Marriage

Marriage! What a fantastic thing in life! What a blessing it is :) Would it be surprising that an average American wedding costs $27,000. WOW! I could not believe this! Yes, I knew weddings are expensive but I did not believe that there are so many people out there that are willing to spend that much money on something that lasts no more then a half a day. There are many girls out there that have been dreaming about their wedding day ever since they were little. There is so much to the wedding... What kind of flowers are we going to have... are we going to have tall vases or short vases that will hold theses flowers. What colors will I be doing... and who will take my pictures. There is so much thought you have to put towards a wedding!
What if we spent our whole lives dreaming of how we are going to plan for our marriage? Our marriages would probably be so much more successful if we would try to plan for our marriage.
We begin to date then courtship then engagement and then marriage. These are the most important times in your life. Dating is where you date around. You try to figure out which type of person you get along with more... who you are more compatible with. Once you find that special someone you usually go to courtship. This is where you think that relationship could turn into a marriage. You see marriage material there! You then go to engagement where you commit to that certain individual that you are willing to marry this person and be faithful to him. Then comes the marriage. This is where you keep learning more and more about each other even though you may have dated awhile and know a lot about that person. But I believe that you are always learning something new about your spouse when you are married.  If we focus more on who we are dating and what type of a marriage we want our whole lives the better the marriage might be. Marriage is such a great thing and has been such a blessing in my own life. I love my husband and I love the way we keep learning so much more together. I love love love him!

Chocolate

This week has been pretty fun in family relations. We have had to put together a project where we discussed our family through something tangible! And of course since my family owns a chocolate store I decided chocolate would probably be the best thing to relate my family too! Here is how I labeled them and why I related them as that.
My Father-I decided that he would be the box that the chocolates were placed in because he is the structure and protector and provider in the family. Just as the box is the structure and protector and provider for the chocolates.
My Mother- I decided to have her as the cups that are in the box that hold each and every one of the chocolates because my mom is a comforter and is always there  she likes to be close to each one of her children and likes to understand what is going on in our lives. So just like the cup that holds the chocolates comforting the chocolates from receiving any bumps and bruises on their way to their destination. They cups are always there surrounding the chocolate. If they weren't there the chocolates would be every where within the box.
My Older Brother Jordon- I had him bet he cinnamon bear because this is seriously how he is! He is such a teddy bear and really does not like to harm other people. He is sweet but can get sometimes hot when someone hurts his siblings. He will be there to protect us just like a mamma bear would protect her little cub.
Then there was me- I had me as the caramel chocolate because  at times I can set in my ways. Just like a caramel can get stuck in your teeth. But I am also a comforter and like to help people.
My Little Brother Jason- Is the cherry nut because he is always a nut and is always so funny. He brings humor to the family.
And My Little Sister mckenna- is the colorful truffle because she likes to do new things. She is never scared to try new things. She has a colorful personality and brings uniqueness to the family.
Then there is my sweet adorable Husband! He is the chocolate jordan almond. He is there to help support me in everything I do. He is there to love and help. 

Gender Roles and Same Sex Attraction

This week in Family relations we mainly talked about gender roles. This was interesting to me because I thought everyone did the same roles! Males did the hard and masculine things and the woman stayed in the home and work on the house. But when we started to discuss what each others  families roles were it was interesting. One of the girls stated that her family all the girls do the manly things and the guys take some of the girls responsibilities. Such as, she would go and check the oil in the car and sometimes she would fix a bunch of stuff around the house. Another girl stated that in her family it was strictly the males job to mow the lawn she had never mowed the lawn before. She has never had the opportunity to change the oil in the car or check it because that was always the males job. When I started to ponder on my family and the gender roles I decided it really is a half and half thing. We would split up the mowing the yard between everyone in the house and we would split up all the choirs. It was just interesting how many people thing about gender roles and how you want your future home to work between gender roles. We also discussed the same sex attraction within our class. Because of my religion I have always been against same sex marriages. I have never supported them and never will. But one day my world flipped up side down. I never really had to worry about same sex attraction within my family so I never really took the time to REALLY understand it. Until a few days ago where I got a phone call from family telling me they were homosexual. This literally flipped my world around. I did not want to believe it. But at the same time I realized that I still needed to show him my love toward him. But my heart literally broke into pieces. Never in my life did I ever think we would have to go through this trial. Me and my husband were discussing this situation as I sat there bawling my eyes and could not calm down. We discussed how this was going to affect our marriage and how we were going to have to raise our children now. We will have to explain to them in a new light about same sex attraction and how we do not support it because it is against our Father in Heavens plan. We are to marry man and woman. But it is going to be extra hard when a close family member has come out and shared it. They will maybe think it is okay. Right now I am confused...heart broken... in denial... but know that he needs to still be loved and know that we are still there for him. What a life changer in everything I do now.  

Social Class

WOW! what an eye opener in this class... Social Class!

What is social class? Why is there a division in the way people live? What created that division?

 Conflict theory- is people who believe upper class has all the resources.

• For some reason all our goals are to become upper class. To get that name. 

 How does social class affect our insights on families?
- I believe it affects our insights on families because we need to provide the needs for the family.  Such as wealth. Money helps us provide for our families. If your wealthy many believe you are high class because you can provide for the family and still be well off. But in lower class it is harder to provide for the family because it is harder to provide.
It also effects our insights on family because everyone puts you on the high class or low class scale. And some families may think that its not possible to change that. I have also seen it affect who you associate with. There will always be a struggling conflict of family and social class. Even though many may not want to fess up to it.


Then we discussed what the importance of families were. Here is the list we created.

• Heavenly Fathers Plan...... (Which is to be more like Him)
• Bring his Children back to Him
• Provides structure for child and the adults
• Socialization
• Establish expectations and hopes
• Offer love and support
• Provide finances 

These are just a few we created, due to the short time we have together. But I believe these are the most important reasons we have families. Because of my religious views I would place Heavenly Fathers Plan always as my number 1 to why we have families. We believe that is why we are here on this earth. We are here to progress and to gain knowledge... to be more like our Father in Heaven who is perfect. But we know that we cannot be perfect in this life because of are still learning and we are still tempted by the Natural man. I know that I am thankful for my family and having them here with me. Because they show so much love and support. I do not know how the world has become so corrupt to believe it is not important to have that in your life. 

Boundries

This week in class we talked about boundaries within the family. This was interesting to me because my family is so important to me I wanted to learn more about their boundaries and what effects it had within our family. These boundaries we discussed are rigid, open or diffuse, and clear.

Rigid Boundary-

 This boundary is found in families where the members are isolated from one another and communication has broken down.In this family there is little respect for the other individual.

Open/ diffuse Boundary:

This boundary is found in families that are overly involved with each other. They pretty much tell everyone about their lives. We talked about how this boundary is like a friend who enters into your home who goes straight to the kitchen and start looking for food, when you don't even know they are there.

Clear boundary:

Clear boundaries show the authority of the parents while allowing the children to develop as appropriate for their age. We discussed how this boundary is having a Pickett fence in your yard. It shows that you are still interested in your neighbors lives...but it still means go around to the front door and knock.

It was fun to put each of my family members into one of these categories. Each has its own uniqueness and I believe that that is how each family is. Each family member adds something to the table. I think with out it, it would be a very boring life!

week 2 :)

This week in family relations we have been discussing family life! One thing that has really stood out to me and has made an impact of my view of families is the trends of marriage. I was shocked at how many new trends there is within marriage! Many people believe that when you start having children you start having marital dissatisfaction. Mainly because you have more people to start looking after and you have to provide for them financially. Which can by very hard at times. Many times husbands and wives start getting out of touch because the mom has to prepare the children and take them places the children is her main focus not so much on the father... this can also be the other way around to with the fathers work. Aldo it was interesting that cohabitation has had an 80 percent increase. This is saying to me that more and more people are believing that families are not important and having a family is going to hurt you from you long life goals. I was also amazed by the amount of house hold sizes that are getting smaller. Families are just beginning to diminish which is very scary. We need family. We need their support. That is how we survive life.

Week One of Family 160!

       This week in class has been pretty enjoyable! I have already learned so much from this class and it has only been day 2 of the class. I have recently understood how complicated and how hard it is to conduct research. There was so much more to it then I had ever thought. Such as how are we supposed to measure what is reliable and what is not. I Learned that you have to be very specific because many questions come across differently to different people. You also have to have a big sample group! It is impossible to fully understand what the world is saying when you only interview a few couples about an issue. Also, it is very hard to get people who are honest. It is hard to get people who are not afraid to tell you that their parenting is not very good. Many people have biases which could be very hard to conduct good research! What I have learned is that you have to be very skeptical when you conduct research!

        I also have learned the importance of research strategy. I am excited to learn more about family relations and the importance of it! Not only is it going to effect my family now but it will effect my future family and possibly many generations after that! Can't wait to see where this class takes me!