Home Improvement

One thing that really surprised me in this weeks lesson was the development of the family and work. In the beginning, families worked together for their resources. The fathers would work in the field, the mothers and children would do the house work and other chores. Then after the industrial revolution, the men left the home to work, then the children followed, leaving the mothers at home alone. The children were then sent to school for 6 hours, keeping them away from time they would spent with their families. The women then had the need for work. Each one of these events changed the way the amount of time we spend with our families. I truly believe that the family is the most important thing we must take care of. if we are not spending time with the people that matter most, we are wasting opportunities to learn and grow. We become the person we are today because of the experiences we had with our families. Instead of being workaholics, or being too involved in our hobbies, we should make time to spend with our families. Not just by having fun but by working together as a family.

Huh?

Has it ever happen when you ask your sibling to help you do something and they say yes but in an annoyed tone of voice?  I've had experiences when I ask someone how they are doing and they say "fine", but I know they really are not fine because of the way they look. I also had experiences where someone would send me a text and I read it a certain way and they meant it in a completely different way. I'm pretty sure we all had those experiences. Communication is very important. Especially when it comes to understanding one another. The three different methods of communication are

• Words         14%
• Tone            35%
• Nonverbal    51%

                            =100%

As you can see, nonverbal makes up half the communication we do. I think a big problem we have in society is texting. When we text, we are only receiving 14%. That is why we tend to interpret things the wrong way. It is important to get to know each one of our family members so that we come to understand how they see and interpret things. We can then communicate with them in a way that we will be understood and we can understand them. This will help avoid problems that can occur when we do not understand each other. And if we do not have any problems, then we can have a happier family!

First comes love, then comes Marriage...

Now that you found the one you want to be with for the rest of your life, you are getting to get married. Marriage should be one of the most exciting things in your life. I know it is for me. I am currently engaged and I am so excited to get married. I know its been a long time coming for my mom haha. I am 23 years old, so for my mom, I need some catching up to do! She got engaged at 19, got married at 20 and had me at 21. I absolutely love that my mom is young enough to understand me and get along. Now that I am starting a new chapter in my life, I know that there will be some major changes. Some of these marital changes are:

• Lifestyle/accommodating schedules
• Distribution of responsibilities/establishing expectations
• Joint ownership
• Mutual decision making/becoming a team
• Budgeting/self supporting
• Establishing family boundaries
• Physical intimacy

 I think that each one of these are important to establish a good marriage. In marriage, there are times that hard times will come and you need to be prepared. These things will help us become selfless and make more sacrifices for one another. We will develop love, respect, trust, commitment and other attributes that will influence a successful marriage.

Date ‘em Til You Hate ‘em

Dating Part 2

Soo, you probably have gone on a few dates and you found the perfect one, the one you want to marry. Well like my teacher said, “Date ‘em till you hate ‘em”. But there are a few precautions that come with dating someone.

In a book called “How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk (Jerkette)”, by Dr. John Van Epp, he developed a program to follow in the premarital relationship and decision-making process. It is called the Relationship Attachment Model or RAM. There are five bonding dynamics

He said that in each relationship there are different levels of in each category so might be higher than others. He says the healthiest relationship will have the touch at a lower level and each category increasing. That means that the Know category should be at the highest level possible. The Know-Quo is the formula on getting to know someone.

1)     Talk: It means mutual self-disclosure which means sharing feelings, hopes, worries and so on.

2)     Togetherness: Engage in a variety of activities. Don’t just stay home or go to the movies all the time. Be creative, go out and do something new. This will provide with an opportunity to get to know what type of person you are dating.

3)     Time: You don’t begin to know someone until the first 3 months. Time is necessary to get to know someone and to get to see their true colors.

One of the most common “acceptable” thing in society is to reverse the proper order. Some might have higher levels of touch before getting to know someone. The problem with this is that the relationships based on only physical intimacy do not last. Some advice given was:

Don’t rely on someone before getting to know them. Why would I rely on someone who perhaps isn’t very trust worthy? That is why it is important to know someone first.  

Never commit to anyone more than you can rely on them. Can you see the pattern? These steps build on one another. We must come to know someone, then based on that, we can learnt to trust, then rely on them.

Never touch more than you are committed. Is this the person you really want to be with? Do you see yourself being with this person than just now, than today? Would you give the most important thing about yourself to someone you do not consider being with?

In order to have successful marriages, and families, we need to build healthy relationships based on all these things and love. By doing so, we can prevent things like divorce, teen pregnancy and other things. Hopefully we can teach the younger generations the importance of families and their future happiness.

The D word... dun dun dun!

DATING (part 1)

Yay! We finally got to the dating and mate selection part of the class. haha. It's a lot of fun to listen to all the comments and experiences given in class. Dating is just a fascinating topic.

So apparently dating is nonexistent and very scary from what I have heard. I didn't date much so I wouldn't know haha. Some facts that my professor shared with us are:

•  "Dances are a good place to learn dating skills" He says that each person we dance with is like a mini date. 
• "People that know you really well, like family and close friends, are the best indicators to know what kind of person would go well with you" Its true. My professor said that when you are "in love" sometimes you are blind to what is really going on. Perhaps the person you are dating is not a good choice for you, even if you can't see it, your family or friends will. So listen to what they have to say. 
• "Transparency is the best quality in dating and marriage" You don't have to worry about secrets or not knowing how they "really are" if they are open, honest, and sincere from the beginning.
• "Dating is practice for marriage" So true. Dating is about learning about ourselves. How do we treat others? Do we have patience? What are our likes and dislike? When we date, we discover new things about ourselves and it makes it easier to know what is it that we want in our future spouse. Dating is also about socializing, adapting, and adjusting. The things that we can improve on or things we need to change. It's a learning experience.

Soooo, what is dating? How do we know we aren't just hanging out?
Dating is the three Ps
 1) Paired off, 2) Planned, 3) Paid for
When we are paired off rather than in a group of friends, it makes it easier to get to know one another. When it is planned, it shows that the guy took the time to think about the date and that he takes initiative.
When it's paid for... well I guess it means that he is able to provide, perhaps also responsible and has a job.
So ladies, make sure the guy you date follows the three Ps haha :)

Nature vs. Nurture

Ahhhh, the question everyone asks. Why are we the way we are?? 

Sooo what does come first? Our tendencies or our roles? 

So as you can see, we talked about gender roles and tendencies of men and women. We know that society and media may influence in clothing, toys, the way we speaks and the tasks we are assigned. 

Some of the tendencies we came up with were:

Females tend to be more:

• compassionate
• sensitive
• communicative
• relationship oriented 
• expressive
• and have connected brain (make connections easier)

Males tend to be more:

• tough
• aggressive
• task oriented
• think spatially
• have a segmented brain (hard to make connections) 

I think the part that gets controversial is when feminist start arguing that they are not equal to men and that women can be like men. But what I really came to love and understand is that it's good to be different. We need to be different. Or else it would be really boring. We need to be different in order to complete different tasks. Perhaps that is why women tend to have those qualities because we are the one to have and raise children. I don't mean to say men can't have these qualities as well. I think that is why we must learn from one another :)

One of the things my professor said regarding to marriage, "We do not come together as halves to become a whole, but we come together so we both may become whole, we then become one" and my favorite thing he said was, "Marriage isn't normal, it's divine". What I got from that was that human beings, the natural man, is selfish and marriage is about become unselfish and learning from one another. I love this class! I learn so much! I hope you are too :)

Who are we?

Family diversity. There are so many different types of families now a days. In class this week, we are talking about social class, culture, and diversity. I think it's important to know that all families are different because we all come from different places. Our social class and culture really does influence in how we interact within the family. I am Mexican and I love it!! It influence what kind of music I listen to, what I eat, and the language I speak.We have the chance to decide what we want to include or change in our families, either good or bad. I will then have the opportunity to decide what my future husband and I want to incorporate in our family and decide where we want to live and the things we can provide for our children. I'm an very excited for when that day comes!!!

On another note, another thing I learned was about respect and tolerance. It really comes down to our perspective. We must come to respect all people but also not to tolerate the things we know to be wrong. I thought that was an important thing to put out there :)

Family as a System

I talked a little bit about roles last time but this time, in class, we talked about families as systems. What I mean by system is that we come together as individuals but we all have an effect on one another. Within a family system we have subsystems. We then create boundaries within these systems. One can be clear or permeable which means there are rules and limits on how involved you are in our system. The other is diffuse or open. If its open then anyone can come in and out of our personal relationships. And the last one is rigid, which means that no one can be allowed into your relationship. 

What really stood out to me was how sometimes we don't take the time to see what kind of relationships we have and if they are healthy relationships. A healthy family relationship would be one that the husband and wife have an open relationship within themselves, but have a clear boundary to everyone else. I think we need to be careful who we let have total access into our lives. 

I'll be getting married soon and one thing my professor made me think of, was that I'll be breaking of from my own family system and starting a new one. He mentioned how we, my husband and I, must talk about what boundaries we want to set because it will either affect us in a positive or negative way. 

I'm just really grateful to be learning all of this now and hopefully be able to get people to think about their families and the things we can all improve on :)

I Ain't No Mind Reader!

This week in class we were looking at the different perspectives to look at families. What really stood out to me the entire time was how much we influence one another, either for good or bad. I think that sometimes we think that our actions don't affect anyone but us. But that is not true. It is really important to really take the time to listen and understand one another. 

One of the perspectives was the Symbolic Interaction Theory. It means that our actions convey a meaning to others, but it's what the other person perceives or interprets by it. I can try to do something nice for my roommate like wash her dishes but to her it might mean that I think she's a slob and I cant stand to look at her dishes. (Oh and this not only applies to our families but with anyone we have a relationship with).  

We also talked a lot about roles. The roles we have within these relationships.  We assume different roles when we are at home, school, work, church and so on. There is always a good kid, a bad kid, the peacekeeper, the smart one, the lazy one. Our professor gave an example that really stood out to me. He said that his two sons would always fight and one was always the bully and the other the victim. He said that one day, he overheard them talking. He heard, "Give it to me!" the victim son said. My professor immediately thought that his older brother was bullying him. But then he stopped and kept listening. "No, it's mine!" the "bully" son said. The younger one then told him that if he didn't give it to him, he was going to tell his dad and that he will believe him. The older "bully" son then said, "I know, he always does". My professor then felt horrible that he had always labeled his sons in those roles as bully and victim. It really struck me because it is very easy to assign these roles to one another but we don't stop and think how this might be affecting them. 

By taking the time to learn these things, we can better understand the people around us and the reasons they do the things they do. We may not be able to read everyone's minds but we can always talk to one another and pay attention to their needs. Let's not be quick to judge but take the time to love one another :)

Interesting Stuff

So, as you can probably tell, families in the United States have changed drastically since back in the day. In class, we learned of the different trends on family. I thought I would share these facts with you. People are

• Marrying later
• People are now marrying in their late 20s and 30s. The average age is 26 for women and 28 for men. It will probably cause delay in having children, which then they might not have as many.
• Cohabitation has gone up
• People are now living together before marriage. 
• Living alone has gone up 
• either divorced, single and unmarried. 
• Employed mothers has gone up
• Because of the economy, many mothers now have to go to work.
• Births to unmarried women has gone up
• 39.5% of kids in the U.S. 
• Pre-marital sex has gone up 
• People are now starting at a young age, teens, to have sex before marriage.
• Household size has gone down 
• Because people are marrying at an older age, and not having as many kids, or any at all, the household size is a lot small. 
• Less births
• People are delaying marriage, and women are older, so they tend not to have as many children.
• Even though the actions do not reflect this, people still believe that "Family life is important". 

If families are important to people then why is it being delayed? I know that when I saw these trends, I noticed that if one of those is being done, it usually leads to another. I also noticed that these trends are not positive and can lead to difficult or unsatisfactory family life. I thought I would share these facts with everyone so that we can all be more informed :) Now we can all start thinking on how we can fix these trends so that we can have more successful families. 

Welcome!

Hello there! Welcome to my blog! 

This blog is designed so that I may post about my thoughts and feeling of the family unit! For those who don't know, I am taking a Family Relations course this semester and I am very excited to learn more about the family! I am currently engaged to a wonderful man and I am looking forward to starting a family of my own very soon!  I truly believe that the family is the most important thing in our lives and essential part of Heavenly Fathers plan. I want to use this blog to share my experiences and how I can apply these teachings in my life. I hope to one day help other families strengthen their relationships with one another.