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.