Are We Ever Truly Adults?

                                            ADOLESCENCE 

                          Sexual                                       Economic
1820              16-18  years                             18-20 years
2013             12- 14   years                            26-28 years

Brother Williams shared this shocking statistic in class and I found it to be muy interesante. Adolescence is the age between when we start to develop sexually (puberty) and become stable and dependent financially. I guess after that we are considered an adult. Haha yeah right. Are we ever truly adults? Let me explain this chart a bit. So in the early 1800's a person went through puberty, girls started having menstrual cycles when they were about 16 years old. Now of days if your 16 years old and still haven't developed in this way you are considered a late bloomer. In this blog entry I would like to focus more on this aspect of the statistics:  In the early 1800's when someone moves out of the house officially and become financially stable for them selves was around 20 years old. In 2013 this does not usually happen until a person is 26. Think about that.  26?!?!? If I am not financially stable for myself by them someone slap me. It is becoming the common trend that people do not get off of parents insurance or even move out of the house until 26.  This shocked me, especially that the social norm in 1820 was that those people who started a life for themselves did so at 20 years old. That would be like me right now being completely economically dependent. CRAZY. I don't know about you, but I am not at that point yet. This difference in ages of adolescence has changed drastically. I believe it has change in this way because of the world we live in. Kids these days do not have to work for what they have. If they want something, it is simple, as mom and dad for it. I think we need to train our kids to be appreciative for all the things they have, their beds, their toys, the food on the table. If we raise a generation like this, we may be able to get this world a little bit back on track. It is not until that child is pushed out of their comfort zone and have to pay for more of their own things do they learn the importance and value of something as simple as toothpaste. Living on my own, having to pay for all my necessary items I find that I tend to go without somethings that once used to be a necessity for me simply because spending my precious money on it is not worth it. These statistics were shocking but I know exactly why they changed the way they did. Let's change our ways and not only become more grateful for what we have, but to work for what we have. 

Let's Maintain an Eternal Relationship

Well the semester is slowly winding down to an end. That means 1.) Christmas is coming! 2) I get to go home to Maryland! 3.) FAMILY 160 is ending...wahhh. Okay so this past week we have been talking about divorce. I will be blunt as blunt can be. I DO NOT LIKE THIS TOPIC. However, divorce is a real thing and we as young adults need to be educated about it in order to avoid it. So in this entry I will share my thoughts on divorce, in stead of what I learned in class. Here it goes, Divorce is real. In class we discussed a case study concerning divorce and how it effects all people in the family. When a a couple gets divorced and has small kids, those kids are effected by it even if it all happened when the kids were young enough to not remember it. Those children will grow up without one parent or in a broken home. That is detrimental to a child. It is detrimental for a parent to watch that happen. I am not sure how people do it based off of choice. I recognize in some cases one partner has been faithful to the end, but it leaves that faithful person no choice than to divorce their unfaithful spouse. I feel divorce is only 100% necessary if severe adultery has been involved. There are many different scenarios for divorce. I hope that I can do everything in my power to avoid divorce. It is completely appropriate for all people to be educated about this and taught correct principles on how to maintain a loving relationship. In another class I am currently enrolled in we learned 4 steps to maintain an eternal relationship, and I will leave you with these steps.

Brother Beans Eternal Relationship Maintenance Theory

1.) Fall into lust (Physical)
2.) Fall into Love (Emotional)
3.) Fall out of Love ( Mortal/Real)
4.) Learn to Love (Eternal)

All couples fall out of love. Many older married people say something along these lines "there are days when I couldn't stand to be with them, but I never fell out of love"- you are denying you fell out of love yet you described exactly that. You can fall out of Love, its okay to admit, what makes relationships work is making it to the fourth step, learning to love.

Divorce. Is that a Crime?

Divorce. Is that a crime? Naa. I know plenty of great people, even faithful members of the church who have gotten divorced, and remarried. I do not think those people are bad, or that they are beneath anybody. Could these people have saved their marriage? In some cases its not up to both people to get divorced, one partner decides. In class there were several shocking statistics that Brother Williams threw out to us. My personal thoughts on divorce are please never happen to me. There is so much that goes into divorce, so many factors that lean towards divorce. I am no divorce expert, I don't have much advice for divorce or knowledge on it. I just know that It is a hard, long process that simply sucks, but here is what I want to touch upon: in the Young Single Adult LDS world people are so focused on marriage. What happend to having fun? being relaxed with dating and letting it all come naturally, with some effort? The common classic situation is two people start dating, two months later they are engaged and three months later married. This is how it seems at least. I believe that when people do start approaching marriage, they rush through some steps. This may be the number one cause for divorce among LDS people.Here is an example, someone real close to me is dating this boy. I know for a fact that this boy is ready for marriage and wants to marry my friend, there is just one problem, my friend is not ready to be married. If they rush through this, this relationship could end badly. Both people would be devastated and hurt. It is common for lots of young people to marry to quickly and divorce a few years later. I do not want this for my friend, or for anyone. When this happens, let's not change communication or relationships, lets change perspective and enhance relationships.  Concerning marriage: let's be mindful, careful, yet faith filled when dealing with the developing relationships.

For the Experience...

Parenting can be rough, I mean I only Imagine, I am not a parent, but I do get to watch my sister's parent their small children. I love watching them being moms because I get to see up close and up front what it is like to be a parent. Of course I do not get the actual experience of being an Aunt because I am not a Mom I just simply observe the difficult situations that My sister's have to deal with or the joys of being a mother. We learn by experience and that is how most people will learn how to parent. I am sure I will learn by experience of trial and error. That is why the first child is always considered the guinea pig. Growing up I never learned life lessons by getting a lecture from my dad, or activities my mom set up to teach me. I learned by making my own mistakes and having to deal with the natural consequence. I can also say being the youngest I have learned many lessons by watching my older siblings go through the experience. Brother would kick my sister and they would be punished so I took a mental note. "don't kick sister" I learned how to make my way without getting in trouble by situations like that. Lets take the experience and make it into a lesson we all need to learn. I know no one knows what they are getting themselves into when they become parents, but through experience we will learn.

The Parentals.

We are given a family so we can have a safe environment to learn and grow. Our Heavenly Father sends us to families for this reason. There are many, many, many people who don't end up with this luxury and it pains me to know that. I had a splendid childhood, I learned a lot about life growing up, and I am still growing up and learning about life. Being a parent is a luxury many people do not get to have. There are so many people, couples, friends that I know who have not been able to start a family with kids. Why do some people not want to be parents when they are able, and some who want to be parents are not able? It is so strange, but this is a trial some people have to endure. I know for many women it is a fear of theirs of not being able to have children because they want that experience of having children and all the pains and joys that come with it. There are endless possibilities to why we parent, but here are just a few:

1) develop a compacity to love

2) learn how to understand Heavenly Father

3) Become selfless

4) It has been commanded

5) Grow as a person, and in relationships

these are just five simple reasons people become parents. Now I am not trying to persuade anybody to become a parent I Just want to share  my value for parents. I know many parents who are not LDS and yes, they are great parents and show their kids love and compassion as well as disipline. I admire that, but with the gospel we can do so much more. 

Family like Friends

Brother Williams posed a question that I found interesting. What would your family be like if you made a distinct effort to try to get to know them. I then posed this similar question for myself. "what would my family be like if I treated them like I do my best friends?" this is a valid question. Would my relationships be stronger with my siblings if I was polite to them like my friends, if I joked around with them like my friends? I talk to my family differently, topics discussed are different, information is different. Would my relationships with my parents and siblings be better if I treated them just like I do my best friends. I believe my friends probably know me more deeply. nothing bad, my relationship with my family is great, don't get me wrong I just wonder could my relationship be better? for example, I never, ever, ever talk about boys with my family. I just don't I have nothing worth telling them, but with my friends we talk about boys all the time. We talk about our dreams and aspirations and such, with my family we talk about family stuff and things we all have in common right then. I often find myself showing more love to my friends then my family which is not good. My friends know i am thankful for them and that i appreciate them. my family knows this too, but I never say it. Is this making sense? I am more polite towards my friends cause I don't want to loose them. I am relaxed with them, and joke around with them, but our relationships are built off of consideration where as my family relations are built off of being together forever. Just like i do not want to upset a roommate cause I have to live with them for another semester; i should not want to upset a family member because I have them for eternity.So here it is, I am giving my self this challenge as well as all other fellow bloggers who are actually reading this cause I bet I have tens of billions of people reading this very post. yeah I said it.Here is my challenge. Treat your family like you do your friends. lets do it! This should be interesting!!!

I've got the POWER

Power can be a great or devastating aspect to a family. If power is handled in the right way it is beautiful in the family dynamics. When I think of power i think of the terms: respect, control, dominance, authority, presiding, and so on. Some of these terms can have a negative connotation and other terms give a warm spiritual relation. This exemplifies the fact that power is wonderful and needed, but when taken advantage of is detrementing to a family. We must have referent power. This is the type of power you give to someone because you love them, you listen to your parents because you love them. As a child you give them that power because they have it and the more you honor that the more your home will be at peace.We need to learn respect and by watching those who abuse power does not make it easy for a person to automatically give their respect. Power goes hand in hand with respect, with out respect we do not have any positive relationships. All relationships we are involved in should be based off of respect, it is a key factor into holding authority in a powerful way. (see what I did there)
In marriage we are told to not overuse our power, if power becomes manipulating, that is when we have let the power get out of hand. Many people get divorced over this conflict of, "Who has more power?" I say Let's share the power, delegate task, compromise and RESPECT one another.

Feedback is King

Communication...this is my main squeeze! Is that appropriate to say?  forgive me Brother Williams/TA I promise I don't usually say things like that. I am just excited about this topic. This year I have had many lessons on communication and I have learned there is way more to communication rather than talking and listening. It actually gets quite complicated. There are terms for common experiences everybody has that I had no idea had an actual definition. If that made sense. Anywho, Today I want to touch on the importance of being a good Communicator. The best way to be a good communicator is this Give feedback instead of responses. By this I mean when we have a friend, or an acquaintance speaking to us we should give feedback instead of just making a non-verbal response. For example, I will set up a little scenario:  You just walk through your apartment door after a long day on campus, no one is in the front room which is unusual so you make your way to the back to see if anyone is in their room. One roommate is home, so you talk to them about their day and she starts to tell you that she had a tough day, she failed her test she prepared so much for, it's Monday and she received no emails from missionary friends, her teacher assigned another research paper, and her little sister if annoying her. She asked if all those reasons to be upset are valid. Instead of just simply responding by saying something like "that stinks, sorry you had a bad day" you should give her feedback and tell her something like "it's stinks that all that happened today, its not the end of the world, you can bring up your grade by writing a bomb research paper and reaffirm that little sister's will always be annoying until they reach the age of 20." giving her feedback on not only things she wants to hear by just agreeing with her but by helping her realize some good that comes out of her day. Feedback has more meaning than responding with a simple statement or expression. Feedback expands on the initial response.

When Crisis Hits..

Stressors in the home can either strengthen or pull apart a family. Most likely it is the latter of the two which is sad. When crisis hits families usually respond negatively and let the problem tear them apart no matter how strong they are. why? Why is this? Why can't families figure out that they must take whatever is thrown at them. Giving up is cowardly, disrespectful to yourself and others, and defiantly not an option. Its like making a cake and not eating it. Who does that? To there are only a couple reasons for someone to break a relationship. Why work so hard, take so much effort and time to just diminish a good bond. That is why I believe we must use our trials to strengthen our ties to our families and relationships. Trials are a great tool for people to grow closer together. having the same experience is what brings people together in times of crisis. Often when a sibling dies the others become close all of a sudden. This is because they had to lean on each other because who else understood their situation?  When disaster strikes we must use our resources and choose how to respond. Our choice in what way to respond will determine how the whole process will go. This is important. no matter what the situation choose a good response. There is something good in everyday no matter what else happens. Use our trials and hardships to build our relationships with those we will be with for eternity, and with those we will be with here on earth. Being positive and reasonable is the best way to be. Do not let stressors pull a home apart, let them build a more stable home.

Curse Words...

Cheating is a curse word in "girl world".

 It should be a curse word in all worlds. Universally I believe cheating, as in adultery, is frowned upon. This is the type of cheating I am referring to, not cheating on a test something much more heart wrenching, cheating on people. No one encourages having romantic relationships with more than one person at a time. If they do it is not okay. (just my opinion) Here is a little fun fact for all those millions of readers I have following this blog, there are two different types of cheating, usually they go hand in hand, there is physical cheating and emotional cheating. When people start to get attached to someone in the sense when they love their personality and start to develop those strong romantic feelings that is considered emotional cheating. Physical cheating is having a physical relationship with someone else other than a spouse or partner. (partner meaning girlfriend or boyfriend)  Now here is that fun fact I was talking about: men rate physical cheating worse while women rate emotional cheating as worse. I would imagine that both types of cheating would bother both genders, however one type bothers each gender more than the other. In class we talked about infidelity and factors that lead to it as well as high fidelity. Don't we all want those types of relationships that are strength building and are not perfect, but that is okay because it IS perfect because both people are happy and can work through anything? Those are the types of relationships that never end, the kind you have to work at.  The relationships that are based off of lust and what is considered "easy" do not last, ever. Just a thought.

MAUUGGAGE. its what BWINGS us TOGEDDA today.

      So if anybody can tell me what that movie reference is in my tittle for the post gets 12 Premont Points.
alright, now that is out of the way. This week we talked about relationships and love and marriage. aww so sweet right. yes, that is the answer. I have never experienced marriage, so I have no authority over this topic, but I will talk about it anyway.

      I would consider myself very traditional when it comes to marriage and dating and things of that sort. In class we completed something called the marriage contract. We answered questions about marriage such as technical things like, will the wife take husbands last name? Will we have kids? Who will take out the trash?Will both parents work? etc. These are all important topics to discuss while couples are in the stages of courtship and even engagement. These differences are big factors in a relationship, some may even be deal breakers. While dating we should be getting to know each other more deeply. Relationships should flow naturally, have no forced feelings, and each person should be able to be themselves completely.Couples should address frustrations easily and be able to solve problems with each other.Here is a cool blog that I found that touches on marriage and other such subjects.click here .

Now where was I? oh yea marriage. Its what brings us together. The end.

WOW, they're Cute!

Attraction, the number one thing that leads to a relationship. Any type of relationship that is, friends, romantic, parental, etc. What causes people to be attracted to one another? Is it similarities? differences? interest? social status? All these factors play into what makes a person attracted to another. The first thing that draws a person to someone is their appearance.  It is a fact, eventually a person needs to be physically attracted to their partner in order to keep on a relationship. I believe that the appearance aspect does not necessarily need to be the first aspect that attracts a person, but eventually it needs to be there. Lots of people meet their spouse and start to like them for other reasons, such as personality and then as they get to know that person they become more and more attractive.

 I see people forming romantic relationships all the time. Why is it happening? I guess love is in the air or cupid is shooting arrows left and right because couples are everywhere. This is a good thing! I love seeing other people happy. These types of relationships are formed by first propinquity. This word means to be in close distance or nearness. We have to be around a person in order to form a relationship. It is just essential. The second is similarities, we have to have things in common to talk, connect and bond with or else we are just mush sitting there staring at each other in awkward silence. Third is physical attractiveness and well this is self explanatory.

  Emotion linked to Gender
        

          Gender plays a big role in all of our lives. Am I right? I think so. Without Gender how would we know who we really are? What is acceptable by society to like and dislike? How we should act around other people? All these things are influenced by Gender. Now there are some aspects of genders that are natural. Women are more tender, delicate, and dainty while men are said to be "macho" and "manly" . These are the stereotypes we place on gender roles. Girls play with dolls and boys play with trucks. Girls are relationship oriented and communicate emotionally and verbally as men are spatially oriented and communicate through their actions. The way Men and Women express emotion are very different. It is not that They feel different emotions it is that it is not socially acceptable for men to express how they feel the same way women do. How often do men express emotion through anger? I say pretty often. Why? Because it is not acceptable for men to say they are feeling vulnerable and lost. For example. Take a man who has a wife and kids who just lost his job. He must go home and tell his wife the news. In this time he may be feeling deeper emotions such as disappointment in himself, regret, loss of the sense of "provide, preside, and protect". When he gets home he kicks the dog out of the way, gets upset with his children for not cleaning up their mess and makes rude remarks about the dinner that was prepared. He is funneling his emotions as anger when really he is over whelmed with what happened in the work day.We as people let these "societal gender roles" dictate who we are. A man who just lost his job should just be able to express to his wife how he is feeling straight up, not having to leave hints of how he is actually feeling in aggressive actions.
       I am not saying that  all men should start crying over everything because that is how we feel or that all women should be more manly and show less emotion, there needs to be a Gender barrier, but what I am saying is that we cannot let Stereotypes of who we are supposed to be decide who we actually are, weather it be based on our our appearance, financial situation, race, or gender. We need to stray away from the world in this sense and live our lives how we believe we should be.

Are all Cultures Valid?

This was a question posed by my teacher this week and that got me thinking. Are all cultures really valid? The word valid to me means effective or correct. So during class when we were discussing this it was brought to my attention that no, not all cultures are valid. Every culture believes they are correct and others are repulsive. To Americans the middle eastern culture is controlling. The way women are perceived and treated by men is not acceptable in American culture. In other cultures women get married off young. These are extreme cases. In the context of the family not all cultures are effective in creating the ideal family life. Some cultures accomplish the family way better than others can and do. The american culture has made divorce socially acceptable while in Latin countries they are solely focused on their families and divorce is not an option. The Latin culture wins at this part of "the family" Some cultures are effective in the way they govern and run their families. For example, in Holland everyone gets the same salary. If your a trash man you get the same amount of money as a doctor. The people in Holland seem happy because there is no competition over money or status. This is their culture. Everyone is deemed equal. Holland may be more effective in the wellness of their people then maybe those Asian cultures who are told when and what to do everyday. The Asian race in general does not seem as happy as other cultures. this may be because their key ideals is to be honored and hard working. They are always serious. CBS news released a study done that declared Latin Americans as the happiest people. Why? what in their lives makes them so happy. The article can be read here.  My answer to the posed question is No. No not all cultures are equally valid. May cultures have different traditions and practices that seem strange to others, but it doesn't matter how "weird" it is. what matters is the reason, and meaning behind it.

Hello fellow classmates and any other viewers who were lucky enough to click on this blog,
This week in Family Relations I personally found our class discussions fascinating. We spoke about Family Systems Theory. There are four different theories. The first one is systems theory. This theory is my personal favorite because it is viewed as a whole. Each family member has a specific role and there are rules. The second theory is the exchange theory- doing something for someone else expecting a favor in return. This is a give and take situation. This theory has several flaws in the way people can react and communicate to impact the family negatively. Symbolic Interaction is when every action means something to someone else. This become analytic and every behavior suggest a meaning. As people we create and assume meaning from all interactions. these interactions are easy to misunderstand. the last theory is the Conflict theory. This is when power maybe overt or subtle, but all families find ways to resolve their conflicts. I would put my family in the systems theory because I feel we each have definite roles in our family. Maybe that is why I favor that theory, but in our family it works.I have definitely seen these other theories take place in other families and they work for some, but not for all families.

Hello fellow classmates and other public who may be reading this! This week we discussed some interesting facts and trends in class. I would like to talk about the trends that as a population we are seeing now of days compared to the mid 1900's. Within Americans the age we now settle down and begin families has increased. The age we as Americans are getting married has raised to 26 years old for women and 28 years old for men. In an LDS population the age for women to get married is 22 and the age of men is 24. Going to school at BYU-Idaho I have friends my very own age who are already married. That is crazy to me, but I guess I may be adapting a little bit of the worlds view on that. However, in my experience I have met more men who are on the so called "older" end of the spectrum who have yet to get married. (24-27) and meeting younger girls who are 18-21 years of age here at BYU-Idaho. The worlds trends on marriage age is in a small way becoming the LDS "norm" as well. This shocks me  in the way men and women are holding off marriage now and instead of tying the knot, they are simply moving in together and cohabiting. Premarital sex has increased, cohabitation has increased, and young single mothers have increased. These are all results of our population not wanting or seeing the need to be married. 40% of kids born are born to single mothers. Think of the effect that has on the child and mother as well as the effect it will have on society. Without marriage there are no commitments to anyone. This has become appealing to most people. Another effect from marriage decreases is that birth rates have decreased. This bring us into the Demographic Winter documentary. This documentary focused on the fact that population is not increasing exponentially it is actually decreasing, the opposite of what many people think. There are several factors that go into the reason for this Demographic winter, but what will happen to the earths population if these trends keep up? Our older  people are living longer and less babies are being born. In several years the elderly population will start to die off and we will have less kids then ever before. How can we change this? Is it important to change this? and What will happen if it is not changed? Some questions to think about.

Hello all!
As this blog was designed and created for my lovely Family Relations class, I will be discussing my insights, thoughts, and what I have learned this semester. This past week during class the question came up about dating. "Why don't we date as much as our parents did?" now there are several answers to this question. I personally think that while our parents were in their prime dating years there was more of a social acceptability to formal dates. When I say formal dates I think of being asked out, going out and doing an activity in which each couple (maybe several) are paired off. Now of days dating is just "hanging out" only will you ever see steady dating on a very serious level. I also think another reason for the dating change is that young adult's morals have gone down hill. Our overall morals are not as high as they should be. Other colleges have much more vulgar and serious sexual sins, as well as word of wisdom sins that lead to loose terms concerning dating. One last reason I believe that young adults of 2013 do not date as much as our parents generation is because the reasons for dating have slightly changed. Our parents generation dated to marry, now people date to date and to have fun. Marriage may be more of a outside thought. So there you have it. Feel free to comment or post your own opinions! until next time.