“So it’s not going to be easy. It’s going to be really hard; we’re going to have to work at this, every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, every day. You and me every day.” –Noah Calhoun

This quote comes from a famous romantic novel that has since been turned into a film, many of you have seen, The Notebook. I just so happened to watch this movie for the first time ever two weeks ago. Honestly, not a big fan of the movie however the quote is very fitting for today’s topic: marriage.

Marriage, as defined by the Oxford Dictionaryis “the legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners in a personal relationship” and by the Merriam-Webster Dictionaryas “the state of being united as spouses in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law”. I feel there is so much more to a marriage than legally proving that two people are together. 

Every person in this world is so uniquely different. Sure we can all share commonalities such as: favorite colors, food preferences, and music we enjoy, with each other but the environments and cultures we grew up in vary person to person. So do you really think that joining two people together legally would be easy? I mean with the simple phrase “I do” people are bound together, but do we really stop and think about all the strings attached with that? It’s no longer just me, it’s wenow.

My grandparent’s will celebrate their 62nd wedding anniversary in a couple days. They were married June 14, 1957 in Highmore, South Dakota, in a Lutheran church. They held a reception in the basement of the church with the whole community there to celebrate with them. They later moved their family down to Texas and have been there ever since. I have been blessed to grow up around the street from them and they have been such a good example to look up to when it comes to marriage. 

I asked my grandparents how they’ve made it over these past six plus decades and what they think makes a good marriage. I asked my grandfather what the secret was to making a marriage work and he said, “You know what us old people say…. The husband makes all the major decisions and the wife makes all the minor decisions. So far I have yet to have to make any major decisions.” How cute is he. He laughed a bit and then in all seriousness told me the real key to a good marriage is togetherness. Working together in all things. 

Making sure that decisions are made and problems are solved together. In the small and big they work together. If it was a matter of money, my grandparents decided that they would never buy anything they couldn’t pay for in cash. When it came to family they discussed the fact that grandpa would work as much as he need to provide for his family, so that grandma could stay home and watch or the children. Because of my grandparents’ good communication and working to together they have never had any big disagreements.

Really the best way to foster a good marriage is to work in unity in decision making, problem solving, and the why that you communicate with your significant other, both before and during marriage. Often times the habits we develop in our courtship and engagement stages we tend to continue in our marriages. It is up to us to decision what we want to make our marriage. 

“Dating is about finding out who you are and who others are. If you show up in a masquerade outfit, neither is going to happen.” –Henry Cloud

Dating, in the traditional sense, is relatively extinct in our society nowadays. The true nature of dating is going out on several different planned outings with a variety of different people. That doesn’t happen anymore with the millennials as it did with previous generations. All the kids (middle schoolers through college-age students) these days seem to want to do is “hang out”, basically be on social media or electronic devices in the same room together not really socializing.  Sometimes they even enter into exclusive relationships without even going on dates to get to know one another better. 

I decided to ask a couple of my aunts, one forty-five years old the other sixty-one years old, to see what some of their experiences with dating were like when they were my age. I wanted to compare this with what I have had in my life. They both had fond memories to share with me. One of the things they said was that typically young men would ask them on dates and they were pretty creative with their variety of activities on their dates. Some of the dates included: dancing, hiking, picnics, ice blocking, cutting a Christmas tree, making dinner, bowling, dollar theaters, and sporting events. They mentioned that young men were pretty outgoing and that they got asked out on dates often and that dates didn’t have to be expensive to be fun.  One of my aunts remembers, “One time I had three dates in one day. One in the morning for breakfast, one in the afternoon to play racquetball, and one in the evening for dinner, all with different guys.” 

As for myself, I like to joke that I am “unlucky in love”. My dating life has been an interesting, almost off-putting experience, and nothing like my aunts. I have had two relationships in my twenty-one years of existence. May I note that I use the word “relationship” very loosely. I have been reflecting on the reasons for the termination of these courtships since learning new information this week and this is my analytical breakdown of what went wrong. It’s very simple. It all started with the dating aspect. I think with each guy, I went on one date with them, and then we decided that we were crazy about each other and wanted to be in an exclusive relationship. At the time it seemed like a great idea. The first relationship was long distance one and we had been on two dates before deciding to be together. We also did not communicate plans for the future. I mean it is kind of important to know if your significant other has any plans to be in the same state as you anytime soon. Sufficed to say I did not know this young man well enough and this three-month relationship should not have happened. The second relationship is a more recent affair. Honestly, it was a lot better than the first one. But nonetheless, we should have taken more time to look at all the factors of entering into a relationship before we did. Because really we didn’t even go on a first date before deciding to be together. I haven’t gone on lots of dates with different men. I find the one that shows interest and just jump right in, but that all stops today. 

Here’s what I’m suggesting for myself. I’m going to take my time and go on dates with lots of people slowly narrowing down the field till I find the one I want to be with. Getting to know people takes time. In fact, take the advice of Book writer John Van Epp, he wrote a book called How to Avoid Falling in Love with A Jerk. In his book, he gives us what he calls the “Know quo”. In essence, the “Know quo” is this formula to help us really get to know another person. 

Togetherness + Talk + Time =Know

Meaning that you have to spend time doing varies activities, with each person equally sharing information about themselves, and taking at least three months of doing these things to really get to know a person.

Book Citation

“Chapter 4.” How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk: the Foolproof Way to Follow Your Heart without Losing Your Mind, by John Van Epp, McGraw-Hill, 2008, pp. 58–58.

Men and women have roles – Their roles are different, but their rights are equal. –Harri Holkeri

Growing up, I played with Barbie dolls. I had at least ten dolls, with more clothes than I had in my own closet, and a complete doll house set with furniture for a kitchen, living room, bathroom, and bedroom. I played with them almost daily. I remember setting it all up on a glass table in the playroom my house had and losing track of time because I was so engrossed in the world of Barbie. If I didn’t feel like playing with Barbie on a rare day I had princess dress-up clothes, baby dolls, and a little girl’s kitchen set I could play house with.

On the flip side, my older brother wouldn’t touch any of my girly toys with a ten-foot pole. There was serval time in our childhood where I would beg and beg him to play Barbie with me and he would say, “Barbie is for girls and I’m a boy” then would run off to go play with his Lego’s or videogames which were “for boys only”. Which was fine cause I didn’t want to play with those kinds of toys anyway. They weren’t girly.

It’s interesting how at such a young age my brother and I had defined what a “girls toy” (pink and lots of dolls) should be and what a “boys toy” (blue and more hands on) and we didn’t cross that line. He played with his toys and I played with mine.  We were just kids without a clear understanding of what gender is defined as, yet we were still distinguished between what we thought should be boy and girl objects.

This week I had the opportunity to read a blog post found on the American Council on Health website. The title of the article was “Infants Prefer Toys by Gender” and was quite a fascinating little read. (I will post a link to the article at the bottom of this post.) The article goes on to tell us about a study that was done to see if starting at the young age of 9 months to the age of 32 months, saying that this was the age “when infants can first demonstrate toy preferences in independent play” children show a preference to toys more catered to their gender (Infants Prefer Toys by Gender). The results of the study showed that the little girls, like me as a small child, tended to lean towards the pink toys and baby dolls and the boys swayed towards the blue and hands on toys. 

However, there may be more than meets the eye here. The article references Dr. Brenda Todd who say, “Biological differences give boys an aptitude for mental rotation and more interest and ability in spatial processing, while girls are more interested in looking at faces and better at fine motor skills and manipulating objects” (qtd. In Infants Prefer Toys by Gender). I thought this was quite interesting. There is a biological difference that can lead children to choose the toys that they do. I have definitely seen the truth in this statement. I have a good friend that I follow on social media. She has the cutest little daughter. She posts videos and pictures often of her little girl in the toy isle of a store dragging some toy or doll over to her mom to buy. Every time the toy is a “girls toy”. I had never really payed much attention to that until reading this article.

Boys and girls are different. Gender is not just effected by society and the so called “norms” of gender but there is also something in our genetic make-up that have men and women acting different that does not make anyone of us less equal then the other. 

https://www.acsh.org/news/2016/07/22/infants-prefer-toys-by-gender?utm_source=email%20marketing%20Mailigen&utm_campaign=News%207.29.16&utm_medium=email

“Infants Prefer Toys By Gender.” American Council on Science and Health, American Council on Science and Health, 22 July 2016, http://www.acsh.org/news/2016/07/22/infants-prefer-toys-by-gender?utm_source=email%2Bmarketing%2BMailigen&utm_campaign=News%2B7.29.16&utm_medium=email.

“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