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.