Families Matter

Growing up I recognized who to turn to for honest advice: my parents. However, each parent has a different advice style. My mom is a very feelings oriented woman, so naturally I take after her. We often joke about how this is a curse because our tendencies to cry are common, but without this trait my family just wouldn't be the same. My dad on the other hand is a very logical man. He sees things as they are and only thinks about the task at hand. As a society we joke about how this is common in males; they focus only on one thing at a time because that's all they have the capacity to do. However, in a sense it's true, and it's not a bad thing! My mom and dad have always balanced each other out. When I need compassion for my emotions or just want to talk through my feelings I naturally go to my mom. However, when I need a subjective point of view and some logical sense I can turn to my dad. This is the important role of not only a mother and father, but also a man and ...

The behaviors and beliefs of a specific group are what makes up a culture . In most places, there are various cultures within the community. Communities also have obvious social classes. What factors separate the social economic system is a matter of where you live, how big your house is, what you do for a living, how much your income is, your possessions, dialect, appearances, etc. So, question of the day: are all of these different cultures equally effective at meeting the same purpose? In order to understand the question above, I watched many episodes from  People Like Us: Social Class in America  which is a film that looks at how class really works in America and examines how it affects our understanding of race and gender as well as how differences in class can shape daily life. Let's start with the lower class: The episode that portrays the lifestyle of lower class - and perhaps the lowest class - families includes a single mother raising her two sons in a trailer h...

There are multiple theories behind the various operations of the family. The idea that the family is a system is explained in the  systems theory . Systems operate when parts of something work together in a group to accomplish something. Families are a rule-governed system which means the way each member patterns his/her behavior is determined by rules. These rules are often times unspoken. So how do you know what is expected of you when the rules aren't even said out loud? The interaction of family members follows organized, established patterns based on the family structure which enables each person to learn what is expected of him/her. These rules can be descriptive or prescriptive. In other words, family members determine what can or can not occur between members based on observation and experience. Look back at your family. What unspoken rules can you think of? As I sat in my Family Relations class I noticed how many of my classmates did not notice their behaviors or roles w...

At the start of the 1950s, the United States was undergoing a rapidly increasing birth rate that lasted for 18 years. This moment in time is known as the "Baby Boom." Annual births exceeded two percent of the world's population. A common belief among the world at this time was that continual population growth was inevitable. This belief easily escalated to frantic worry after Paul R. Ehrlich published his book, The Population Bomb where he predicted the world's environment would be destroyed because of the amount of babies we were reproducing.   This book predicted that the world would inevitably become overpopulated, and the world would soon run out of enough resources for everyone. Ehrlich predicted specific instances such as mass starvation by the 1970s, oil supply running out in the 1980s, and overwhelming amounts of pollution destroying the environment. The world went into a frenzy all because of this book which contained only opinions of a man. Image found o...

Hello friends! My name is Annika, and I am studying Family and Consumer Sciences Education at Brigham Young University-Idaho. Please join me in the hot discussion topic of families as I post about the trends and studies found and discussed in my Family Relations class. You can also check out my awesome classmates' blogs! "If you want to change the world, go home and love your family." -Mother Teresa