Gender Roles

“We badly need to raise our sons more like our daughter” –G. Steinham

This quote just sat up on the white board taunting me. My first thought, why would anyone agree with that? Then it hit me, not everyone recognizes the roles men and women are designed to have. I have heard so many feminist state that we all need to be equal and demolish these roles society gives us. Now I believe men and women need to be equal however I believe they need to be equal in a sense of opportunity not necessarily in the sense that men and women should be the exact same. Society didn’t create these roles, society has affected them yes and greatly implements them however society did not create them. Men and women are born with different traits and with these traits we are better at taking on certain responsibilities. Now this doesn’t mean that men and women cannot share traits or share responsibilities it just means that biologically we are more inclined to do different things.

 Our differences are actually a wonderful thing! Our two personalities once they come together create something so special. Men would be nothing without women and women would be nothing without men. “Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.” (Corinthians 11: 9) We need each other, we complete each other. This is because men have things women do not and women have things men do not. It is so perfect how God created us to need each other. This is the key to our eternal salvation and our progression. 

Social Class

        Can your social class influence your family experience? It sure can! We are constantly being influence by our class. Once we are born into a social class for example lower class, it is very tough to move your way up. I was raised in lower class. I had a single mother who worked long hard hours to provide for us.  I was raised to value different things than those in middle or upper class and these values sure influenced my family. Money was always a sore subject in my home; it caused a lot of stress and a lot of fights. My family learned how to deal with living in an apartment on “the wrong side of town” and we learned that we wouldn't have the best of things but we would have everything we needed. I know that our class changed the way our family functioned. My mom had to work so we didn’t get to see her very often and experience the nurturing mother figure because she had to take on the role of both mother and father and work all day. Because she had to work my sister had to step up and take care of me while my mom was gone. I know this played a huge role in my family structure because my sister wasn’t able to enjoy her childhood while my mother wasn’t able to enjoy motherhood. However being in “lower class” isn’t all horrible. We learned many things from struggling that helped us get closer as a family. We learned how to deal with trials and how to help one another fight through them. I think that whatever social class you are in there are negative and positive effects it can have on your family experience, however it is up to the individual how they are going to take it. 

Family Structure

This week we learned about different family theories. One theory in particular we learned a lot on. This was Family systems theory. Family systems theory states that all members of a family have a part to make the family as a whole. Along with this we learned that each family structure is completely different however the ideal structure, the structure that works the best, according to research and according to my religious beliefs, is to have mom and dad be close together with clear boundaries  above the children and to have the children nearby with clear boundaries as well. This structure is the best because when mom and dad are close together things within the family just go a lot smoother and their relationship is stronger. It is important to have mom and dad above the children because children don’t need “friends” or to have to watch over their own parents, they need clear authoritative figures in their lives. It is also important to have clear boundaries because therefore their parents aren’t too involved in their children’s lives like being their “friends” and they shouldn’t be so cut off from them that they hardly talk.

My family structure is very different then the ideal one. However sometimes that’s just what we are handed and we need to make the best of it. We have tried to set better boundaries and have better leveled out relationships however because of homeostasis we all revert to our old roles. I really feel like my family needs to reestablish our roles and stick to them. Hopefully I will learn more to help my family get to this place.

Questions:

 Is it always best to strive for the “ideal” structure? I know in my family I get asked this a lot, “Why are you trying to change us? We are just fine the way we are.”

It’s not that I am trying to change them per say I just want what is best for my family. Should I want to change the structure of my family because that’s the best and easiest way for families to strive and be successful or should I just accept my role and my family structure and continue on struggling but managing?

Does Size Matter? ;)

This week I watched a movie titled Demographic Winter:

I realized size does matter! .... it matters when it comes to family sizes ;)

Ther movie talked about how fertility rates are decreasing and if it continues this way in the near future we will start to see a drastic decline in population.  I too was one of the many people that believed that human population would just always continue to grow and we would eventually run out of resources, food, and shelter. In fact increased population is a good thing. The more people we have on this earth the more people are working, creating, and providing benefits for the rest of the world. We would never starve because there were “too many people” instead we would flourish because so many more people would be farming and harvesting food. However this is not the case as more and more people are having less and less kids the population is actually declining which means the economy suffers, cultures and ethnicities disappear, and there are less people working to provide for others. 

I was shocked to hear to the author of The Population Bomb compared having 5 children to robbing a bank. His argument was that the more children you have the more money and resources you are taking away from others. This statement was appalling to me. Children are a wonderful blessing, a gift from God! Children bring joy and happiness into this world and they will eventually grow up and become doctors, professors, presidents, or other important people. Having a child will eventually bless someone somewhere else. I just think about the people I have met in my life time. Some people don’t even realize it but they have made my life easier and brighter just because they were around.

Before I watched this video I thought when I am married I want 3-4 kids now knowing how much family sizes and fertility rates actually matter I want 5 kids! Why not? If I am perfectly capable of raising children I might as well help my Heavenly Father bring more children into this world to bless it.

Bigger is Better... in the case of Families!