Week Three

Cultural and social diversity was the main focus of this week's discussions. This week, I really appreciated the discussion that we had on the case study we were supposed to read. The study entitled "The Cost of Getting Ahead" focused on a family that was moving from Mexico to the United States for job opportunities.

In our discussion, we talked about how the parents made the decision to move because they believed that doing so would bring great opportunities to themselves and, more importantly, to their children. The decision couldn't have been made lightly, and I'm sure they worried about leaving their support system behind. However, the family couldn't have realized the effect that moving would have on their family. After the family moved away from their support system, they started to fall apart.

What I found to be most interesting was that the family truly did have the best intentions on moving, but doing so basically destroyed their family system. What I took away from the discussion was that if big life changing experiences are going to take place in your family, you need to do the best that you can to make sure that a sense of normalcy resides in your family. Also, each family member needs to continue to keep the same roles that they had before.

Week Two

This week we focused on family dynamics and how family systems are specific to each family. What I thought was most interesting, was when we were asked to evaluate what kind of family we belong to now and the one that we grew up in.

It was interesting, as I thought about the dynamics and roles of each family member of my family growing up, I realized that my family is full of contradictions! My family is adventurous, yet happy to stay inside and play games or watch movies together. We are a family of savers, yet we love to go on fun vacations and will often splurge to do so. I loved the family that I grew up in, and still think that my parents did an amazing job of raising my sister and I. I hope to one day be as good of a parent as they were to me.

Another interesting idea that came to me in class as we were doing the same activity was that my husband and I were raised completely opposite! I would say that my parents raised me in a authoritative manner, whereas my husband was raised in a household that was slightly more authoritarian. This difference in our family systems, as we were raised, has made taking about how we are going to raise our children very interesting! I appreciate the difference in perspective though and know that we will be able to come up with a dynamic that works for us.

Week One

This week we started talking about the dynamics of the family and what some of the roles of each of the family member's were. We also talked about statistics in the realm of family relations.

What really stuck out to me this week was related to when we were talking about family statistics. We talked about how the statistics on the divorce rate in the United States was inflated due to the lack of or biases put on information that had been gathered. We talked about how the statistics of the divorce rate affect people negatively. There are people out there who are so scared to get married because of the "evidence" that supports how likely they are to get divorced. What I was continuously reminded of in class is how each relationship is truly independent and unique. Just because there are statistics out there that say you are likely to get divorced doesn't mean you actually will. What is more important is what we do with this knowledge. Since we know there are factors that are working against the family as a whole, we should work hard to protect our relationships and families from the influences out there that are negative.