A lot of good and interesting information in class this past week. We talked about newly-weds and the transitions they go through the first month of marriage, first year, and when children start coming into the family.

Of course when you get married there is going to be a lot of changes taking place. Which include not just marrying the person and for the wife to change her last name. Other examples would be making decisions together as now a unified partnership, finances stuff, medical stuff, extended family stuff, lots of stuff. And the list goes on. It is a lot of change, but change is good, change helps people to grow.

The biggest change is would most likely have to be when the first child comes along though. Reports have shown that when children are born marriage satisfaction between the husband and wife decreases. At first I didn’t understand how that could be. I always thought that a baby was a big bundle of joy, which it is, along with all the crying and diaper changing. But after our discussion and thinking about it I realized that it is possible for marriage satisfaction to decrease with the birth of a child. First of all, it is no longer just the two of you. You have just added a whole new individual to your family of two, which means very little alone time for the two of you for a while. When that baby comes along the mother often times spends all, or at least, most of her time with the baby, which can cause the husband and father to feel disconnected from the family and like he isn't needed. Also the fact that the baby tends to keep parents up at night making the parents more tired; everyone knows when you are tired you aren't very tolerable of things, which can lead to frequent arguments, etc. which often cause tension in your relationship with one another. The main thing I would say that can be the biggest problem is just the fact of not being able to spend as much time together, or even just feeling like you can't. But just because research says marital satisfaction decreases when children are born doesn't mean it has to be true for everyone. We all have the power and ability to choose how we will react to certain situations. It may be a bit more work when children come along to keep your marriage strong and increasing, but it is possible. Involve each other in all the aspects of raising your child, communicate with each other, and love each other unconditionally and your marital satisfaction will thrive with the additions to your families. 

Marriage is a huge step in everyone life. It is beautiful. There are many, many challenges along the way. But through those challenges if you work together your love for each other will grow and you will have a happy and successful marriage. Along with the challenges there are of course those wonderful moments of joy that we are blessed with. Children of our every own, our best friend always there, what more could someone ask for?

This week’s discussion in class was a bit more appealing I would say to our age group. We talked about dating, relationships, and falling in love. Fascinating, eh?

We first discussed “hanging out” compared to actual dating. Hanging out is literally just hanging out, you’re not there with someone in specific, you’re not committed to anyone, you are just there to have a good time and, well “hang out” with friends. This is not how you get to know people and begin to build a relationship that ultimately leads to marriage. Dating however is how you will begin to build that relationship.

Three things that we discussed that make it a date are, Planned, Paid for, and Paired off. First ‘Planned’. That means the date is planned out, both the guy and the girl are both prepared for the date. Second ‘Paid for’. That doesn’t mean that money is always has to be involved, it means that all resources are put in place. And finally, ‘Paired off’. Pretty self-explanatory there, but that means you are together with someone, for the duration of the date you are committed to each other. Something that we discussed going along with those three things are the roles of the man and the women in The Family a Proclamation to the World. It states that the man is to “Protect, Provide, and Preside.” So how are those related? We did it this way; ‘Planned’ and ‘Preside’ are correlated, ‘Paid for’ and ‘Provide’, and ‘Paired off and ‘Protect’. Then the role of the women is to “Nurture”, in which she does by complimenting, bringing out the best in the person, encouraging, etc. Pretty cool how everything is coordinated.

I am going to be pretty frank in this post. The topic is gender. It may just be me, but gender is something that seems to me to be simply black and white, you are either male or you are female. That is the way God made you in the beginning. In The Family: A Proclamation to the World it states, “Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.” I strongly believe that, and I also believe God doesn’t make mistakes.

So many studies have been done, and are being done, on gender. Traits that are more common in men or traits that are more common in women, the way each react to different situations, and more. Which is true, there are going to be some trait differences because we have different genetic make ups, we use different parts of our brains with some things, we have different instincts, etc. Differences that aren’t bad, they are good. The differences don’t mean one gender is above the other either. We are all equal in God’s eyes, male and female, just with different rolls.

I very much dislike the comment “I was born the wrong gender”. That is impossible. We were a gender before we were even conceived. We are the gender we are and that isn’t supposed to be changed. Each and every person who lives on this earth “has a divine nature and destiny”. God has a plan for each of us, and our gender is an essential beginning of that plan.

Culture: "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society."

Our culture makes up a huge part of who each of us are individually and collectively. Our families certainly have their own cultures as well. Think about the ways your family celebrates holidays, such as Christmas and birthdays. Maybe you don’t refer to what you do as culture, it can also be known has tradition, maybe a little more common term for the family. For example some of my family’s traditions for birthdays was we don’t have to do any chores that day, on Christmas eve we get to open our present from the sibling who picked our name that year, we listen to a conference talk every morning while we eat breakfast, and my dad takes us on a birthday date every year.. Sometimes you don’t really realize that certain things your family does is because of culture. It is kind of fun to think about. It can also be fun to look back at your family line to see what culture your family originated from and what traits your family has held onto over the years, or even generations.

It is cool to look at different cultures and see the differences of each, and how the individuals are affected because of their culture they live. Asian culture is quite focused on education, Hispanics are huge on family - just to give a couple examples. One of the great things about living in America is everyone who currently lives here, or who ever have, all immigrated here at one point or another in their family line. There is such a huge diversity of culture in America, so we get to see all different kinds. We are surrounded by all these different cultures, but then there is the one we live in, our family culture.

Our family culture is the one that affects us the most. It really shapes who we are and how we will run our families. Culture does have a large effect on us. As we grow up in our family culture then move out on our own and start our own families we get to choose what we want to apply to our own family and what we want to get rid of. This process is not as simple though as it sounds since we will be blending our family culture with our spouse’s to make a “new” family culture. The exciting thing is that this process goes on and on throughout the generations.

Have you ever wondered why your family acts the way it does? Or how different family members react to different situations? I had never really thought about it before, but then in class we talked about the family system, and how each member plays a role and affects the other members in one way or another.

For one of our assignments in class we wrote up a list of rules that our families had. It was interesting thinking back about the rules that we had in my home when I was growing up. Looking at where I am now, and where my siblings are, I realize how much family rules can have an impact on how the children turn out when they leave home. A huge rule that was emphasized in my home was respect and obedience, especially to my parents. I could always tell a difference just in the feeling of the home when that rule was being followed and the system of the home was running very smoothly, as compared to when there was arguing and all that other fun stuff that is in every home every once in a while. Talk about one thing affecting another. It was almost like a domino effect, one kid would back talk mom or dad, parents would get upset, child would get defensive, bad moods spread throughout all the members of the family. Kind of humorous it works that way wouldn’t you say. But the best part about it is that the family is still the base and the most important system and unit of society. Only in the home can you go one minute from being extremely mad at a sibling and in the next minute be out playing together. Why? Because the family is ordained of God. He wants us to be happy, and the home with our families is where we can be the happiest when we are all working in harmony with one another.