Family Diversity

   The world is full of families of all sizes and types. One of the things we talked about this week was how there are many social classes involved in the world, we have upper class, middle class, and lower class. In each and every class we are seeing less and less marriage and parenthood, we all are influenced in one way or another by those celebrities who are put in a spotlight. Parenthood is happening often before people marry and these relationships are more unstable for children. Also in each class I have noticed, (especially after watching parts of the documentary "People Like Us: Social Class in America.") that when someone is in a lower class or lower middle class they have difficulty overcoming their current state and repeat or do not get much further than their parents. One particular account in the documentary showed us the life of a woman named Tammy, her dream was to eventually quit working for burger king and go back to school so she could become a school teacher. Because of her place in society she had difficulty with one of her sons and his lack or respect for her. He was embarrassed of where he lived and how things were. His mother was a hardworking woman and I had so much love for her as I watched. It followed up on their story 12 years later and they had moved to a slightly nicer part of town but Tammy was still working at burger king at minimum wage not able to progress much. Tammy's children had children outside of marriage and the older son who had issues respecting his mom had to drop out of school to take care of his new family, thus perpetuating their social status. 
      
       Later I watched a story of a man who grew up in a middle class home and being a part of many of the baby boomers, he made it to upper middle class or upper class. In his story he took us through a store where those from his class would shop, he showed us items he never would have considered growing up. He spoke of how his mom loved concrete lawn ornaments because she never was able to actually have any of those things younger, he said that they were considered taboo in his class and tacky. Each group of people is effected by those around them and all groupings of people have stereotypes and things expected of them. 

    Our second half of the week, we discussed Immigrant families coming from mexico (specifically illegal immigrants to the United States) and the difficulties they face socially, economically and the massive impact on the family that comes with it. Often times the father alone will come across the border to find work and establish a home, most families expect 6 to 12 months away before all could come with but it usually ends up being 3 to 5 years before the family is reunited. Mothers are forced to become the head of the house and children can lose respect for their absent dad. Fathers in the U.S are working hard doing everything for the family but aren't making much money and cannot do the jobs they used to do in Mexico. They can't be hired by companies even if their degrees were recognized and they don't know English all that well. They work among those of a similar situation and therefore don't learn nearly as much as they expected. When the family does come, the children become much more independent and struggle having respect because as students they will pick up English quickly. There is a trauma in moving let alone leaving all possessions and beginning a new life entirely. Culture gets mixed with a new generation and there are gaps between the older and the younger. In class I thought and someone asked, "why do they do it then?" and the answer was simply because they wanted their children to have opportunity, a chance to grow and be better. Isn't that what we all want?

      Each individual family has its own culture and its own unique impact on the world. We should desire to find that lasting joy in the family that is available to every social lass and seek to help those individuals that are in need. I am loving this class and hope my blog posts in the future can become more refined and impact those who do read it.

     

Week two of blogging! This weeks learning was called "Understanding Family Dynamics and Theories." We observed as a class certain ways families behave and a few of the theories that social scientists have come up with to describe these interactions. Our first task was to prepare a list of unspoken rules that we have seen in our upbringing. I struggled to actually come up with any at first, but after hearing my classmates with theirs, I really started to remember some. My favorite, and most applicable answer, was that as a child, we could never say that we were bored because our parents always found ways to keep us busy. Our Professor mentioned in his family he would not be allowed to ask for things he wants, rather he was expected to work and hope for that reward he wants. In one of my friends families, she always had to call her mom and tell her where you were going regardless of how long so she would not "freak out". The list goes on and on. Even to this day, I do not say I am bored for fear of what used to follow that phrase.

The first theory we learned about was called conflict theory. It is the thought that people interact based on power, control, authority, influence, or force. One party is always on top and the other fighting to take control. It is not meaning violence or abuse necessarily, but it means that when a decision is made, one is victorious and the other succumbs to the other.

Systems theory is all about those unspoken rules I briefly touched upon earlier. The culture of a family, the rules and roles of members of a family are all examples. It is about each individual playing a part in a system, everyone has something to contribute and we know how to effectively contribute based on the kind of feedback we receive.

Exchange theory is a 50%, 50% mentality. Because I put this much into the relationship I can expect this much out. We learned and discussed how each member of a relationship should input 100% because no one is perfect and we all will vary with how much we actually contribute so we should help each other always make up the difference. For a while, many counselors would help marriage problems using this theory, but we realized that this alone can cause a person to be manipulative if only going 50% and 50%.

Symbolic interaction theory is one that I still need some brushing up on with understanding, but it implies that every action and expression a person makes has a deeper meaning and, in my experience, I am wrong so much of the time. I see an expression my wife makes and think she is mad at me, but in actuality, she is really just daydreaming. We often do not understand simply because we are not from the same family system we learned our expressions from.

This week was a really great way to start noticing how families act in public and with each other. At work, I was able to observe children playing with materials we have laid out on our desk and how parents respond in giving feedback. I also saw children picking things up that fell on the floor so they could give it to me and the reward, or approval, that came from the parent. I had the experience to see wives spend fortunes on adorable goods that the husband found redundant and how he treated her with kindness and love regardless. There were husbands spending large amounts of money on kayaks or large outdoor equipment where I saw his wife rolling her eyes, but respecting his wants and still full of love.

I know that the family system is the most important unit in society and the way we raise the upcoming generations will impact us all. I know that these unspoken rules are here for a reason and we should seek the best ways to build others up in our family.

For anyone reading my blog please post some examples of unspoken rules in the comments. It is really fun to learn about some of these rules we have in our families and how they shape us as adults.

Weeks one and two, truths behind the family unit

This is the beginning of my journey into family studies and I think this class will inspire some deep thought. I will do my best to cover 2 weeks worth of very important information for the family. This course is a sample course where we research studies that have been performed in family science that help shape the family and as a result shape the world.

Our first assignment was to review and study an article regarding APA brief used in the Supreme Court to shape the way the world views families. The Brief says and affirms that ‘‘Not a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents’’. This claim is NOT backed by reliable studies. The biggest thing from this that I have learned is that we as individuals need to look deeper into everything these days. If you have a political, social, religious or any strong, firm belief we need to avoid opinion and seek for deeper truth. I learned about sampling procedures like having large sample sizes, representative samples, and avoiding convenience samples. There are many more things to learn but just breaking down these three examples we see real problems with what is supposed to be a very credible source(The American Psychological Association).

My favorite poorly done sample was conducted in 1999 by Crawford et al.
This was all about the effects of lesbian and gay parenting on children and the audience sampled was
"388  Psychologists attitudes". There was no comparison group, and it seems very convenient to just ask colleagues instead of the actual subject of interest.

A study done by Patterson in 1994 had 66 lesbian and gay parents describe the social and sexual identity of their children. There was no one sampled in comparison so we can't say anything to confirm or deny the APA brief claim, ‘‘Not a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents’’.

The list of poorly conducted research goes on and on with only a few truly effective samples. This article actually shows us the 7th largest study done by Sarantakos (1996), but with critiques from the APA because it's findings are very different from their original claim. The study was done of 58 children of heterosexual married parents, 58 children of heterosexual cohabiting couples, and 58 children living with homosexual couples, it is one of the few that have unbiased research, large sample size, and "socially significant criteria".

I was shocked to see the findings. They asked teachers about performance of each of these children in school, achievement in math class had heterosexual children rated at 7.9 and homosexual children at 5.5, english was 7.7 and 5.5 and it goes on. All of these eye opening lessons I've shared are found in the article "Same-sex parenting and children’s outcomes: A closer examination of the American psychological association’s brief on lesbian and gay parenting" by Loren Marks from Louisiana State University, 341 School of Human Ecology, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, United States.


This week we watched a documentary called "Demographic Winter". It was all about how a book, "the Population Bomb" effected society and helped contribute to lower birth rates, fertility rates, and marriage rates in the world. The book "The Population Bomb" was about there being too many people on the planet to sustain and how "babies are killing us". Written in 1968 it predicts worldwide famine in the 70's and 80's. Instead of this happening as predicted something much more interesting is being discovered. Social scientists and other scientists are now noticing that populations in almost every country of the world is either declining or about to. Although immigration helps a country sustain it's population for a time it doesn't change the observations we see of the world population decreasing. The elderly are living longer with advances in medicine but fewer and fewer children are being born to take care of those older generations meaning they will have to work harder and smarter than ever before seen.

Now more than ever before the definition of family and the blessings that come from a Nuclear Family are being lost or changed drastically. My intent is to learn and show my generation how important the family is for the world, and to help maintain the true definition of family.