Gender

For this week's class we discussed gender, gender roles, and same-sex attraction. Today I want to mainly focus on gender and gender roles for this blog post. But I do want to make one comment on those who have same-sex attraction before diving into what I learned this week. Due to my religious beliefs I believe that a man and a woman should be together. Although I understand that homosexuality is real, and I still love and support those individuals. I know many people personally who have same-sex attraction and I still love them just the same. 

Now to begin the discussion on gender I wanted to start off with explaining that gender isn't always black and white. There are certain things that females tend to do and there are certain things males tend to do. Now that doesn't mean every guy or girl is the same and always does those specific things. Some females love to do more outdoor things or work on cars but that doesn't mean that they are any less female. Some males like to go shopping more or sit down and chat but that doesn't make them any less of a male. There can be some mixing between what males and females tend to do but those "stereotypes" or tendencies of each gender is what males and females tend to fall under. Many studies have been done to show that even young children tend to go to toys that have been made for their gender even when they are in the same packaging. Parents have even tried to make their homes a very gender-neutral environment and have noticed that the boys will still make guns out of everything and the girls will still nurture things they are given. My teacher told a story about how his sons would turn everything from food to barbie dolls into guns. And how his daughter would hold and take care of things like cars, fish, or other random stuff instead of playing with them how they are made to be played with. These examples show us that gender is known from a very young age, even without being shown how to act as a male or female. 

The difference between males and females isn't just with how they act and what toys or hobbies they choose. Males and females also think differently (there brains are built and hardwired differently) and things affect them in different ways. Men use more gray matter in the brain which is the information and processing areas. Women use more white matter in the brain which represents connection between things. This is why men are able to focus and think about one thing, whereas women can focus and think about more than one thing. Women are constantly connecting things together and the smallest thing can remind them of something entirely different. Men usually focus on one topic before moving on to the next. Think about it this way, men have tidy boxes about things in their brain that don't touch or cross. Men even have a nothing box where they are able to actually think about nothing. Women are unable to think about nothing and their brain is like a tangled-up ball of wires where everything is touching and is connected to each other in some way. This helps to explain why males and female are affected by things differently. I particularly want to discuss an article I read about how girls are more affected by social media when it comes to things like depression (I will put the link to the article at the bottom of this post). The article really hit home with me because looking back I can see how as a young girl I was affected mentally and emotionally by social media and seeing how social media is negatively affecting my sisters. The article discusses how social media can cause girls to have low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, dissatisfaction with their weight, and sleep poorly. There are many things on the Internet and especially social media that can hurt teens, both girls and boys.  

Thank you for reading my post and please feel free to comment!

The Article:

Evans, E. (2019, January 16). A new study says girls on social media are more at risk for   depression than boys. Here's why. Retrieved from https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900050972/a-new-study-says-girls-on-social-media-are-more-at-risk-for-depression-than-boys-heres-why.html?_cid=Email-1&utm_campaign=030190d3f7-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_01_17_12_00&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Deseret%20News&utm_term=0_2e4a89ae88-030190d3f7-585673229

Culture in the Family

From class this week I was able to come to understand many different people's point of view. I can't fully understand people's situations and their lives but through the lessons and readings I have gained new insights into other's family life. I have been able to see how social class and culture effect individuals and families. This week's class helped me to have more compassion on those who have a different life style than I do. It also helped me to have compassion on those who are trying their best to give a good life to their children but are dealt a rough hand of cards. I have gained more sympathy for those immigrants illegal or legal who come to the United States to give a better life to their children but struggle to get jobs, make enough money to support their family, and leave behind a life they had built and many of their family members. I have learned that it can be difficult for individuals and families to get out of the family cycle that has been in place for so long. 

Many people can be stuck and unable to progress due to their social class or the family culture that has been created over many years. There are habits or ways of doing things that can keep an individual or family from breaking that cycle and continuing on a different path. Even fear or uncertainty can play a part in not being able to create a new path and life. Now this doesn't mean that individuals and families don't have goals to progress and get better. It means that circumstances and the family dynamic we grew up in can shape how our lives turn out in the future. For example, we watched a video on a woman in the lower class. She lived in a trailer and had to walk to and from work, which took about 2 hours one way. She had two sons and one wanted to attend college and become a lawyer. Her goal was to one day attend college and become a teacher. She came from a family where her dad constantly had to work to support 22 children which meant they didn't have a lot of money. With her father being gone a lot there wasn't as much structure and now there isn't much structure with her own family because she is a single mother who is gone all day to help support her family. It is difficult for her to move up to a different social class and reach her goals due to certain circumstances. Thirteen years later we see that she is still in the lower class and struggles to support her family. Her sons both didn't finish high school and the oldest was never able to achieve his goal. She is still working hard to someday reach her goal but is kind of stuck. It is sad to see how hard she works and isn't able to reach her goal. Her family culture and social class keeps her in this never-ending loop.

This story is just one example of how social class and culture can shape you. Now there is diversity in culture and social class, not everyone falls under the stereotype. The reason there is diversity is because the family creates its own culture in itself. Family members choose what beliefs they align with and religion they want to be apart of. Families choose what is accepted or not accepted in the house. Family culture can be passed down through generations by children doing things that their parents did. It can also be created through the mixing of a husband and wife's different beliefs, behaviors, characteristics, and traditions. The family culture can be learned or created over time as children and different factors are added. For example, when my husband and I got married we started to create our own family culture from the things we had seen from our families (now we didn't know that that was what we were doing, it just happens naturally). My husband's family watched rated R movies and he was taught that it wasn't a bad thing. My family never watched rated R movies and I was taught that a prophet told us not to watch movies like that and we should follow the prophet. We agreed together that we wouldn't watch rated R movies because we wanted to be obedient. 

Culture and social class play a big role in the way are family is set up. Our families have a huge impact on us as individuals and on our future families. It is important to understand culture and social class so that we can better understand those around us and work on being less judgmental. 

Family Works Together Like a System

In class this week we discussed theories surrounding the family and one of those theories dealt with families as a system. For one of our assignments we had to draw a family map showing the different relationships between each family member. Salvador Minuchin used a family map to lay out the quality of interactions and boundaries he observed between different family members. It was interesting to take my observations of my how my family interacted with each other and decide if they had healthy or unhealthy boundaries. For some family members it was easy to determine the level of interaction they had with each other and others I had to think about for a while. Another form of family mapping is Genogram which does similar things and medical professionals have even used it to track and record medical conditions in families. If you are interested at all in making a family map just search "family mapping" in google and it will come up with how to do it and what the different symbols mean.

We went over four different theories involving the family which are: conflict theory, systems theory, exchange theory, and symbolic interaction theory. I'll briefly explain each, but I will mainly focus on systems theory. Conflict theory deals with someone being in control, having authority, and being influential. Conflict doesn't have to be a bad thing but it often times is. If we can learn how to correctly discuss and handle conflict, we wouldn't hate it as much. Exchange theory is the idea that if you do something for someone, they owe you something in return. If we are putting more into a relationship than we are getting, then we tend to leave that relationship. Symbolic interaction theory is the idea that you are shaped through the experiences you go through. The communication and interactions between people are symbolic. Systems theory is that each family member does their part and works with others to make things work together. Every family has their own set of rules and roles that influence the individuals and the family as a whole. Family rules are learned through observations, experiences, and feedback. Family roles can be placed on you naturally and sometimes you are expected to fill a certain role.

Within a system there are subsystems and that is the same for families. Examples of family subsystems are excessive or marital subsystem and sibling subsystem. There are things that are only discussed and shared between spouses where they decide what to share with their children. Sibling subsystems are those siblings who share things between each other but don't share with another sibling. These subsystems are created and depend on the type of relationship and interaction the family members have. Since a family is like a system, they all depend on each other and are all affected by each other. When one person is having a hard time or a rough day it effects the other family members because every member tries to help each other and carry part of the burden. In class there were four students acting as a family to show this in a demonstration. The four students held hands in a circle, and one would be pulled signifying that they had a bad day. As one was pulled the others pulled, in the opposite direction, on him/her to keep the "family" together. They helped carry and support each other like families should do. It is better to go through things together than to try going through things on your own. 

I hope you enjoyed this week's blog! Family is important and can be like our own little community. Please feel free to comment.

The Trends You Should Be Concerned About

In class this week we read and talked about trends concerning children, family, and the world. There were many surprising things that I learned and thought that should be shared with others. I think it would make a huge difference if people were taught the correct statistics and trends about the family and why it is important to have children. I think it is extremely important for people to know the research on controversial topics and understand what the research means. I'm grateful I get to take this class and learn about research involving the family. I am also grateful that I have an opportunity to share it with you on this blog. For this post I am going to be talking about some of the trends that were talked about in my class concerning marriage and family. All these trends that I am going to talk about are all interlinked somehow and affect each other.

The first trend that I want to focus on is that the number of people getting married is declining due to some of the other trends that occur and myths that have been created. Marriage is declining because more and more people are choosing to cohabit (60-80% of unmarried couples) instead of getting married. Young adults are choosing their careers or education over marriage. The majority of people still get married but they wait until later in their lives to get married. Women tend to get married at 28 and men tend to get married at 30. You may ask, "Well why is that so bad?" It has been proven that those who are married tend to be happier, healthier, financially better off, and live longer than those who are unmarried. It is also a problem because the longer a person waits to marry the less time, they will have to have children and the less children they will have. With less children being born the population will eventually start to decline making it to where we will have to work harder and smarter.

The second trend I want to talk about briefly is the divorce rate. Many people think that 50% of all marriages end in divorce but that is just a myth. The divorce rate is still quite high, but it has decreased over time to be about 24% of all marriages ending in divorce. Part of the reason for less divorces is because there are less marriages occurring as I talked about previously. It is important for people to understand that the divorce rate is not at 50% because it would help people to not be so hesitant about marriage.

The third trend that I want to touch on is about childbearing. Since many people are waiting to get married until later in their life it means that they are having children later in their life as well. The age of childbearing has increased to a woman's mid to late 30's. At that point most women have a short amount of time to have children which means they will have less children. With women having less children the birth rate and fertility rate decline. The definition of birth rate is the number of births out of a thousand people in an area. The definition of fertility rate is the number of children a woman will have in her lifetime. The current fertility rate in the United States is 1.8 children per woman and it needs to be at 2.13 in order for the population to replace itself. If the fertility rate continues to decrease, there will be more people in the older generations and less people in the younger generations when it should be the other way around.

These trends are important to understand because it is our future and the future of our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and so on that it will affect. We need to be willing to protect our family and the idea of family so that we can always have love and support from those we care about.

Please feel free to comment any thoughts or questions you may have! I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic!