“You leave home to seek your fortune and when  you get it you go home and share it with your family.” -Anita Baker

            When we hear the word culture we, or at least I, think of different beliefs and ethnicities around the world, but this week my eyes were open to the idea of families having their own culture. What I mean when I say family culture is the behaviors, beliefs, and characteristics of your family. I wanted to understand this concept better so I talked with my mother and father. I wanted to compare the cultures that each of them had growing up and compare it to the culture of our family now. I asked them both the question, “What do you feel your family culture was growing up?”

            For my mother, she grew up in Washington D.C. in a middle class family. She was a family of four, her parents, a younger sister she didn’t get a long great with, and her. Both of her parents worked full time and on occasion they would have a house keeper come clean the house. My mother’s family was very family oriented, especially with extended family, and loved spending time with each other. They often took vacations and road trips such as: a yearly Disney World trip, and driving the coast in their RV, as a way to spend time together. My mom’s childhood was spent going to the theater or ballet, Visiting museums and monuments. Their family’s views on money were, “spend what you have as you go.” And my grandparent’s provided everything for their children. But that lifestyle allowed them to be well rounded and learned. My mother’s family valued manners and modesty. They were very formal people inside and outside of the home, but they also had the freedom to speak your mind. Which often ended in yelling matches. 

My dad on the other hand had a very different cultural upbringing. My father grew up on a farm in south Dakota. He was a family of six, His parents, an older sister, a younger brother, a baby sister, and himself. All of them got along very well and value a family centered home. My dad recounted that they would always have extended family dinner for all the surrounding family on Sundays. My grandfather worked to bring in the money, which they were very frugal with, while my grandmother stayed home and tended to the family and house work. Their philosophy for their family was, “Work for what you get don’t expect someone to give it to you,” showing that my dad’s family valued hard work. They were early raises and were always doing something. My grandfather was a military and ran a tight ship. That meant being respectful and not talking back to adults. However, they did have a more causal appearance and formality with people.

Comparing the family cultures my parents were raised in I realized that the one that they created for our family of five was a fairly even blend of the two for both the better and the worst. Our family culture like both my parents is very family oriented. I want to be able to continue this cultural aspect into my future family someday. As well as, working hard for what you want and saving our money. That is one of the traits that was a combination of my parents. While my dad’s side saved money to provide for themselves what they wanted and my mom’s side spent their money as they got it to do stuff together. My parents have cultivated a happy medium. Our family is taught to save up our money so that we can provide for each other. This meaning, I have worked hard to buy things I wanted but my parents have taken care of my needs. It has been such a blessing in my life and I hope to replicate that with my family someday. However, my family is far from perfect, and there are definitely some of our cultural characteristics that I would not wish to replicate, such as yelling. We are a very hotheaded family and when we get mad we yell. I personally don’t like yelling, and don’t wish to make that a part of my future. One of the other traits for my family is that we don’t really get to state our opinions, that comes from my dad’s side. I don’t want that as a part of my family. I want us all to be able to speak freely and feel comfortable sharing our opinions. My families not perfect but I love them! Our culture has made me who I am today and for that I am grateful.  

“Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.” —Jane Howard

            What is a phenomenon? Well, dictionary.comdefines it a couple different ways. One definition is “a fact, occurrence, or circumstance observed or observable”. The second is “something that is impressive or extraordinary.” I don’t know about you guys but that sounds like a family! To me families are a unique system of individuals who are trying to become one and are observable to others. (cough, cough, phenomenon, cough, cough) Yet no one has come to a perfect formula to understand how to have a perfect family. Lots of Theories have been formed on families and how they work. (Just as a side note these theories can apply to more than just family relationships) I will be sharing with you four theories on the family system and then talking about the one I feel my personal family conforms to the most.

            Have you ever made an exchange before; the process of trading an object for something in return? Well, that is what the first theory is based off of. It is known as the Exchange Theory. In essence the theory claims that you are in a relationship (premarital, marital, family, even friendship) to be a balance of giving and receiving. Image a scale, similar to the ones you see to represent justice, that is perfectly balanced but then little by little more weight is added to the left side. The relationship is fine as long as the scales are balanced but when they start to become off centered the system fails. 

            The second family theory is known as Symbolic Interaction Theory. This is the belief that the whole system (couple, family, etc) work better together than they do apart. They also learn from experiences and find the meaning behind events. For example, say that you are a young married couple and decided that you don’t want kids. Then let’s say a couple weeks later you find out you are pregnant. As you go through the process and experience different things: when the baby first kicks, the birth, the child’s first steps, their first words, all of these things shape you and eventually you release how much you love your child and that you want more. 

            Who hasn’t had a conflict with someone before? I know I have had my fair share of problems with another person. The next theory is known as the Conflict Theory. Base of this idea is that person will oppose and push until they get what they want. The person like authority and wants the power in the relationship. Picture a relationship in which you are always doing what the other person wants to do.

            Ok now the last theory is called the Systems Theory. When you think of a system you think of different parts working together to produce something, or at least that is what my thoughts turn towards. This theory believes that every member of the family has a role in which they fit and they have rules that whether spoken or not are in place. I feel that my family falls under this category. There are five of us in my family. My mom and dad play their traditional roles of nurturer and provider, respectively. As for my siblings and I we all have different roles. My brother is the oldest and has the role of being strong, independent, and an example. I am the middle child and somehow took on the responsibility of being the peacekeeper. My baby sister is view as the baby, who needs help with everything. 

            The great thing is if you look at all or any of these theories and recognized that you and/ or your family fall into these categories you can be the change. A lot of times we tend to want to revert back to what is familiar to us, but if we can identify the problem we can start to make a change so that our future families can be just that much better.

“Ohana means family and family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.” –Stitch

            This is one of my favorite quotes about family. No matter how crazy my family may get at some points, they are always there for me.

            Now for a slight introduction before I get into the main message of this post today, my name is Megan, and I am a current Marriage and Family studies major at Brigham Young University- Idaho. The purpose of this blog is for me to share what I am learning from my Family Relations class with all you lovely readers and for us to discuss the topic in a civil manner. My targeted audience in writing this blog is for those who are currently unmarried, for I myself am unmarried, and might share similar view points, but of course everyone is welcome! The majority of this blog will be to inform you all of the current status of family in relation to the world today… Where does it stand? Why is or isn’t it important today? I will try not to be bias but forgive me if I am.  If you feel what I am speaking about does not satisfy your need for learning I have a tab on my blog labeled “More Like This” which will direct you to several other links to blogs on family matters. 

            The Population Bomb a book written by Paul R. Ehrlich, once a professor at Stanford struck fear into the hearts of many people during the late 1960’s and in some way still affects society today. For those not familiar with The Population Bomb, I, myself hadn’t heard about it until this week, it is a book that in essence stated that children were going to destroy the world. That sounds really dramatic doesn’t it? Well, basically the research that Ehrlich did showed that soon our population would grow so much that we would soon run out of natural resources. Here’s the thing you guys, because of this book the family was impacted. 

For my family relations class, we had to watch a documentary called New Economic Reality: Demographic Winter that was broadcast on BYU TV. The broadcast was quite interesting and informative. (I would definitely recommend you all watch it if you want more information about family trends in the world today.) The documentary defines fertility rate as “the average number of children that a woman will have in her life time”. Now this is how The Population Bomb is linked to impacting the family. Roughly stated in New Economic Reality: Demographic Winter the U.S fertility rate in 1957 was 3.7 and a was on a slow decline but with the appearance of Ehrlich’s book the fertility rate continued to decline even more. In fact, the documentary tells us that not but 3 years after the book was published the average woman was only having 2.13 children. That number is referred to as the replacement fertility rate. When a fertility rate drops below that, the trends show that the society’s population will eventually decrease substantially. 

It saddens me to say that this is what is happening all over the world today. After the publication of The Population Bomb,the hearts of the people were changed, and now people do not see the need for big families. At the rate everything is going, we are going to be seeing less children being born, and most people are going to have to work twice as hard for what they need because there are less young generations to fill the places of the older ones. 

What are your thoughts on the decrease of fertility rate? I would definitely appreciate hearing what you lovely reader’s think about the information that I have shared with you all today. Leave comments and let’s get a discussion going!

Work Cited: BYU Broadcasting. “New Economic Reality: Demographic Winter.” BYUtv, 2018,   www.byutv.org/player/59b6b917-984a-478f-93b1-521a647779c4/new-economic-reality-demographic-winter-part-1?q=demographic winter.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton