A college class more important than college

 

            This will be my final blog check as my class is ending, and I will be doing other homework assignments getting ready for graduation in a few weeks, but I will miss writing these because they have given me the opportunity to really reflect on what I have learned throughout this semester. Some of you may remember from my first blog that heavenly father has a way of placing me I not classes I never thought I would take and without fail those classes always end up being the most desirable for me in life. I really think we should require students to take classes like this and other about family and other crucial subjects over things like humanities and a second writing class. The benefit of this class has far outweighed the benefits of many of the other classes I have taken. Although this materiel will probably never make it onto my resume or into my workforce practices, they will have an effect every day when I come home to my family and that is where it really matters.

                As a final discussion in our class, we talked about marriages as they mature and evolve throughout life.  It’s interesting to think about because as a kid in college even with 2 kids of my own you don’t really think about how much your marriage will still change in years to come. It just kind of happens. Kids get older, jobs change, some go to college, some get married and move out. There is still a lot of change to come in our marriage and that’s okay because it will keep things exciting and fresh in our lives.  But that’s just me, personally I think most people’s ideal retirement is my worst nightmare. I love having things to do and being engaged in something especially my family.  

This isn’t the case for all families though many families face change earlier on. What if a marriage doesn’t work out and people end up getting a divorce? Having a regular family is already a lot of change over the years. When you throw in blended families it can become quite a lot to handle. Earlier I mentioned how I look forward to an evolving family but as children this can be really hard. As many of you have seen kids from blended or divorced families statistically just don’t do as well as normal household children on average. That’s not to say they can’t by any mean, it’s just less likely. Personally, I think the great majority of marriages could be saved and even better than ever if those people knew some of the things I have learned in this class. There really not hard concepts. They just aren’t ones that we think about in our day-to-day lives. Because of this we violate the principals of family, and we end up in somewhat dysfunctional ones. It’s not their fault. They just did know. That’s why I think it could be more beneficial than perhaps any other class to teach people these principals in high school and college. I think we can all agree that having a healthy marriage in family life is worth a lot more to most people than knowing what flying buttresses are. It truly believes that these principals could save thousands of marriages and give kid a better chance for success in life.

This class has changed my life and I hope some of the things I have shared will change yours too. I truly value the things I have learned and hope to use them the rest of my life.

 

The Unspoken Needs

 

            I personally am a fairly new parent and am quickly learning the challenges of each stage a child goes though. As a newborn I never knew how to help and felt rather useless to my wife.  at about 9 months, I never knew quite how to teach them right from wrong as I didn’t know what they could understand and what they couldn’t.  Now our oldest is 21 months old and although she is old enough to know right from wrong, she isn’t old enough to really understand why. And I find myself struggling to know how to teach her the why. Just the other day we were in the car, and she was in the backbeat in her car seat, and I think she must have gotten bored or something because she started to spit. For no reason whatsoever and the more I tried to tell her to stop the more she did it. She was old enough to know I wanted her to stop, but not old enough to understand when I threatened time out when we got home. To her without a why my words were powerless to her. I found myself at quite a loss in how to teach her at this stage.

                I guess my point is, parenting is hard not only physically but also just hard to figure out. In my search for better answers, I found some really good information on how to help prepare our kids for the world they will enter into.  Turns out it all comes down to the child’s needs.  If we can understand their needs, we can almost always understand not only their response but also what we should do about it. perhaps before their response ever turns negative. (Most of the time.) I’ve learned that there are 5 basic emotional needs not only children have but also adults. Contact belonging, Power, Protection, Withdrawal, and Challenge.

                I want to start with the first one on the list and go from there. Contact belonging. Contact belonging is the literal need to feel like you belong physically. Although this will look different for everyone, this could be physical signs of love, genuine interest in their life, quality time spent with them, or even playing a sport. Whatever it may be A child particularly needs to feel like they belong and feel loved physically.  As a parent some o the best things we can do to help facilitate this is to offer contact freely and to teach them to contribute to the family. If a child is feeling deprived of belonging, they will often begin to seek what we call “undue attention seeking” where they will do anything they can to get attention. Both good and bad. I think this is what my daughter as doing by insistently spitting even when she knew she should have stopped.

                Power, both children and adult need to feel like they have power over their own lives, accordingly of course for children. But as a parent we can do our very best to offer them as many choices as seemingly fit and to do our best to let natural consequences take their course for better or worse. (Within reason). This will help them to both feel that they have power and learn responsibility. If we fail to provide this to our children, we will often see them act out in ways such as trying to control others in adults or open rebellion in children.

Protection: We need to tach our children protect themselves and others. We can do this by teaching them not only assertiveness but also forgiveness. This will keep them free from emotional chains and they will not seek revenge

Withdrawal: In older kids its important that they leant the value of taking breaks and looking at things from an outsiders view we very quickly can become tunnel visioned and our view can be skewed from reality. We should encourage our kids to take breaks but return to the task promptly. This will help them avoid undue avoidance or procrastination. In getting things done.

Challenge: Kids need something to challenge them. This could eb a sport, school, a project, or any other form of challenge but they need something that encourages skill building and a sense of progression in themselves. Without this they can begin to be depressed and slowed in life.

I hope these 5 things can help someone out there to be a better parent I feel they will help me so I wanted to write about them a  bit.

Is working More Joyful Than Playing?

 

    This week I had the opportunity to take part in some really interesting conversation about the finances and work. Most of our discussion centered around the principal of work and so that is where I will primarily stay for my topic today. Many of us have a mindset that goes something like this. “Once I’m done with this work then ill get to enjoy myself” but how true I that statement? Especially when we are working with our families.

    I want your t think back to some of your earliest childhood memories that are joyful. What were you doing? Were you playing or were you working? You might be surprised to realize that your joyful early childhood memory was actually of you working. Interesting, isn’t it? I have a 20-month-old at home and as much as she loves to play in the living room, she will do almost anything to fell like she is helping. The earliest task I can remember her doing was wanting to throw away her own diapers. As she is a bit older now we find her running around the house with a tall or a rag and attempting to clean up anything that may be food on the floor. Or when the vacuumed comes out she runs into the room and intently watches as if she is taking notes. As I have found with our own kid n dim sure you have found with many of yours. Playing just does grab the attention of kids as much as working does. Especially when they fell like they can help. So why do we turn this round by about 16?

     I think that joy is found in work very naturally, but our society tends to smother that and tell us work is bad and that leisure is where the real joy lies. I find this to be completely false. I think as parents we could a much better job of embracing our kids in their effort to work and help. After all most young kids want to do it anyway. Why not encourage it? I believe that if we were to start living our lives in such a way that work was viewed as a good thing that we would actually find much more joy in our lives and our kids would grow up to be more determined and driven to accomplish great things over the course of their lives. I think every parent wants their kids to find what three passionate about and really work to accomplish soothing don’t they?

    From the time I was very young my dad would take me to work with him doing construction and remodel. I hated getting up early on a Saturday and working much of my summer in the moment, but I now look back and am so grateful that he brought me a long and forced me out of bed all those mornings. By doing so he instilled a work ethic and a confidence in me that has carried me through my adult life thus far. Because of that I am confident in myself that I will be able to do whatever needs to be done and I actually enjoy working to accomplish things and seeing the fruits of my labor. I now am getting ready to graduate college and have job lined up for the next stage in my life and I can honestly say that I am excited to start and good something every day that makes the world a better place. I truly believe that working will actually bring us more joy than playing especially when we do it with our families. That is a secret that I will hold on to and try my very hardest to instill into my own kids as they get older.

Never Decide Alone.

 

            Today I want tot talk about decision making in our families in our work life and for ourselves. Perhaps most importantly in our families though. I’m going to take a different approach than most of you would probably think of when decision making. But before doing that I want to share a bit of my own story with you.

            When I was in high school, probably about 16 I was finally able to make a lot of decisions on my own and for myself. Well, by the time I was 18 I had realized that I wasn’t very good at it and landed myself if a pretty dark place in my life. the truth of the matter is that I had used my agency to shut out any light that my life possessed without ever even realizing I was doing it. (I was not associated or had participated in any form of religion at this point in my life.) But I had realized that A very important part of me was dying because of my decisions, and I needed help reviving it. about this time, I met someone who introduced me to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Over the next few months, I spent a tremendous amount of time with a family who had a very good relationship with God and seem direct there lives so perfectly. Not easily, but correctly for sure. As I spent time there, I almost subconsciously gave the God the opportunity to influence me in a small degree the way he influenced each of them.

            Within a few weeks I began to experiment on my own. Trying to pray for the first time and include God in some to my life decisions. This changed everything… Because I decided to exercise a muster seed of faith during that time, I was able to learn that God was not only real, but he was a perfect Father in heaven who knew exactly who was, far better than I knew myself. As soon as I cracked to door for the influence of go in my life, I was seemingly drenched in the amount of direction that seem to pour into my life. The process was extremely difficult but for me but because Included my Heavenly father in my everyday decisions I have a new life that I would trade for 1000 times the other way.

            The reason I’m telling you all this is because it changed my life and I promise it can change yours too. I’m here to stand today as a witness that you have a Father in heaven who cares for you more than anything and he desperately want s to help you through your mortal life here on earth. You just have to let him. I am now married and the father of two and I realize that the decisions only get bigger and harder as life goes on. Because of that I heave learned the value of seeking the Lords will in our lives. Especially when it comes to big decision in our families.

            No marriage will ever agree on 100% of the life decisions you will have to make. So instead of letting those discrepancies become wedges between a family, why don’t we seek what the lord would have us do instead. You may be surprised at the answers he gives. My wife and I often find we were both wrong and so grateful we were. I want to invite you whoever you may be to invite your Father in heaven into the decisions of your life. I promise he wants to help you and knows exactly what the right answer is.  I have experiences this many times in my own life and have time and time again seen the wisdom of his council. I want to testify to you that taking this leap of faith in your life will not only help you lead a better life but help you get to know your Father in heaven on a personal level. Its has been the case for me And I know it can be the case for you too.

Taking Control

 

     This week I had the opportunity to be a part of some really interesting discussions about anxiety, depression, and crises family situations. Throughout the course of our discussion, I found myself both amazed by the agency our Heavenly Father has given us and taken aback by the adversary’s ability to cause us to limit its power. Agency is one of the most powerful things we have in this life and if we use it properly, we can accomplish miraculous things, however if we let satin begin to take our agency and use it in poor destructive ways, we can find ourselves in very dark places. But that is not our heavenly fathers plan for us. Its far better than that. It is for us to be able to use our agency to become something great and to be worthy of being called suns and daughters of God.

     I will preface this with the fact that this with what I am going to say will most likely counter what you have heard in the world today, but I hope that it will be a light to those who are open to the ideas. But before we get to that I want to talk about anxiety and depression in the purest and natural form. Anxiety is nothing more than our bodies natural fight, flight, or freeze responses to danger around us. That’s right anxiety is a totally natural thing that all of us are capable of.  Anxiety is our bodies natural way of trying to resolve a problem and avoid danger. Depression is a step furthest than that, depression is when our brain believes there is no way to escape the danger and that we will forever be doomed to whatever circumstance has caused our anxiety with no hope of ever changing it. Now, this is where things get really interesting and the part of the explanation of why these things are on the rise.

      You see our brain doesn’t really make decisions based off reality, its our spirits job to discern between truth and error, not our brains. Our brain makes designs based on what we perceive to be reality not reality itself. For example, your asked to say a few words Infront of a crown of people. Immediately anxiety sets in, you hear rate jumps, your blood pressure shoots up and your palms get all sweaty. In a nutshell your body is preparing to either fight or flight. But why? There’s no real danger nobody there is actually going to attack you. So why did our body do this? Because our thoughts led our brain to think there was a real danger. You see this is the key.

      Your brain can only react you can’t change that. However, you can change what its reacting too. Your thoughts. If you don’t think the crown your Infront of is going to attack you, neither will your brain. You won’t feel anxiety if you don’t give your brain anything to trigger it. this is where the agency in anxiety and depression lies. This is where you can take control of it again. Now this is a lot more than just “tell yourself happy thought’ your brain will immediately reject it if you don’t even believe it yourself. The thought that places the false perceived ones MUST BE ABSOLUTE TRUTH. Truth is the key to cure anxiety and depression. If we could stop perceiving the world around us as threatening and stop telling ourselves that we are miserable then we actually wouldn’t be.

       Now there is a third factor to this. Circumstances. But I’m here to tell you that circumstances don’t control your anxiety and depression do. They merely influence your thoughts that then control your anxiety and depression. but this is often the fall of ourselves. We tale a circumstance that’s kind of bad and tell our brains its horrible. For example: Say the father of a child is sent off to war. Not an idea situation but there is a start difference between “the government stole my dad and is going to get him killed” and “My dad is a hero”. You see how the first one cause anger but the second one inspires dignity. The situation didn’t change. Only our thoughts did. If this generation could but learn to use our agency to control our thoughts and therefore our brain we could bring about miracles in the world of mental health.

Did our grandparents know more than us?

 

Did our grandparents really know more about relationships and intimacy than we do? A first you are probably thinking there is absolutely no way they do. I mean come on they didn’t even have the internet right. Well, turns out that might have actually been their greatest advantage in fostering happy healthy relationships and marriages.

Let me first begin with what I believe to be a good starting basis. As mentioned in previous post by myself I have talked about the importance of dating and choosing dates that help you get to know one another, rather than just simply occupying all of each other’s time. Well, this continues to be incredibly important throughout the years of marriage, especially when it comes to being intimate. Let me back up a bit though. The first problem with our society today is our media and music has painted an in our minds that goes something like this. You’re in bar, make eye contact with a cute girl, talk until 2am, have the most wonderful night of your life (if you know what I mean.) Then go our separate ways. Sound about, right? This is a huge problem with the rising generation because that what they see and therefore try to attain. At least for a few years before they “settle down”. Let me tell you of the sad reality of this kind of belief though. First, that never happens. Second those who it does happen to and find love in these kinds of way neat always feel empty and worthless on the inside. That’s because they are merely engaging in a physical activity together and are never actually forming the true connection that we as humans all long for. In fact, for women, the very act causes a chemical called oxytocin to be released that causes her to form a very strong connection that is only to be broken soon after.

As you can see, the problem we face is our media has filled our societies minds with an expectation that is quite frankly not just empty just crippling to our very nature. I want to talk about where this can lead to problems further don’t the line, because many of you are probably thinking that most of society isn’t like that. And your right. so, what about those who “settle down” and get married. Well, let’s talk about that. When couples get married you often think about a big wedding day and then the wedding night and a honeymoon, well again society has light to us and probably has you thinking that the “first night” will forever be the best night but in reality, I think those who have actually experienced this would say it was more of an experiment than it was an experience. And I’m here to say that that is okay. The part that isn’t okay is when both people come into the situation expecting an edited pornographic version of what is simply not reality. That is where real issues begin to arise.

I would like to talk about what it should be like though not just what it shouldn’t. When 2 people get married and engage in marital intimacy the first thing they should know s that their bodies are not only different but work differently, so what may be very effective for a male is likely no so effective for a female. And that doesn’t just go for intimacy. It goes for a marriage as a whole.  Acknowledge this is fundamental to building a strong healthy connection in marriage. Since intimacy is the most direct way to doing this, I will use it as an example. When a couple gets married their goal for intimacy should look something like the Husband being as selfless as ever in helping is wife to feel loved, safe, and able to be vulnerable with him. While She should be focused on him and become very vulnerable to him. (Which he should never take advantage of) it is actually the deepening trust and vulnerability that makes for meaningful and exceptional marital intimacy. And that’s not something that can happen in a single night. It’s something that is grown and nurtured over the course of a marriage. I think this is what our grandparents understood while we have a pseudo version of it in front of us all the time. But when you really think about it. Its about your spouse and their needs more than anything the world tells you.

Blueprinting a Marriage.

     This week I’d like to talk about continue my post from last week by talking about the few years of marriage. Tailing off of last week, we talked about how we should be intentional in our relationships instead of sliding into them. I’ve learned that if we are intentional in our relationships, we are much more likely to have a happy functional and rewarding marriage. This marrying someone who we are truly compatible with is crucial in the first 5 years. This is because this is when a marriage goes through the most change and trails. Especially when kids come along.

   When we get married, we often think it ill be all sunshine and roses and we can just spend our whole lives with the person we love most. While this is true and it’s supposed to be a very rewarding and wonderful, even perhaps the best part of our lives. It can be difficult. When 2 people get married they have a lot to figure out that most people have probably never considered before, things like, who will take hat household duties Who or how will the finances be managed, what cultural differences will be kept, and which ones won’t be, whose family will we spend the holidays with. All of these things are common points of controversy in the first years of marriage. But that’s okay because marriage is literally the forming a new family, and something as complex as a family isn’t perfect from its first blueprint like an engineering project. What really matters is how these things and other are handled between a husband and wife.

      In an earlier post I talked about having theoretical cycles our boundaries around different people. The most core and primary one being between the husband and wife. This is where that become really important. The key is working to form your new family within that boundary. Too often we see a wife who continues to go to her mom for every conflict and every decision when trying to blueprint the first year of marriage. Or a new husband who will council with friends about things that he really should be talking to his wife about. The fact of the matter is you’re not forming a new family with your mother or your friends. You’re forming a new family with your wife/ husband and that’s who you should be discussing what that family will look like and how it will work.

    I want to take a moment to talk specifically about when the first kid comes into, he picture. I want to talk on this because right about the time that most things have been figured out between a couple, it all changes when the first child is born. A lot changes when a child is born in to a family but I want to come back to the idea of the boundary surrounding the husband and wife for moment. One thing that makes having kids especially interesting is basically no matter what that child suddenly enters that very innermost circle that has probably just recently really been established. At first this may seem harmless but if were not careful what often times can happen is the mother’s attention suddenly becomes solely focused on the baby (which it should), but the father can very quickly feel a bit neglected and feel he has lost his spot. This is a difficult thing to keep from happening but the reason that it can be such a wedge is that the father will often begin to find other outlets, not necessarily bad ones maybe hobbies or more time with friends as a result of feeling a little outed. but intern the wife when she needs him most can feel that he has deserted her a little and is distancing himself from the family. Which can be a very valid concern. This is a topic we discussed today and so I wanted to share it with you all.    

    I believe that if we are diligent and conscious in keeping our relationships strong, we can achieve happy and rewarding marriage. Not always easy but very strong, lasting and rewarding marriage.

 How true relationships are built

    This week I had the opportunity to look at some really interesting data regarding relationships and what factors effect their success. In today’s world I personally feel that there is so much ambiguity on what a relationship really is. On all levels, even between friends. I personally think that there is at least one major reason for this. Lack of intent. What I mean by that is that you don’t see people going on on real dates anymore, we more or less just kind of “hangout” and on the surface this looks totally fine because we can say that if both people are okay with that then what the problem. The problem lies in where it leads. You see so often in today’s world we see couples that in stead of “dating” we simplicity all of each other’s time and call it dating. the problem lies in that we don’t actually get to truly know each other and after enough time we start building a future together on a really pretty shaky foundation. Even though we have spent hundreds of hours together. I’ll explain further after covering what I think is a crucial principal with any relationship.

                The RAM models. The RAM model is mostly common sense, but we often fail to see it. It goes something like this: as we get to know someone, we begin to trust them, as we then begin to Trust someone, we then begin to rely on them, as we begin to rely on them, we begin to commit to them, and after we are substantially committed to them be begun to be intimate with them. To summarize that it looks something like this:   Know à Trust à Rely à Commit à Intimacy.  Its really rather simple, it only has one rule. The level of the next stage cannot exceed the level of the first. That the golden rule. For example, we should rely on someone only as much as we can trust them, right? As simple as this model is its so often broken without anyone ever realizing it.

Coming back to my original problem of people not being intently, without intent in our relationships we begin to build futures on things that aren’t really there. We so often see people engage in the latter 3 steps with ought ever really taking time for the first two. This is a result of “sliding into relationships. When we find ourselves in relationships that are convenient and then thye quickly ead into high commitment levels and intimacy, however when things become challenging and its no longer convenient, they come crashing down because the first pillars of the relationship were minimal at best. The unfortunate part is by the time this happens often kids are involved, and the couple has been married.

So how do we fix this? We become more in tentful in our dating and pursuing of our relationships. This means being willing to assort between people instead of falling into relationships that wont last beyond a hardship. It means being mindful of the pattern we earlier shown. The first and foremost goal is to get to know them. If we do this all the others will naturally trail in that one’s footsteps. I believe that if we as a society were in tentful in filling this pattern and who we pursue the pattern with we would see a dramatic drop in divorce rates and broken families. Hearts would not be broken nearly as often, and people would generally be happier together. I personally feel this is why I am so happily married to my wife and fell very secure on my relationship with her because we were diligent in following the steps when were dating. And that patter continues. As we continue to get the know each other we then trust more, rely, more, and commit more, etc. I invite you no matter where you find yourself to be intentful in building relationships even if that means starting over a bit with someone who you may already be with. Go on a first date again.

Question everything but your own experience.

     This week I have learned a great deal about some very touchy subjects in the world today. This week talked about gender roles and that as you can imagine flowed into Gender orientation. But to start off I would like to talk about roles and some very interesting research that has been done on it.

     We often hear in the world today that gender is merely a difference of reproductive organs. or maybe you’ve hard as far as how our X and Y chromosomes are different. But the fact of the matter is. Our gender reaches beyond that even. Recent studies have shown that from the moment we are born boys and girls are inherently different not just physically, but our brains are actually built differently. Scientist have observed behaviors such as infant females will be more inclined to actually look at their mother when they talk and try to mimic them compared to boys. While on the other hand infant males will tend to be more accustomed to their motor skills. This and other extensive research ahs shown that boys and girls really are wired differently. Although many of the young people in this country today will disagree with that, I think it is interesting to note that most parents will quite confidently tell you that boys and girls are just different. Especially those who have raised identical twins of opposite genders. Although many have observed these characteristics in our own lives it seems as though science tries to tell us that they don’t exist. Well, it turns out its just the opposite and there is an abundance of very will conducted research hat shows that gender really is apart of who we are. But what happens when someone doesn’t exactly fit their gender? Someone who you could say is atypical of their natural inclinations.

      The latter half of our discussions this week led to talking about this, people who feel they don’t fit into the gender norms of male and female and entirely heterosexual. Most often we hear 1 of 3 conclusions about what this happens. 1. They chose it, this case has little sway because most people who claim they are gay, lesbian or any other form. Say they didn’t choose it for themselves. And rightfully so. 2. Something happened in their past that mentally changed them. I lot people take this very offensively because they feel it labels then as though their atypical sexual orientation is a symptom of being broken in some way shape or form. Because of this and scarce amount of supporting research, it is rejected by most people today. 3. They were born that way. This by far is the most popular explanation for why some people are not heterosexual. It’s satisfying and corelates with most of the experiences people have had in realizing they are not heterosexual. They didn’t choose it, its seemingly very natural for them, they can’t seem to change it no matter how hard they try, it very much so seems to be apart of who they are, and it relives the sense of having to change because with this cause it implies that its just who you are. However, this doesn’t fit the experience and research we have. In fact it actually opposes most research done on the subject. So, what if there was a 4 cause. What if our sexual orientation is simply how we learned to do something?

     Think about learning a English for example, you don’t remember learning it, you didn’t choose it, and yet you cant hardly think without it. You see in our Biologically we are in a sense programmed to communicate with one another, however how we go about doing that varies greatly across the worlds. Based on how we grew up and the experiences we’ve had determines what language we speak. What id our sexual orientation as no different? Just like with our biological desire to communicate we also have a biological need for intimacy. Under normal circumstances our brains lean to fulfill this in a heterosexual way, but sometimes our mental journey can actually cause our brain to learn an alternative way of fulfilling that need. Not many people have heard of this idea before but is actually the most proven theory of them all. And perhaps most importantly it gives the individual their agency back. Something the biological theory takes away. If this really is what happens it means that it can be changed. Similarly, to someone who learns another language and eventually it become third first language. That’s not easy by any strength of the imagination especially when it comes to sexual orientation but the journey our brain must take is the same.

The Strains of Change

 

                This week has been an especially interesting week in class because we talked about real world circumstances and situations. I help make this make a bit more sense, last week we talked about roles each member of a family may fulfill. Such as a father taking the role of an older brother to an only son or an older sister taking the role of a best friend to her younger sister. Last week we spent much of our time talking abut the different roles and changes our own families have gone through, and it was an incredible revelatory time for me and understanding my own family. This week we applied it to social and economic problems the world faces today.

                The primary subject of our conversation focused on qualitative studies of families in different situations. The main one we look at and evaluated was a family that immigrated to the U.S. illegally. As I read the article and then talk thought the process in class, I began to realize not only how pertinent the roles we play are but how they can be so disrupted without anyone ever intending too. To help you all understand and perhaps learn some of the things that I learned this week I would like to walk you a situation we read and talked about.

                To start off we took a family who lived in Mexico and hoped and dreamed of a higher education for their kids and learning English here in America. After living in a small town with lots of family near by that was heavily involved with the kids, and a hard-working husband had saved enough money to cross the boarder the family had decided to begin the process. As a family they decided that the husband would go first and establish himself there and send all he money he could back home, so the rest of his family could pay to come over as well. They planned on being apart for roughly 6 months. The father made it here and found employment doing some labor-intensive work that played next to nothing due to his lack of documentation but lived very humbly and sent what he could home. Over the course of the next 6 months the wife picked up a job so they could pay for their basic necessities and live a somewhat normal live without having their father around.

                What began to happen next though almost no one thought about. Roles began to change. Mom became the primary source of income and was almost never home. Kids spent much of their time home alone or at their aunt and uncle’s playing with cousins. Mom began to be seen less as a parent than did the aunt and uncles for the younger kids while older ones began to choose to go to work over school to help try to help fill the shoes of their father. After waiting much longer than the expected six months. The family had changed a lot but they were about to be reunited again.

                After a long and rough journey across the border they met up with their father.  At first things seemed great and wonderful, but the family soon realized they didn’t fit together they way they used too. Both mom and dad had changed a lot and had to find a new dynamic tot heir on relationship, their oldest son was 19 and felt his father had no lace to tell him what to do after being gone so long and the youngest girl had been removed from all her friends and family and had a hard time fitting in being she didn’t speak English, so her mom became her sole friend.

                As you can see, although all worked out in the end. The dynamic of this family had changed drastically and there were some definite growing pains as they went. Although I have used a bit of an extreme example here, I think that we aught to be ore aware of how our circumstances may change the way our family interacts with one another. Most of the time it will never be something as drastic as this but eve the little things in our lives can throw off our family’s homeostasis. I personally have made a greater effort to be conscious of this and do my best to protect our family bonds.

What Roles do You Play in Your Family?

 

    This week in class we talked about something very interesting that I had never considered before. A least to the depth in which we talked about it. The primary focus of our discussion was “family roles”. Now when most people think about family roles, they think about how the man’s role is to protect and provide while the women’s role is to nurture and make a house feel like a home. (I’m speaking generally here.) Yet I think we forget about perhaps the most important roles we play. The individual roles we play in each of our family members personal lives. For example, an older sister often takes the role of role model and best friend of her younger sister. Or maybe a father takes on a role similar to one of an older brother to a son whose closest siblings are all girls or hasn’t any. These are often the unspoken roles we take on in our families.

    This week I was invited to create what’s called a “family map” I had never heard of one before and had no idea what it meant when I first heard about it. But what it is, is a “map of the relationships within a household. Not just the blood ones but the emotional ones. One is typically drawn by placing everyone’s names in a cluster on a paper and then drawing circles around the close relationships. For example, there is usually a close circle around a husband and wife. Then another around the mother and an oldest daughter, and maybe one around the 2 siblings that are closest in age to each other.  It really just depends on the family. I found it very fascinating and helped me to see some of the roles my own family members play. Ones I had never even considered.

    The conversation took a really interesting turn when we began to talk about when a change occurs within that family system or map. Maybe an older sibling moves out, or a baby is born, maybe even a divorce happens. Regardless of the change, a stage of unspoken chaos always seems to follow. This is because when any part of the system changes it effects every other part at least to some degree.  Lets use the my own family for example, My mom, my dad, and my younger sister. Growing up my dad and I were always pretty close and them my sister and mom were always pretty close as well. However, there was a bit of a rift right between the genders. Not a lot of change really happened in my family so this is just kind of the way to stayed for a long time. That is until I left on a 2-year mission for my church where contact with my family was very limited. I noticed my families lives back home seem to be pretty chaotic for a while, but after about 6 months something began to change. My father began to cleave unto my mother more than I had seen in probably 10 years and things became much happier around the house. You see when I left my father was left alone to a degree or had no one in his circle anymore. I think this sparked a new and evolved relationship to form between my parents and for that circle to be reinforced. Things have pretty much stayed this way ever since as I have not been home much for some years now due to a mission, college, a job, and being married myself now. It will be interesting to see what happens when my sister finally decides to move out.

    In closing I invite whoever may be reading this o think about what their family map may look like and how and why it has evolved over the years. It has led me to a great amount of insight and shed new light on my own family. For me it was a bit of an emotional and revelatory experience.

"It Happened Again"

    You’re probably wondering “What happened again?”, and since this is basically my first post, you don't even have anything to look back at. So let me begin with a story. My first semester of college I came to school here at BYU-Idaho as a business major. And well, that lasted all of about three days. The reason being, that I didn’t like any of my classes. After one particularly longways I came back to my apartment questioning my life choice of even coming. That’s semester I had a roommate who was a mechanical engineering major and he invited me to come along to one of his classes. It was an introductory course to engineering and that day they had all of the different engineering departments come and speak to the students. I found it very interesting but nothing too exciting. It all sounded too hard and not really worth it. But then, the automotive engineering faculty came up and immediately I felt the spirit practically straighten me up and say "pay attention". Needless to say, by the end of this 8-minute lecture I knew that’s what I wanted to do. Three years later my major is still Automotive Engineering Technology, and it has been a life changing journey to say the least. I graduate in just a few months, and I have job offers from Tesla, Ford, and hopefully more to come soon.

You may still be wondering, “What happened again?” The reason I shared the story above with you is because every single semester I have attended here at BYU-I, I thought I had all my classes figured out. Yet, without fail, every semester I always go through the very stressful process of changing at least one of my classes after the semester has started. It’s happened eight times now… Now, the really interesting thing about it is, that every one of the classes that I ended up taking in place of another, has ended up being a life changing experience. Hands down the classes that 30 years from now I will remember what I learned in them. This Semester I ended up switching my second U.S. History class for a family relations class. I know what your thinking, “Why is an automotive engineer taking a family relations class? “ Trust me, I thought the same thing. But let me tell you, it has already been a life changing experience for me. I have learned things that will forever affect the way I make decision regarding my own family and others around me.

When someone is lying on their death bed looking back at their life, thinking about what purpose their life had and how they spent their time. For some reason their thoughts always seem to come to a focal point on their family… Why is that?... Perhaps it’s because family is what brought them the most joy in their time here. Or maybe its because they feel that their family was their purpose. I don’t know that have an exact answer for you, but I do believe there is something divine about that. So let me ask you this. When someone asked you what you do for a living, why do we answer first with our occupation and most of the time only with that? When really our family is what matters most. Why don’t we answer first as a husband and father, then as an engineer or what have you. It sounds weird, but in all reality isn’t that the order our purposes fall in? 

We live in an interesting time, where I think for the first time in history, we are more afraid of the devaluing of money than we are of the family. And I am here to tell you that, that is a grievous mistake. This week in class we talked about how although the worlds population is growing, birth rates are falling dramatically and have been for a long time. Studies show that the world will actually begin to depopulate by 2050. Most people believe that this is a good thing. That its better for the environment and that a higher standard of living can be achieved by having fewer people. This is something that I have learned that could not be farther from the truth. The smaller and less value we place upon our families, the more a society falls apart. Family is the central unit for society and the disintegration of it will bring upon the disintegration of nearly every other social order. Throughout the next 12 weeks I will be discussing these subjects along with many other on why family is so important and how we can help to strengthen the most fundamental element of  our worlds society.

Introduction

 Hello everyone. My name is Ryan and I am currently a college student at BYU-Idaho. I'm studying Automotive Engineering but that's not really what this blog will be about. This blog will be about families, and why they are the very foundation of our society.  Although many of my post will likely be about my own experiences with my family, I will also talk about how families are changing around the world and why this is both good and bad. Hopefully someone besides myself will read these and find them of worth.

See you next week.