"If we know what's going on, then we can change things."

We discussed 4 types of love.  They are:

Agape-charity

Eros-physical, lustful, sexual, romantic

Philia-friends, brotherly

Storge-Parent/child, commitment, emotion, responsibility connection

passion=emotional

compassion=feelings

compassionate=united, camaraderie, common goals

There are 7 billion people in this world, and most of us end up with one.  But how do we get there?  First, it begins with propinquity, which is basically those in your proximity, or those in your area.  Then, it can be filtered down to physical attraction, similarities, familiarness, and so on until you find someone.  

Just a few side notes on marriage.  Marriage is crafted, not found.  To me, that means marriage takes work.  It takes the two of your working together and creating something beautiful, not just finding something right away.  Also, marriage is perfecting one another.  You should be the person you're looking for, but none of us are perfect.  Though, we should look for the person who reaches as closely as possible the pinnacle of perfection in areas that matter most.  But we have to decide what areas are most important to us.  

Would your family experience have been different if you were of a different gender?  I think a lot of us would say that it was.  Where your gender influences your family experience and culture and that in turn influences gender.  But, I think it can be so much better if our parents influence us, and we can then in turn influence them.  

"We desperately need to raise our sons much more like our daughters."

But couldn't the opposite be said as well?  We desperately need to raise our daughters much more like our sons."  Males and females are different.  I think everyone can agree on that.  Most males will have certain temperaments, and females will most likely have different ones.  Each learns differently and should be parented the way that is best for them.  With females, usually they learn and work cooperatively, detail oriented, relationship oriented, landmark oriented, verbal, and are aware of multiple things.  Men on the other hand usually are more parallel, competitive, protective, spatial oriented, task oriented, and focused.  Usually women are parented to be gentle, domestic, and comfort while men are parented to be rougher, tougher, career, and leadership.  I really think children should be taught according to the individual instead of generalizations.  

After reading and talking about the family situation of people coming from Mexico, discussing it throughly in class made me look at the situation very differently.  In every family, certain roles are taken upon by different members of the family.  Especially in this family's culture, all members of the family stayed relatively close to one another.  So, when they wanted to move to the United States, it made me realize how much harder it actually was than what I had perceived previously.  The father was the first one to leave Mexico.  Because of this, the mom went and got work and the relationship between her and the children changed.  The kids began to get closer to their grandmother since she was there more.  But there was also a void from the father since he was in another country.  The family had to work so much harder to save enough money for each family member.  But, the cousins, uncles and aunts also felt the sting of the move.  There were less and less family functions happening, which kind of created a rift in the whole family.  Before reading and studying this, I kind of just thought of people who came here illegally that they shouldn't.  But it was interesting to take a look at the roles and how much these people go through when trying to come to the states.

"You can never get enough of what you don't need because what you don't need won't satisfy you."

We talked about the three main types of boundaries within the family system.  The first one is rigid.  A solid line is used to represent this.  Also, a huge 10 foot barbed wire fence would be a good representation as well.  You don't let people in at all and you kind of shelter yourself away from others too.  There are probably hostile feelings involved as well.

Another boundary would be open/diffuse.  A dotted line would be used to represent this.  This type of boundary lets people and their opinions in too much.  Hostile feelings could be involved from others who within the family system.

The last and best boundary to have is a clear one.  This is represented by a dashed line.  A picket fence would also be appropriate to describe this boundary.  It's kind of a mix between the other two. Your relationship is clearly defined.  You welcome people and their ideas, but you also draw a line to what you take from them.  The most important relationship is the one between you and your spouse.

Cohabitation has increased in today's world.  It might seem like an easy way to "test out" marriage, but it actually doesn't help.  When cohabitation happens before marriage, divorce rates increase, physical intimacy decreases, violence increases, kids have higher levels of depression, health decreases, infidelity increases, etc.  Those are just some of the things that happen when cohabitation happens before marriage.  When people cohabit, they live parallel lives.  They aren't coming together on important decisions and things between the two of them are separate things.  They don't join on important things as opposed to those that do get married.  When you cohabit, you don't really have any attachment to the person, whereas if you were married, there would be trust if something happened to one another, relying on each other for support, and you are committed to that person.

It was interesting to learn about theories this week and the difference between hypotheses, theories, and laws.  Hypotheses are educated guesses, theories are an attempt to explain phenomena, and laws are things that happen with no exceptions.  We learned 4 different theories.  Family Systems, Exchange, Symbolic, and Conflict.  We focused on the Family Systems Theory though.  Within this system we talked about boundaries.  There are 3 main ones which are rigid, open/diffuse, and clear.  But there was one thing that really stuck out to me.  Brother Williams said, "You can never get enough of what you don't need because what you don't need won't satisfy you."  This quote just really stuck out to me because it's so true.  Within families, if you aren't getting something from someone, you aren't going to be satisfied by getting it somewhere else.

So what?  That is the question Brother Williams asks us every day.  So what?  How does what we are learning in class apply to our lives and why should it?  This week we talked about the myths and trends occurring related to the family in the world today.  We learned that the numbers for getting married later in life, living alone, cohabiting, having premarital sex, single moms and working moms are increasing while the birth rate and house hold sizes are decreasing.  So what?  With these trends, you can really see Satan impact on attacking the family.  In class, we talked about how the destruction of the family would be a calamity to the earth.  A calamity affects individuals, communities, and nations.  So what?  Talking about this is class has definitely made me more aware of everything happening in the world today.  But, it makes me want to work that much harder when I'm a mother.  To protect and also teach my values to others who may be lost or confused, but especially to my own children.  I need to make sure that my children can learn from me the importance of our church values and standards and why they are so important.  I want them learning these from me rather than looking to other sources who aren’t reliable.  I think that’s one of the most important thing I can do as a parent and what I will strive for when I become a mother.

Just testing this to see how it works and making sure everything runs smoothly on here.