Jane The Virgin - Family Systems

Everyone has a family regardless of how close they are. Therefore, according to family system theory, it is best to understand an individual as a part of his or her family because they are together an emotional unit. “Jane the Virgin” is a Netflix original series that addresses multiple issues about family, love and friendships. The ridiculous story plots made it possible to include various kinds of situations that normally doesn’t all happen in one family, which makes it a great show to discuss multiple topics of a family system. Jane was a virgin, but was accidentally artificially inseminated with Rafael’s sperm. After falling in and out of love with Rafael, they end up being together, taking care of their son- Mateo. Rafael’s ex-wide Petra also artificially inseminated herself with Rafael’s sperm and had twin girls, Anna and Ellie, that are a little younger than Mateo. Jane is very close with both her mother Xiomara and her grandmother Alba, and they lived together. The show can be discussed through various family system angles, including family life cycle theory, subsystems and parenting, alliances and coalition, family affective climate, and new types of family.

The series presented the family life cycle theory in a very clever way. Typically, the cycle is looked at from a person’s formation of couple, marriage, having children, child as adolescence, launching, and aging. For the show, instead of showing the cycle only though Jane’s perspective, they added Alba and Xiomara’s experiences to better present the stages of one having children as adolescence, launching, and aging. Also the unconventional setting of Jane’s family life cycle, having children before coupling and marrying, made the process more complex and compelling. There are always stresses among these stages, and the show addresses multiple examples. The complicated love story of Jane and Rafael shows the difficulties people would face as a couple and in marriage, such as secrets, third person, different values or opinions, miscommunication, and misunderstanding. The series also shows how adding a third person into their lives can be very hard because they need to prioritize their son, lose freedom, and carry more economical stress. The struggle of launching is highlighted in the show when Jane is moving out of the house, away from Xiomara and Alba. It was very difficult for them because the three of them have never been apart, and they were not used to not having each other by their sides. Stresses in aging is also highlighted when Alba confessed that she is afraid of losing control, growing old, and dying. 

Besides family life cycle theory, subsystems that are contained in a family system are also clear and interesting in the show. The executive subsystems, normally the parents, is the main subsystem because it creates a secure base for children and provides connectedness, love, and caregiving. They are also important because they provide a stable source of authority and a basic source of values for children. Due to its importance, there are often problems that could cause dysfunctional developments. One of the problems presented about the executive subsystem is being mis-attuned to children. When Petra became a mother, she was very mis-attuned to her child. Part of the reason was because Petra was afraid that she would not be able to take care of the children, which causes her to not spend enough time with them and not understand their needs. Also, it was found that Petra had postpartum depression which made it difficult for her to show love and affection to her babies. However, after medication Petra recovered and her children formed secure attachment to her. 

Because Rafael is both the father to Jane and Petra’s children, it is easy to see the differences between the parenting styles of Jane and Petra. Because of their distinct childhood, Jane being in a family full of love and Petra having a very terrible mother and sister, they teach their children very differently. One example would be that Jane told Mateo there are tooth fairy and Santa Clause, but Petra told the twins that there are neither tooth fairy and Santa Clause. This shows how parents and childhood can influence how people behave as adults and parents. Parent child systems are also important because they guide the socialization of children. Social roles are taught to children especially though modeling, which is why Rafael choose to go to jail when he was caught doing an illegal trade because he wanted to be a good model for his children. As mentioned in an article by Education and Behavior, it is important for the role model to make good choices and have a positive attitude because children will pick up on them. Rafeal realized that his actions influence his children greatly and wanted to teach his children the importance of being honest and facing mistakes. Although Jane and Petra seems to be very different from each other, if it were to categorize the parenting styles of Jane and Petra according to Baumrid’s theory, they would both be authoritative because they control their children but also provide great warmth and explanations. Even though both Petra and Rafael had terrible childhoods, they wanted to be great parents. Mentioned in the article “If I Had Bad Parents, Will I Be a Bad Parent Too?”, the most important thing about parenting is how a person make sense out of their childhood experiences, rather than what specifically happened in their childhood. Therefore, the most crucial thing for the two of them is to understand how the past had influenced them, and they are free to create who they want to be. The realization is how they became great parents for the twins and Mateo; they understood themselves and decided to be different from their own parents. 

The sibling subsystem and extended family subsystems are also very interesting. The twins and Mateo are half siblings, but Mateo has more misbehavior than the twins, and is also having problems at school. The differences between Mateo and the twins might be due to parenting, but might also due to the gender differences and how Mateo is an only child, while the twins have birth siblings. According to Bradley Hasbro Children’s Research Center, siblings often provide training for development of social skills and future relationships. The twins have each other, which might assist them in having better peer acceptance and social competence. Besides siblings, extended subsystems are also influencial. One important plot of the show is how Alba and Xiomara had different opinions about sex, and Jane followed Alba until she grew up and formed her own opinion. This shows how an extended family member can affect a major value of the child. Because Alba and her husband were illegal immigrants from Mexico, both Xiomara and Jane grew up with the fear of Alba being sent back. This demonstrates how fear as such can be intergenerational. 

The unique relationship of alliance and coalition are also included and common in the show. Jane, Xiomara, and Alba often take turns forming alliance when they are against the third person’s decision. For example, Jane and Xiomara formed an alliance when they wanted to persuade and help Alba go on a date. Jane and Rafael also formed alliances against Petra when they want to stop her from doing things. The three of them formed a triangle when Rafael was the person that stabilized the relationship between Jane and Petra, or when Jane was the person to stabilize between Petra and Rafael. Alliances are always forming and deforming as things happen, and it is always at optimal disequilibrium because there are always dramatic things going on that causes the family system and relationships to change.

The benefits of having a positive family affective climate is also illustrated in the show. Jane, Xiomara, and Alba always shared about their ups and downs in life. They get into arguments very often, but they always communicate through it. The three of them have very strong secure attachment, which is why when they face difficulties with others, they always feel comfortable and safe to be vulnerable with each other. On the other hand, Rafael and Petra both came from families that are very negative in terms of family affective climate. Rafael’s mother left the family for money and his father was always very disciplinary about business and is bias towards Rafael’s sister. Petra’s mother is very materialist, who is filled with lies and conspiracy. Due to their past, both Rafael and Petra treasures their family with Jane very much. When Rafael went to jail, Jane and Petra were not friends. However, Jane invited Petra to have Sunday brunch every week to check on each other because they are a family. This shows that despite their contradictory characteristics, their family system is still full of warmth and caring. 

Through the complex relationship between each character, it is obvious that the aforementioned family system is a blended family, filled with grandparents, and half brothers and sisters. Besides blended family and immigration, there are also a lot of different plots in the series that are connected to the current society and family trend. Throughout the series there was a moment when Jane was still pregnant, and she was in a bad relationship with Rafael. Jane tried to do something dangerous by herself because she was trying to get used to the idea that she might have to be a single parent. After the birth of Mateo, there are also times when Jane and Rafael were not together, and the situation was similar to divorced parents, signing contracts about their rights and taking Mateo to each other’s place. The series also included adoption. Rafael found out that he was adopted, and Jane and Rafael also talked about maybe adopting a sibling for Mateo because Rafael no longer has sperms. Eventually, Petra started to date another female and seems to be on the tract of becoming lesbian parents. Elements of nontraditional family systems are addressed in the show to demonstrate how diverse family nowadays are.

“Jane the Virgin” is a unique series that portraits a complex family systems. They showed the family life cycle theory by focusing on the life of the main character Jane, but also fragments of Xiomara and Alba’s. They included different subsystems, such as executive, siblings, and extended subsystems, and the problems that might emerge in them. Because of the complex character relationships, various executive subsystems were compared to show the influence of parenting. Alliance, coalition and positive family affective climate were shown throughout the story to portrait interactions in a family. More modern elements of family systems, such as adoption, divorce, and homosexual, are all included in the show to show diversity. Family systems are very different and special for each person, and is a part of who they are. Understanding a person through their family systems allows people to learn more about their development in a holistic perspective, and allows people to put together the pieces of information about how a person became who they are.