Gender

This week in Family Relations there was special emphasis placed on gender, their influences or roles and their behavioral tendencies. In examining females, we identified their tendencies as emotionally aware, expressive, and relationship oriented. These things all contribute to the feminine roles of nurturing, serving, and emotionally connecting. The male tendencies of aggression, spacial cognition, and task orientation likewise assist them in the masculine roles of providing, presiding, and protecting. It was very interesting to learn about gender and the psychological differences that make sense of gender roles. It brought even greater understanding and importance to the idea behind marriage between a man and woman. God has ordained marriage of this kind for a reason; the perfect balance and completion that come from the union of a male and female can be achieved in no other setting.

Culture Validity and Families

This week I learned about cultures and whether or not some are more valid than others. We described valid as sound, well-founded, and produces desired results. In class we discussed variables that could possibly make a culture more "valid" than others. A few things we came up with were the quantity and quality of collected data in a culture, the bringing of children to God, and gospel truths in a particular culture. We came to the conclusion that God loves all of His children and since no culture is totally valid and because ours has its flaws as well, it is hard for us to determine the validity of some cultures over others. It is especially hard to do this when we are taught in the gospel that all are equal, to love everyone, and refrain from judgment. I thought a great point that was made was those cultures that are drawing nearer to Christ and striving to follow his example could be considered more valid because they will be believing and living more correctly. We then explored the idea of culture outside of ethnicity or divided regions of the world. We talked about the importance of family cultures and creating one little by little right now. This weekend I had the opportunity to attend the baptism of my very best friend. My family came in support of both of us and we were all able to spend some quality time together enjoying each others company. It is in instances like these that I am able to see family culture qualities that I want to incorporate into my own future family. Things like spirituality, love, laughter, support, selflessness, and tenderness. I am so thankful for the wonderful family I have, the love they show me, and the example they are to me.

Family Systems Theory and Peace-Makers

Hope everyone had a great week! This week was especially interesting and enlightening to me because I learned more about my own family and particularly, my role in it. In class we were taught about different theories as they relate to families. Family systems theory is where a family is a whole of individual, contributing parts. Exchange theory is the weighing of costs and benefits; symbolic interaction states that everything is symbolic and we are always creating meaning; and conflict theory where everything is based off of the inequalities that exist among certain persons or groups. I believe that most families probably consist of a combination of each of these but I see family systems theory as dominant in my home. I can see how each member truly has their own role and provides in a special and necessary way to make our family complete. Another concept we learned was that of homeostatic mechanisms which are ways of trying to regulate feelings, emotions, and attitudes. Someone who continuously uses homeostatic mechanisms in a family is often called a "peace-maker." As I considered what a peace-maker does and why, I was able to understand more about myself.

Family Trends

Hello everyone! This week I'm finally starting to feel a little more settled in as far as classes and even this blog go! After a bit of difficulty, I'm happy to say things are beginning to fall into place. This week in Family Relations we studied more in depth the marriage, home, and family trends that have been developing in society today. We discussed things such as birthrates decreasing, marriage being delayed (until the now average age of 26.28 for men and 24.26 for women), unmarried births increasing (39.5 percent of all births), cohabitation increasing, as well as employed mothers, the number of people living alone, divorce, and premarital sex all increasing, and finally, house sizes decreasing. We had the opportunity to discuss amongst classmates whether we thought these trends and statistics were significant, interesting, or no big deal. It was intriguing to see how everyone's opinions differed depending on their knowledge of the issue, their experiences with it, and/or their own family situation. This showed me that indeed, home and family life are significant indicators of a person's stance on such issues and overall views on the world later in life. I was taught from this discovery the importance of strong family units to righteously bring up future generations and reverse these trends that are causing destruction to families and society as a whole.