Lessons 4 & 5

These past two weeks we discussed:

• Gender in Family Life
• Preparing for Marriage

During the first week we talked about the importance that gender plays in families. Gender is important because family roles are important. The father, the main male in the household, is supposed to be the provider and the wife, the woman, is supposed to be the nurturer. Now this isn't always the case in most families we see now-a-days, but this is the considered the norm.

We also discussed how moving ones family around too much can alter the family unit. This one hit home for me because I moved around a lot when I was younger and I feel that it strongly impacted my family dynamic. The roles in my family began to change.

Lesson 5 was weird for me because it was about marriage preparation. Now I'm only 19 so I won't be getting married for a while, I hope, but I loved learning about this topic. We talked about what normally destroys relationships early on. Studies say that cohabitation early on in a relationship will cause a  break-up a lot of the time. We talked about also that one needs to be open to dating lots of different types of people. We should do this because how will we ever know what we truly want and like in a future spouse if we limit ourselves to just dating one person. It's like only ever tasting vanilla ice cream and never even knowing what chocolate tastes like.

These past two weeks were filled with amazing lessons. Thank you to my wonderful teacher!

xoxo-Hayley

The First Three Weeks...

I'm in college now guys! Officially a freshman. I am majoring in Family and Consumer Education and can't wait to teach students in either high school or middle school basic life skills. Too many people now-a-days have no idea how to even sew or cook for themselves. You think I'm kidding? I'm not. With practice makes perfect. Anyone can learn how to do anything they put their minds to.

Any who, I am taking a Family Relations class as part of my major. It's a class that discusses the importance of family and the differences of it in different cultures. For this class I was asked to make a blog. Conveniently I already had one. So, from time to time I will be posting what I learn in this class.

In the first three weeks we discussed:

1. Societal Trends & the Family
2. Understanding Family Dynamics 
3. Social Class & Cultural Diversity

In the first week we discussed societal trends and the family. The average idea of a family is a mother, father and children. The first lesson was how the family unit is changing. I'm sure most of you have seen the popular TV show Modern Family. This is basically what we talked about the first week, the 'modern family' I learned that the birth rate has dropped significantly over the years and that studies show that cohabitation before marriage actually has a reverse effect on the relationship and actually has a higher effect of a break up/divorce.
The second week was understanding family dynamics. Families are always really dynamic. There may be members who act alike but each member has a different role. This week was about how sometimes the role in families changes. Sometimes a parent is out of the equation and a child might have to take on the role of that missing parent. This tends to be happening more and more.
Lesson three was the most interesting to me personally. I love how diverse our world is, especially our country, America. Getting to see and experience different cultures just outside our door is fantastic. America is just a big melting pot of growth and human diversity.  I think the more diversity the better. Social class is another topic. I feel that different classes will always be with us, along with the distinct line dividing them. It's sad to think that we have such ego's.

I have learned much in this class that will become useful to me in the future I am sure.

Thank for reading!

xoxo-Hayley