Parenting

Parents have the responsibility to protect their children and prepare them to survive and thrive. And for them to have courage, cooperate, be responsible, and have respect. For children to have a belonging, the parents should offer contact freely, teach the children to contribute to chores, the family or a team. Children also need to learn different stages of power and protection. For power they should be given responsibility in age appropriate situations. For protection parents should have the correct amount of assertiveness and forgiveness to their children.

When parents and children argue or children argue with other children, parents need to understand who owns the problem. In other words, who does the issue really bother or affect. Once this is understood the parent can try to make sure that those who do not own the problem will be more considerate of the other’s needs, or to make the problem go away for the one who owns it.

Communication and Power

You communicate with words, tone of voice and actions (non-verbally). Communication can be lost in the “feedback loop” and is often during decoding portion.

Person 1’s thoughts (feelings)àencoded messageà medium of communicationàdecoded messageàPerson 2

In marriage it is important to: not only to learn how to communicate effectively, but how to communicate with your spouse effectively; learn how to disagree without being disagreeable; know what is best for the relationship, not necessarily compromise; and care at least as much about your spouse as you do yourself.

There are also 6 different forms of power:

Coercive: to avoid punishment from spouse

Reward: to recieve a reward from spouse

Legitimate: the spouse has the right to ask for help and you have to duty to comply

Expert: one person has more knowledge of particular things

Refernt: identification with or admiration of spouse and a desire to please them

Informational: persuasion by spouse that what they want is also in your best interest

Family Crises

Family scholars use the ABCX method to determine the stress for individual family members.

A= the actual event or crisis

B= behavior, or the resources and reactions

C= cognitions which determines their perspective

X= Total Experience

 

The resources can be friends, family, money, assets, ect. And B has to do with whether the member chooses to take advantage of the resources. The cognitions are the way the individual member defines the event. All three outlooks determine the experience and stress towards each person.

After a crisis there are many ways to cope with it, and of course, some are more beneficial than others. Some that are risky and can further damage relationships are denial, scapegoating (blaming), and avoidance. Positive skills to cope are responsibility, understanding family worth, reframing (redefining the situation), and flexibility.

Sexual Intimacy

Yes, this is a ‘taboo topic’, even between some couples. But should it be? It is important to understand what goes on in the body and mind during sex, as well as the general misconceptions. Sex is not only physical; it is also emotional and spiritual. Physical being for their satisfaction, pleasure and health; Emotional for their love, attachment and unity; Spiritual is not only for those who are religious, it is the meaning and purpose, a way for a couple to progress together. With physical, emotional, and spiritual together a couple can have Sexual Wholeness.

Men and women do not experience sex in the same way. Men are often aroused sooner than women, generally women do not even know when they are aroused. Without understanding this, a man may think his wife is not enjoying their time. A wise couple will openly communicate about what they prefer, and would learn more about sex by talking together. Spouses are not mind-readers, it is very important to talk about every aspect of marriage, including sexual intimacy.

When aroused there are extra hormones in the brain: adrenaline, serotonin, and dopamine (and oxytocin in women). Normally women need to feel safety and security before they can be sexual, men are the opposite, and they feel safety and security through having sex. This is another reason why stereotypical men are very promiscuous and said to always have sex on their mind.

Men and women should understand these differences in order to know that sex is not a selfish activity; it is for your spouse. One very, very important thing to note is that sex does not need to be ‘practiced’ before marriage. As found in research, couples who wait until after marriage to have sex have better communication, quality, satisfaction, and stability in their marriage. This is a way to show each other they are willing to wait and save themselves for each other.

Pregnancy and Birth

There is a trend that the perceived happiness of each spouse declines after the birth of each child. There are ways to prevent this; most important of all is to continue dating at least each week even after being married. A couple should not think that although they are married and live together they do not need to date anymore. People change, and when a couple continues to date they change in a way that keeps them close, not draws them apart from each other. Dates can be very simple, such as talking alone to together while having dinner or a snack at home. Dating tends to decline or stop during pregnancy or while having young children, a couple should be aware of this so they do not miss out on too many dates together.

 

During pregnancy the husband should be very involved with what is going on in the wife’s body and emotions. She should share her experiences (the baby kicked! or something else she feels). The appointments should be scheduled at a time the husband can go with his wife, especially so he can see the baby in the ultrasound. The husband and wife should go baby shopping together, as oppose to the wife going with her friends.

During the birth of the baby the husband should take precedence over the wife’s mother. Although some make the birth a special experience between grandmother, daughter, and grandchild; it should be father, mother, and their new baby. Some hospitals have noticed that this happens and will hand the baby first to the husband, then for him to bring the baby to his wife, and then together show their extended family.

Transitions after Marriage

Once marrying, a couple has the transitions of living together. These include sharing a bed and bathroom; spending holidays with which family; desired sleep patterns. Some of these might seem odd to think that they can cause tension, but at the same time they can bring a couple closer. Here are some examples I’ve heard:

 

One spouse desires to stay up later, the other desires to spend time falling asleep together.

One spouse desires to cuddle; the other does not, which makes them feel un-loved by their spouse.

The wife takes a long time to get ready in the morning; the husband gets frustrated by this.

One spouse is very careless and messy, the other clean and orderly.

 

And holidays with families is something that always causes some disagreement, couples need to work out a plan together with each taking consideration of their own feelings as well as of their spouse and in-laws. Couples should understand that they should now cleave to each other, and not to their parents. They are no longer children, they are married adults.

Transitions into Marriage

So before I start the next couple posts I should probably mention that I’m not married and do not have first-hand experience, this is information from my Family Relations class.

The engagement is a very important part of the couple forming into a strong, single family unit. This is the reason for the traditional and formal way of a groom asking for a blessing from the bride’s father. This is a way of strengthening the father/ son-in-law relationship as well as showing respect. The couple then begins to commit to each other and establish boundaries aside from their parents. There is a common risk of a couple ‘sliding’ into marriage. This means there is no significant transition into engagement, it is not a planned, and it is unknown if both individuals are ready or genuine about marrying.

Important Questions While Dating

There are important questions to ask while still dating before the couple has made the commitment to marry. Here are a few ideas of questions to ask each other:

What will be the division of labor in the home? Who will do cooking, cleaning, washing, repairs, and so on?

Will you have children; if so, how many and when?

If you have children how will you divide the child care responsibilities? What kind of discipline will you use?

What will you do about housing? Will the decision be made in light of the husband’s career, the wife’s career, or both?

Who will be the primary breadwinner? How will financial decisions be made and who will be responsible for paying bills?

What will be your relationships with in-laws? Will you spend part or all of your vacation time with parents or relatives?

How much of your leisure will you spend together and how much separately?

Love and Dating

In Greek there are four different definitions of love. These are:

Storge- The love from a parent to child, in which the needs of the child literally become the needs of the parent.

Philia- Is brotherly kindness and a warm and close relationship that has similar characteristics of intimacy.

Eros- This is where the term 'erotic' comes from, a love between men and women and includes a romantic love.

Agape- A love towards the fellow man, regardless of prior knowledge of them. This is also known as charity.
 

Because many people misattribute the form of love that they feel they often do not have the love that can sustain a committed relationship. This is also why there are "3 P's" of dating so a couple can really get to know each other. These are: planned, paid for, and paired off. These go in relation to the general obligations of a husband which are to preside, provide, and protect the family.
 

These are shown before marriage by the model of dating, courtship, and engagement. Dating should only develop into an exclusive relationship of courtship when the couple is in consideration of marriage and the courtship into engagement when they are certain of marriage.

Homo-sexuality

Homo-sexuality is a very touchy topic to discuss. I think the reason it is so touchy is because there is no evidence to prove it is or is not biological. So before you get mad at the topic, please just read about the theories associated with it.

Here is the most common theory associated with homo-sexuality: “They were just born gay”. This is usually thought to mean that they cannot overcome it, or it is easier to choose to be that way, and others believe it is biological. These thoughts make people believe that they can only be satisfied with the same sex and therefore ask for a redefinition of marriage and the family.
 

Another, more accurate, theory is “Exotic becomes Erotic” this doesn’t necessarily mean in a romantic way, but merely as friends. An example of this is a young boy with more feminine qualities than usual who hangs out with females because the other boys do not accept him. By the time he reaches middle school about age 11, which is when most children want to get to know the children they have not hung out with. Not always, but sometimes, this can become more exaggerated when they are older, and the child wanting to be accepted becomes romanticized feelings.

Another contributing factor to same-sex attraction is sexual abuse. 68% of homo-sexual men who were molested said they were not attracted to men until after they were molested. As for women; over 60% of homo-sexual women were happily married, and then after problems arose they divorced and the women decided to become homo-sexual after the divorce, although they never believed so before.

Gender Differences

This might seem like a pointless post because obviously men and women are different. But aside from that, these are some differences. Men are generally more aggressive, this is for their role as protectors and providers. And women are more sensitive and responsive because traditionally they nurture the children.

This is a list of masculine and feminine traits:

Masculine

Spatial orientation (remembering north, east, south, west)

Aggressive and competitive

Focused (forgetting what does not matter at the time)

Problem solving (Which is why most men are better at math in school)

Feminine

Emotional

Verbal communication (putting thoughts into words)

Recognizing nonverbal cues (tone of voice, body language)

Observant (reading in-between the lines and making connections between people, places, or things)

Multi-tasking (aware of what is going on with multiple things at once)

Questioning (includes questions at the end of sentences; such as, don’t you think?)

Qualifying (gives hints for others to know how to respond; sort of, maybe, really)

One study found that men are more comfortable to share personal matters with women than other men. This is because women are more expressive in behavior (giving off emotional support and more loyalty) as oppose to instrumental (engaging in activities that are non-emotional). This is in addition to the nonverbal cues in conversation. This is most easily explained with the words “I love you”, which could mean sarcasm, indifference (saying only to please another), disbelief, true devotion, etc.

It may seem like some of these traits are more preferable than others, although they all have different positives and negatives attached to them. These differences are of averages of men and women. It is clear that not all men have all those masculine traits, nor do women have all the feminine traits.

Social Class

There are different things that go into higher or lower social classes; in my class we discussed the factors which are: amount of money, location of living, education or skills, social connections. These factors are all related to the family we are all born into. Our social class is not always determined by family, although it is more difficult for one to gain the education or skills to obtain the other factors of social class. The functions of family are also related to social class. By family functions I mean the support system families provide for one another; these are: providing for children, teaching about life (values or socialization with others), providing security, safety, belonging and love. When in a social class that demands more time from the parents it is difficult for them to teach their children and to provide the same amount of security and safety. This is not to say that someone is definatly going to have the same family function as their parents. These are simply the correlations between social class and family.

Marriage Trends

There are eight specific trends in marriage that have made a significant shift in the way families currently are vs. how they used to be. These trends are changing the family and the purpose of marriage, which was once for procreation and raising children. These are what the trends are becoming:

1. Delying marriage. Between the 1950s and '70s the majority of women married by age 20.5, and men by age 22.5. In 2007 the age for both women and men were 6 years older than previously at ages 26 and 28, respectively.
2. Cohabitation (un-married couples living together). By 2008 there were over 6.1 million couples cohabiting, this is an extreme rise from the 430,000 in 1960. Most of the couples cohabiting have children together, and some plan to eventually marry. There is a myth that cohabiting can test the compatability of a couple for marriage, trying to prevent divorce. I will explain more about this myth in a later post.
3. Birth rates have dropped by half between 1954 and 2008. There are some women delying their first child until their mid- to late 30s. This makes it harder for the woman to get pregnant because the capacity decreases with age. This rate is below the necessary natural replacement of a population, meaning that the population will begin to decline.
4. Non-marital births. Only 10% of women born in 1925-'29 had children before marriage, compared to over 25%of women born in 1965-'69.
5. Employed mothers. This increased from 23.8% in 1950 to 62.6% in 2007. The greatest increase was among women with children age 6 and older (school age).
6. Divorce has risen dramatically since 1970 when the no-fault divorce law was first enacted in the U.S.
7. Living alone, remaining single is a choice that more people are making. In 2009, 31.7 people lived alone. This is also in relation to the increase of cohabitation, which is unstable, therefore the separation causes people to live alone.
8. Household size. This correlates with low birth rates, divorce, and living alone. The household size dropped from 5.8 to 3.3  to 2.5 people from 1790 to 1960 to 2008.

Intimacy

Intimate relationships are the core of a person's life, due to us all being social creatures. These relationships can come from love, affection, caring o ra deep attachment to a friend, relative, or lover. One might disagree, that they are not social. My retort is to think of a time that you were lonely around strangers.
Loneliness can be emotional or social. Emotional loneliness (less intimate relationships) can come from that time you were lonely around strangers; you may have been around people, but because they were strangers that feeling was still not the same as if those people were close, intimate friends. Social loneliness (less interpersonal interaction) results from socializing with fewer people than desired.
For some people, loneliness can be persistent or temporary. Results can be anything from childhood experiences to moving to another location. Depression may come from persistent loneliness and consequences can become very negative. Those who divorce or separate decline in their emotional and physical well-being. Although when intimate relationships are abusive or troubled they can cause emotional or physical problems.