may not be as
:05:03. > :05:07.likely to be married as they were before, but they often are or they
:05:08. > :05:13.often get married at some point, but that's still the overriding norm.
:05:14. > :05:18.What we have seen is a change in the trajectory of families so how they
:05:19. > :05:23.changed, how they expect their lifetime to be. There is much more
:05:24. > :05:27.tolerance of people living together without being married, cohabiting.
:05:28. > :05:31.They may get married or they may not. We see more tolerance towards
:05:32. > :05:43.gay and lesbian people in our society and couples who are gay and
:05:44. > :05:48.lesbian. Alan and Rick are in a relationship.
:05:49. > :05:55.They have adopted a children. Their new two-year-old son. This is a new
:05:56. > :05:59.type of family, but not even 1% of families are same-sex couples. When
:06:00. > :06:03.you adopted, what was the discussion you had? What were the thoughts and
:06:04. > :06:08.the issues that you had to thrash out between you? There weren't
:06:09. > :06:16.really. We always knew pretty early on that we wanted to adopt. I don't
:06:17. > :06:23.remember any kind of having to thrash anything out really. It was
:06:24. > :06:28.pretty normal, I guess. We have both grown up wanting children and the
:06:29. > :06:35.options are artificial insemination with a donor or whatever or
:06:36. > :06:45.adoption. We both knew that this was what we wanted to do.
:06:46. > :06:50.For thousands of years more than thousands of years, kids have been
:06:51. > :06:56.brought up by a man and a woman. Evolution, it is the way we do it.
:06:57. > :07:01.It is the way biology works and OK, we mess around and we change things,
:07:02. > :07:05.that's what human beings do. It is called development and advancement,
:07:06. > :07:09.but that's the way we've done it and now you're messing around with it.
:07:10. > :07:13.It is an experiment and we just don't know how it's going to work
:07:14. > :07:17.out. But if the human race didn't change anything, we would still all
:07:18. > :07:21.be living in caves. Times do change. If you're saying we're not sure how
:07:22. > :07:29.it's going to work, there were recent studies, there was a study by
:07:30. > :07:34.a university in Australia saying how they measure happiness. Children
:07:35. > :07:37.with same-sex parents are 80% more happier because the gender rules
:07:38. > :07:42.aren't there so instead of me saying, "I'm doing this. You're
:07:43. > :07:48.doing this." I'm actually doing what I'm best at and you're doing what
:07:49. > :07:52.you're best at. We've grown up in divorced families. Lots of divorces
:07:53. > :08:00.in the family. We are used to different shapes and sizes of
:08:01. > :08:06.families. We have got half-siblings. It is another family type and people
:08:07. > :08:10.come to terms with that pretty quickly because that's what they've
:08:11. > :08:17.done over the years. These people are growing up in a generation where
:08:18. > :08:24.being gay is normal. Parents might have an issue and who cares let's be
:08:25. > :08:33.honest? As long as he is fine, we don't care.
:08:34. > :08:44.Alan and Rick live in a city where patterns change rapidly. It is more
:08:45. > :08:49.flexible a varied in the way people live, but in the country,
:08:50. > :08:53.traditional family life remains albeit under threat as agriculture
:08:54. > :09:02.shrinks as a proportion of our economy. This is a family farm in
:09:03. > :09:09.Carmarthenshire. Generation after generation, farming and living
:09:10. > :09:15.together in the same place. This is traditional family life at its
:09:16. > :09:19.tightest, at its closest. For centuries, farming fathers have
:09:20. > :09:25.passed the business on to elder sons, not usually a family business
:09:26. > :09:29.for daughters or younger sons. Gareth Thomas is the third
:09:30. > :09:33.generation of his family to farm this land in Carmarthenshire. The
:09:34. > :09:42.business is the family, the family is the business. When Gareth married
:09:43. > :09:46.Heather and took over the farm, his parents, moved out of the family
:09:47. > :09:56.home. Hard for you to move out of your own home? Well, not really, no.
:09:57. > :10:00.When I married Brian 45 years ago, my parents-in-law moved out and I
:10:01. > :10:04.was allowed to make a new home for myself and my husband and bring up
:10:05. > :10:17.my family here. It was a pattern that I was familiar with. My own
:10:18. > :10:22.parents had done that. It was natural einvolvement of family life.
:10:23. > :10:29.I love cities. I like the idea that my family is a bit of a distance
:10:30. > :10:36.away in truth. Is there a down side of living in each other's pockets?
:10:37. > :10:40.Yes, there are at times when we have disagreements, but and I say this in
:10:41. > :10:44.all sincerity, we have disagreements, but they are finished
:10:45. > :10:48.within 30 seconds. They are not carried on for five minutes let
:10:49. > :10:55.alone five days. That's because you two get on? Not necessarily always!
:10:56. > :11:01.By and large you like each other? Oh yes. Of course, we do. Of course, we
:11:02. > :11:07.like each other, he is my father and I'm fortunate that he's retiring and
:11:08. > :11:13.I stand to inherit a wonderful place to live in the country. But it's,
:11:14. > :11:18.I'm lucky in the fact that I've got active parents that are prepared to
:11:19. > :11:21.come and help and the wonderful thing about their retirement ethos
:11:22. > :11:28.is they can turn up and they can do what they want and they can go home.
:11:29. > :11:41.One of the biggest assets is the fact this we are here every day, we
:11:42. > :11:45.see the grandchildren every day. No matter how wealthy people are,
:11:46. > :11:51.our wealth are these three youngsters running around. We see
:11:52. > :11:57.them daily. They give us pleasure daily and I can tell you a lot about
:11:58. > :12:01.the little one. He keeps us laughing, not in what he says, but
:12:02. > :12:08.in what he does and no matter what you say, that's our wealth.
:12:09. > :12:13.Throughout Wales, farms have passed from father to elder son, it's the
:12:14. > :12:18.way of centuries. It does make you wonder about younger sons who don't
:12:19. > :12:25.get the farm. They usually move away. By and large, only divorce and
:12:26. > :12:32.debt breaks farms up. Is there then change? How is the role of the woman
:12:33. > :12:35.on the farm? The mother on the farm, the centre of the farm changed
:12:36. > :12:44.between the two of you, your generation? Well, my mother-in-law
:12:45. > :12:49.taught part-time, she had a part-time job and I do as well. We
:12:50. > :12:55.have a fairly similar role, do you think? Yes, I think so. We both help
:12:56. > :12:59.out on the farm and we both have our own job as well. There was a time
:13:00. > :13:03.way before your time when the daughter did not inherit the farm
:13:04. > :13:11.and run the farm, become a farmer. Is that still so? No, I think times
:13:12. > :13:19.have changed. If the daughter wants to farm these days, I think she has
:13:20. > :13:23.an opportunity to do so. What's the pluses and minuses of living in each
:13:24. > :13:31.other's pockets? The pluses are that there is always somebody to help.
:13:32. > :13:35.You've always got support. There is always fun to be hadful we're
:13:36. > :13:47.always, there is never a dull moment really. My minuses, perhaps it would
:13:48. > :13:54.be night to have quality time with the immediate family. We have lots
:13:55. > :13:59.of fun. More good than bad. We all know the family picture on
:14:00. > :14:05.the mantelpiece. Those we love around us now, or relatives long
:14:06. > :14:10.gone. The family's shining lights and the plaque sheep. Rachel --
:14:11. > :14:17.black sheep. Rachel studied the significance of those family photos.
:14:18. > :14:22.People want family and how they make that in a way is made on the
:14:23. > :14:28.mantelpiece. So for example, I have spoken to people who have
:14:29. > :14:34.photographs or those lovely tinted photographs or even scans of old
:14:35. > :14:38.photographs on the mantelpiece of long dead, great, great uncles they
:14:39. > :14:42.have never met, but it doesn't matter because that is part of their
:14:43. > :14:48.story at a time of great change for the family. Why then? Why do we need
:14:49. > :14:54.to know about great-uncle Jack who was way before you were born and has
:14:55. > :15:02.no relevance to our lives now except he clearly does? I suppose it's that
:15:03. > :15:06.feeling of having roots. You know, that people talk about an
:15:07. > :15:11.individualised society that communities breaking down and these
:15:12. > :15:15.things, you know, it could be the most horrid vase or ornament from
:15:16. > :15:20.great, great granny. Again, we've never met, but what those things do,
:15:21. > :15:22.they tie you down and give you that sense of belonging when a lot of
:15:23. > :15:41.life is so uncertain. Cardiff was built as a port city. A
:15:42. > :15:45.very transient population, people coming in and people leaving and
:15:46. > :15:50.even today, that's the way it is. A very mobile population, but Wales is
:15:51. > :15:54.very diverse. Different degrees of mobility in different areas the the
:15:55. > :16:01.Valleys for example at the other extreme. In some parts of the
:16:02. > :16:12.Valleys, 90% of the people basically live near where they were born.
:16:13. > :16:16.Gwenda has witnessed the changes in family life in the Valleys for
:16:17. > :16:22.three-quarters of a century. Tell me about your family and who looked
:16:23. > :16:27.after who with sisters and all that stuff?
:16:28. > :16:32.Well, I was one of five. My brother who was the oldest, was lost during
:16:33. > :16:37.the war, but he was brought up with my grandmother which was the thing
:16:38. > :16:41.to do in those days. I knew he was my brother. I knew he lived with my
:16:42. > :16:47.grandmother. It didn't make any difference to us. I thought he was
:16:48. > :16:52.chocolate, my hero. And Christmas was always spent in my grandmother's
:16:53. > :16:57.house. Her sister had eight childrenment her other sister had
:16:58. > :17:08.five children and the house would be, the walls would be expanded, you
:17:09. > :17:14.know. The big change in her time has been in the role of women. Out from
:17:15. > :17:21.the kitchen, into the workplace for wages. Gwenda was a teacher, but
:17:22. > :17:25.that's not what married women did before the First World War. Married
:17:26. > :17:29.teachers weren't employed, that was it. You couldn't keep a job. You
:17:30. > :17:36.couldn't teach if you were married. You lost your job. I can't remember
:17:37. > :17:41.any mother of my generation working. All stayed at home. If they wanted
:17:42. > :17:44.money, they might have a little shop in their front room, you know,
:17:45. > :17:50.downstairs, but they wouldn't go out to work. You wouldn't see them. Not
:17:51. > :17:55.until the war and then, of course, they were wanted in the factories.
:17:56. > :18:00.War often changes the relationship between the sexes and so it was in
:18:01. > :18:08.World War II, men went off to fight, women went out to work. Today, two
:18:09. > :18:12.in every three women has a job. One very big change we have seen is lots
:18:13. > :18:16.more women working and that has lots more implications for family life
:18:17. > :18:19.and how families order their every day life. Like? It means that
:18:20. > :18:22.families have to think about childcare a lot more. How they're
:18:23. > :18:28.going to look after their children if both parents in work. It is
:18:29. > :18:32.always painted as a women's issue, childcare, but for both parents, it
:18:33. > :18:36.is quite a concern is how to look after their children while they are
:18:37. > :18:42.in work. It means that income is different. The income patterns are
:18:43. > :18:48.different and it means that men are a bit more involved in family life
:18:49. > :18:52.in terms of every day tasks like domestic work or childcare, but the
:18:53. > :18:57.women still do more than men. Here is a modern family. Hannah and Rhys
:18:58. > :19:05.are expecting their second child and they plan to get married. 30 years
:19:06. > :19:09.ago, one in ten children was born out of wedlock, now it is six in
:19:10. > :19:14.every ten who are born to unmarried parents. Rhys and Hannah work, but a
:19:15. > :19:21.chunk of their pay gets eaten up with the cost of childcare for their
:19:22. > :19:28.son. How do you juggle family and work given that your parents are a
:19:29. > :19:37.good way away? Quite difficult. We've managed although I have been
:19:38. > :19:43.back in work a year. Rhys takes our son to nursery. I pick him up, but
:19:44. > :19:49.if he is ill, I have to take time off work, but if I really need to go
:19:50. > :19:53.to work, I rely on friends or if I'm in desperate need, I ask my parents.
:19:54. > :19:59.Compare the way you were brought up in a family with the way your son is
:20:00. > :20:04.being brought up. Compare how it has changed? . He is not able to see his
:20:05. > :20:08.grandparents much. I Skype every Sunday with my grandmother so he has
:20:09. > :20:20.a continuity to see them, but it's not the same as being just down the
:20:21. > :20:25.road. Over the years people from North
:20:26. > :20:29.Wales have come down to South Wales or Cardiff, not saying everyone, but
:20:30. > :20:33.lots of people have. It is a good life down here, but you have to
:20:34. > :20:37.sacrifice certain things as in family life. It is great to have
:20:38. > :20:41.your family close to you. It is nice to have them far away sometimes as
:20:42. > :20:48.well. The role of a woman has changed and the importance of
:20:49. > :20:51.working as a woman and the pressure after having children, you have to
:20:52. > :20:55.return back to work. I felt the pressure, not from you, but from
:20:56. > :21:00.work asking so when are you going to come back? There is a difference
:21:01. > :21:04.between our mother's generation, there wasn't that pressure to go
:21:05. > :21:10.back to work. It was just the norm was for the mother to stay at home
:21:11. > :21:14.and for the man to work. How did the way your bringing up your son,
:21:15. > :21:19.differ from the way your dad brought you up? Back then people worked
:21:20. > :21:24.hard. The father worked very hard. He worked Saturdays as well so the
:21:25. > :21:29.mother would be home all day long. Say if I went to play football,
:21:30. > :21:35.sport on a Saturday, my mum would do everything with me and hence my dad
:21:36. > :21:40.would work until I don't know, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm, so we wouldn't see him
:21:41. > :21:44.until then. I spend more time with him than my dad did with me. You
:21:45. > :21:49.have got to juggle everything with each other. You rely on each other
:21:50. > :21:55.pretty well? It is the nice things of going out in the evening without
:21:56. > :22:00.any children, we have to look for a baby-sitter. Just going to the
:22:01. > :22:06.cinema is difficult. We have to get baby-sitters and by the time you pay
:22:07. > :22:10.for a baby-sitter at ?8 or ?10 an hour, going to the cinema is
:22:11. > :22:16.expensive. It is like ?50 before you turn around. Say our nursery fees is
:22:17. > :22:20.?600 a month. It is like having a second mortgage. He only goes three
:22:21. > :22:25.days a week. Imagine if you had a kid going five days a week or two
:22:26. > :22:31.kids going five days, you know, it is a lot of money to pay out. Why is
:22:32. > :22:37.it such a big deal to have a family? Why do you want to have a family? It
:22:38. > :22:41.brings us closer. It is nice to see the next generation grow up. I just
:22:42. > :22:45.feel it is nice. I have been brought up in a big family and I love having
:22:46. > :22:50.brothers and sisters. It would be nice to think it is all
:22:51. > :22:55.about love and of course, it is, but economics is also a big shaper of
:22:56. > :22:59.family life. The collapse of heavy industry in Wales altered the
:23:00. > :23:03.family. Economic uncertainty means we hold off from marrying until
:23:04. > :23:09.we're older. Kids are now living at home longer because of the high cost
:23:10. > :23:26.of housing. 27% of young adults in Wales live with their parents.
:23:27. > :23:35.It is a soap opera. The drama of family life, divorce, rows,
:23:36. > :23:43.break-ups, families falling apart. Families getting back together. But
:23:44. > :23:49.you know what, it's not reality. Happy families do not a good soap
:23:50. > :23:53.opera make or do happy families sell tabloid newspapers. Read the
:23:54. > :23:58.newspapers or watch the soaps and you would think it is family hell,
:23:59. > :24:02.but it's not. On the latest figures there are 170,000 sickle parent
:24:03. > :24:08.families in Wales. That's one in five of the total number of families
:24:09. > :24:12.in this country of ours. 26,000 of those one-parent families, it is the
:24:13. > :24:16.dad who brings up the kids, but mostly, it's the mum. Neat Meet
:24:17. > :24:33.Nicola and Matthew. In our BBC Wales poll, three out of
:24:34. > :24:38.ten people think children raised by single-parents do worse in school.
:24:39. > :24:46.But Nicola is striving to make sure Matthew turns out well. It is an
:24:47. > :24:52.unconventional family built on love. Tell me how you bring up Matthew as
:24:53. > :24:56.a single-parent. What do you have to do and what arrangements do you have
:24:57. > :24:59.to make and how do you have to switch things around and make
:25:00. > :25:03.everything work? I have been really lucky. I have had my parents and my
:25:04. > :25:10.brother and sister have been a really good support to me over the
:25:11. > :25:17.years. I have had to work. I work pretty much 9am to 4pm so Matthew is
:25:18. > :25:21.in school. His school bus stops by my parent's house. My dad would pick
:25:22. > :25:30.him up, now he is old enough he can walk up to my parent's house. Where
:25:31. > :25:34.does his dad figure in? His dad has never been around. Would it be
:25:35. > :25:40.better if he was? I don't know. I don't know any different now. I just
:25:41. > :25:47.did it all on my own. Possibly. Possibly. I don't know. But he is
:25:48. > :25:51.not? He has never been there. He has never been around from the
:25:52. > :25:56.beginning. He said he didn't want to be involved and I respected his
:25:57. > :26:05.wishes. He doesn't live anywhere close so... He has gone? Gone, yeah.
:26:06. > :26:13.Do you feel any stigma about it? How do you feel it has changed in your
:26:14. > :26:20.life? Attitudes to single mums bringing up kids heroically. When
:26:21. > :26:24.people thinking of single mothers, they think of women on benefits,
:26:25. > :26:30.having money from the State. I've worked all the way through from when
:26:31. > :26:34.I had Matthew I continued to work. It's difficult, you know, I think
:26:35. > :26:39.it's difficult to be a single parent whether you are a male or a female.
:26:40. > :26:45.There is a lot of pressure. There is peer pressure on the children today
:26:46. > :26:53.to have things and we can't always deliver the goods. Are you proud of
:26:54. > :26:59.her? Why? Because she raised me well. Go on. She wants me to have a
:27:00. > :27:04.good life. A happy life. Because you haven't got a father who is present,
:27:05. > :27:14.who is here, do you want to turn out right for your mum? Yeah. How do you
:27:15. > :27:20.mean? Spell it out for me. She taught me right from wrong. How has
:27:21. > :27:28.she done that, making up, if you like, for the fact that there's no
:27:29. > :27:39.dad here? What has she done? She has done everything a mum can do and a
:27:40. > :27:47.dad. Both. And a dad? Like... She does all the things. She helps me
:27:48. > :27:57.with my homework, she does things out of her time for me. She has made
:27:58. > :28:02.you what you are? I know he is a really good kid and I'm really proud
:28:03. > :28:10.of him, you know. He doesn't cause any hassle. Everybody tells me how
:28:11. > :28:17.well-behaved he is and that makes me really proud as a mother. There is a
:28:18. > :28:23.kind of picture in the tabloids of single mums and that is girls who
:28:24. > :28:27.get pregnant casually because the State is going to help them out,
:28:28. > :28:32.because the Government is going to help them out and then they get
:28:33. > :28:37.pregnant casually again. How far from the truth is that or maybe it
:28:38. > :28:40.is the truth? I don't know. What do you think of that image? I don't
:28:41. > :28:45.think it is a true image of single-parents. I mean, first of
:28:46. > :28:53.all, I was 28 when I got pregnant with Matthew. I was working. I had
:28:54. > :28:59.my own flat. You know, it happened, you know. There is a lot of parents,
:29:00. > :29:04.I know a lot of single-parents out there who work really hard. Maybe
:29:05. > :29:09.with some support from the other parent. Yeah, there's, you know, you
:29:10. > :29:13.do see the single mothers walking around pushing prams. Youngsters,
:29:14. > :29:17.perhaps they don't know any different, but I don't think it's a
:29:18. > :29:23.true picture of being a single parent.
:29:24. > :29:30.Nicola and Matthew are clearly a strong family. There is a lot of
:29:31. > :29:35.love and caring for each other here. Which makes you wonder if families
:29:36. > :29:43.are in as such trouble as you might think.
:29:44. > :29:46.We read a lot about the family being in decline, rising divorce,
:29:47. > :29:53.single-parents, gay parents, traditional family being swept away.
:29:54. > :29:59.Should I be worried? It depends what paper you read. That idea of family
:30:00. > :30:04.being fractured and falling apart is a particular point of view that once
:30:05. > :30:11.there was something solid that is now being fractured through rising
:30:12. > :30:16.divorce rates, women going to work, single families and children in
:30:17. > :30:22.families on welfare, third generation. The problem is if that
:30:23. > :30:26.point of view persists, all those different new kinds of families
:30:27. > :30:30.still have that shame and that stigma attached to them which really
:30:31. > :30:37.they shouldn't have. If we change our point of view and see that that
:30:38. > :30:41.old idea of family, that iconic view was in itself a falsehood and what
:30:42. > :30:45.they're doing is freeing up people to make the families that they want.
:30:46. > :30:51.For gay couples to adopt of the for single women to have children. And
:30:52. > :30:57.for people to split up from their partners if the relationship really
:30:58. > :31:02.isn't happy. By continuing to attach that shame and stigma to the single
:31:03. > :31:08.family, we allow the terrible problem of childhood poverty to
:31:09. > :31:13.persist and I think we just need to start looking at family differently
:31:14. > :31:23.and accepting what it really is than what we think it should be. Wales is
:31:24. > :31:28.a country of migration. Industry sucked in people. Catholic eye
:31:29. > :31:33.taetians and Irish in the 30s, people from Asia in our own day, all
:31:34. > :31:38.with different ideas of the family. As the shape of Wales has changed so
:31:39. > :31:45.has the shape of the Welsh family. Different groups come in and bring
:31:46. > :31:46.in their own ideas. Sometimes very different. Sometimes very
:31:47. > :32:01.traditional. This woman moved with her parents
:32:02. > :32:06.from Bangladesh. She is a student in Cardiff studying for a sociology
:32:07. > :32:14.degree. She believes strongly in the importance of family. Being an
:32:15. > :32:22.Asian, I was brought up to sacrifice for my family. Do things that would
:32:23. > :32:27.make my family happy. Such as higher education. Everything depends on how
:32:28. > :32:34.my family feels. You're 20. What kind of family do you want? I want a
:32:35. > :32:40.husband. I want a small family. Small, but intellect family, yes. Do
:32:41. > :32:46.you want to work? Yes. I want to be working, yes. You spent your first
:32:47. > :32:54.years in Bangladesh, but you are a Welsh woman now. You are a Welsh
:32:55. > :32:59.woman now. How has Wales changed your attitudes? I have become more
:33:00. > :33:04.independent as in like the way I think and what I want to do with my
:33:05. > :33:09.life because before it was just grow up, get married, have kids and
:33:10. > :33:24.settle down, but me, yes, I want to have family. I want to have a job.
:33:25. > :33:30.People come to improve their lives. For this woman, selling the Big
:33:31. > :33:35.Issue is a better life than she had in Romania. She has just got married
:33:36. > :33:41.and Big Issue readers rallied around to give her a wedding dress. Tell me
:33:42. > :33:47.about your wedding dress. I can't believe now. I had nothing. Nothing.
:33:48. > :33:59.No dress. No ring. No nothing. No flowers. Nothing. Nothing. And stuff
:34:00. > :34:08.in the office Big Issue. Put on Twitter and on Facebook. So what
:34:09. > :34:17.happened? I got a beautiful dress for free. This dress is free for me.
:34:18. > :34:24.It's new. Wow. You looked very beautiful. Both of you are really,
:34:25. > :34:31.really beautiful. A big day. Absolutely, a big day. They migrated
:34:32. > :34:38.for economic reasons. They wanted a better life for their six-year-old
:34:39. > :34:43.son. Lavina is learning English and dreams of a cleaning job. Wales
:34:44. > :34:49.offers better family prospects. Why is Wales good for your family? Why
:34:50. > :34:54.is Wales good for family? Because the Welsh help many families. I have
:34:55. > :35:03.one house. I have clothes. I have food. I have a school for my son
:35:04. > :35:14.which is free. I have a job, the Big Issue is OK. What's the secret of a
:35:15. > :35:21.good marriage? Big love. This is the secret, big love. Big hearts. Big
:35:22. > :35:35.love inside here. Big love. Yes. How big now? My heart is something like
:35:36. > :35:40.this and my love is like this. Big love makes better families. Can
:35:41. > :35:45.can doubt it -- who can doubt it? We have a greater variety of family
:35:46. > :35:52.structures now than we did decades ago, but for most of us, families
:35:53. > :35:56.remain the same. Contrary to what you think might, divorce is actually
:35:57. > :36:00.falling because we live longer together before getting married,
:36:01. > :36:06.those who do get married seem to be happier in those marriages. Divorce
:36:07. > :36:10.did rise steeply in the 70s, but maybe that was unhappy people
:36:11. > :36:15.freeing themselves from bad marriages when the law made divorce
:36:16. > :36:21.easier. But now, divorce is falling. All the same, even with that fall,
:36:22. > :36:27.two in every five marriages break-up and who can doubt that divorce means
:36:28. > :36:32.pain for adults and for children. Let me tell you, weekend dads are a
:36:33. > :36:36.bad thing. Divorced dads who keep in touch by their kids by taking them
:36:37. > :36:39.out on a Saturday, forget it, it's a bad thing. Kids that don't sit
:36:40. > :36:46.together with their parents around a table, it's a bad thing. Don't give
:36:47. > :36:50.me all this newfangled nonsense. What we know by talking to children
:36:51. > :36:54.about how happy they feel and how satisfied with their lives, it is
:36:55. > :36:56.the quality of relationships they have with the people around them
:36:57. > :37:01.rather than the structure of their family. Statistically, it doesn't
:37:02. > :37:07.matter whether they are living with one parent, with both parents, and
:37:08. > :37:10.whether their parents are of the same-sex or of different sex. What
:37:11. > :37:13.matters is the quality of relationships and the love and care
:37:14. > :37:18.that those old-fashioned concepts of love and care are still enormously
:37:19. > :37:21.important. Is that you saying that or is there proper evidence? We know
:37:22. > :37:26.from surveys carried out with children about how happy they are,
:37:27. > :37:31.what we call their well-being, that it is quality of relationships
:37:32. > :37:34.that's most important. Children are generally quite conventional
:37:35. > :37:39.creatures and they quite like living with two parents at home and of
:37:40. > :37:44.course, children are often very unhappy when their parents split up,
:37:45. > :37:52.but managed well children can still be happy and have successful lives
:37:53. > :38:04.living in an unconventional family set-up.
:38:05. > :38:08.There is a view that the family is falling apart, that everything is
:38:09. > :38:13.disintegrating, broken families, single-parents, that it is all going
:38:14. > :38:17.to the dogs. But the figures don't bear that out. Things have changed.
:38:18. > :38:22.There is more variety in the type of family these days, but we shouldn't
:38:23. > :38:27.make too much of that. The way of the Welsh remains that the bulk of
:38:28. > :38:34.us remain in families which are a man and a woman and usually children
:38:35. > :38:38.and usually married and usually pretty happy with it. We are a
:38:39. > :38:47.nation of happy families.