Emily McCaleb Family Relations

 Marriage is such an important part of life. It creates loyalty, unity, and love within the family. It promotes stability, security, compromise, conflict resolution, and many more positive attributes. Marriage can be traced back to the beginning of the world. It is the foundation for the basic unit of the family. However, more recently marriage has become less and less common. People are opting for “the single life” or  cohabitation (in other words living together outside the bonds of marriage.)  There are many reasons that we are seeing these current trends. One reason people gave is that “ you lose your individuality when you get married.”  My family relations professor is a family and marriage therapist and has said in his many years of experience he has never once had a couple come in with marital problems and express that concern. Another reason is that people want to “see how they work together.” In my personal opinion, I would want the guarantee of a commitmen...

       Hi everybody! This week we learned about the concept of dating and preparing for marriage. This is a topic that has changed its meaning over generations. In the olden days “seriously dating” was called courting. In order to court someone, a man would have to ask the father permission inorder to court his daughter. It was a much more serious affair then it is now. These days it seems that everybody has their own definition of what dating means. When I asked one roommate what it meant to her, she explained that it is when you go out with someone for a non-committal activity. When I asked another roommate she answered that it is when you are seriously committed to one person and only go on dates with them. For the purposes of this blog entry, I am defining dating as going on dates and seriously dating or courting as a commitment to only date each other.  In the last few decades, dating has taken a significant decline in frequency. People are no longer asking...

  Hello everybody! I hope your week is going absolutely fantastic! This week I am going to be writing about Christ’s example and gender roles. Gender has become a very sensitive subject in the modern world. It has become a very relevant issue in politics and in social interactions. In fact, it is still being brought up in current politics as they are trying to decide the next supreme court justice. I believe that it is a subject that we should all be able to openly talk about without judgement on either side. If we are able to see others with love and compassion, we can discuss these sensitive subjects openly.  A person's sexual attraction has been widely discussed among social science workers. Is it biological or a choice? Does it have to do with a person's environment or their personal experiences? The answer is that there isn’t a definite answer. Like most of the social science studies, there isn’t one definite answer to the question because there are multiple factors invol...

       When we hear the word culture we often think about the social practices of a society or group of people. Countries have different cultures. States can have different practices. Even a town or city can have their own culture or traditions. What we don’t realize is that we have our own cultures within our families. We often don’t realize that we have created a culture until we are out of it. An example was given that a fish does not realize it is in water until it is out of it. We create our own practices, traditions, habits and values within the family unit. However, our family culture is influenced by our social culture. If you live in a different country, your family traditions will be much different than a family of a different culture. Often societies will have traditions that are followed by the family unit. My sister served her mission in the Philippines. There, it is customary to not knock on doors when you arrive. Instead, you just have to yell really l...

Hey everybody! Throughout this week, I have been able to reflect on the influence that the family has on an individual. I believe that it shows the importance of families in our lives. We discussed a theory called the family systems theory. This theory states that every member of the family has roles that they fill and rules that they follow. It is like a baby mobile. Each piece has its place but when one piece moves the entire mobile moves. If one piece is missing, the entire system is changed. It is the same for families. Each member of the family fulfills a role whether they recognize it or not. You might be the family clown, provider, provoker, comforter, or the quiet one. No matter what your role is, you have a major influence on your family dynamic. Some roles stay consistent while others change on a frequent basis. The roles of mom or dad might never change. However, roles like the comforter or provoker might change on a daily basis. In more extreme circumstances, the role of pr...