Divorce and the Aging Family

This week’s class discussion focused on Divorce and the Aging family. This is something that I feel most of us face or see in our own families. First off it causes heartache, not surprising to anyone. For parents, it causes pain, depending on the situation it can cause major frustration. This is usually the cause of problems that have never been resolved and continue to a breaking point. Another reason that it may have happened is because of infidelity. Some find their spouse talking with someone else intimately, either virtually or in person. They may also find them having sexual relations with another person. The question is, is it good that a person divorces because of infidelity, abuse, and other problems. In a study shown they answered that divorce can be good and also no. Divorce can be good in the sense that those who divorce go through personal growth, increase optimism, spiritual comfort, and improved communication and conflict skills. Also, those who were in high distress marriage report to increase happiness. Even if divorce is a very traumatic experience for the person, after a while they adapt to it and some come to view it as a turning point in their life necessary for their health. Although this is not the case with everyone, some may take divorce as a negative experience. It has been know to also affect physical and emotional health. A big part of it is due to the stress that the couple goes through. Stress may come from parents thinking about their kids in this hard situation. Sometimes divorce is not counted as an option for these parents. They may know that it can play a hard toll on their children, so they may decide to stick through their unpleasant relationship just for their children. Children are impacted largely because they want to be with both of their parents whom they love. They do not want to see them fighting and they do not want to see someone else take the spot of their dad or mom. Another issue that may never completely connect with the children is when their mother and father marry someone else. They may not look at this person as a parental figure in their life, the most that it will be is a friend that they can trust. Some children have a hard time accepting this new person in their life as well, for the children they just want to their mother and their father together. This may be hard when one of their parents passes away as well. This also causes a change in the family structure, most big problems that lead to discipline should be done by the biological parent due to the fact the child will obey them more than their step-parent. The relationship between the step-parent and the child is also one that may need a keen awareness due to the fact they can’t act like they are their parents because the child may have a negative thought about that step-parent. This should be done in a light manner and with patience. As I said before the biological parent should be the one that takes the responsibility of things and that is one of the other changes that happen in the family structure. Life can never go back the same, the biological parent and the step-parent must come together and make plans how are the children going to be raised, who can take the role of disciplining the children and when, also depending on the case, when they should bring the children to see their other biological parent. Sometimes I feel there are drastic measures that should be counted for in this big decision. We need to take a step back and look at what is the problem in your relationship with your spouse and ask yourself is this truly something I need to get frustrated about to go to the point of getting a divorce. If it isn't ask yourself what you can do to resolve those problems.

Parenting

This week’s discussion in the class focused on the topic of parenting. This is quite a controversial topic, so please respect those who share their opinion. Three types of parenting that we discussed are autocratic, permissive, and active. Autocratic parenting styles is one in which we are most familiar with, the classic shows depicting mothers and fathers yelling at their teenage children to do something that they want them to do. Whether that may be requiring the child to do chores or following the rules that they had established. All these things end with a battle of power. Most of all it ends with heartache pain and no clear end of resolution of who wins or loses. I remember from my own experiences when my parents yell when they want something done, I usually feel more inclined not to do it and on top of that, I always feel horrible. My dream as a parent was to be someone even greater than what my parents were. The type of parenting that I am hoping of becoming is an active parent. This type of parenting is one in which the parents understand their children, where they are coming from, but also help guide them in this journey of life. In the videos that we watched it should these parents working with their children in building ways to support them. They also showed the parents working with their children in making consequences together when the child disobeys the rules. As parents and future parents, we need to understand that they are people and have a mind of their own and we need to treat them as such. We cannot let them walk over us though, but we cannot be over them all the time. Something they stated is that we need to place limits, but also give them freedom. I would also like to describe a bit about permissive, this parenting style is one that we may see quite often in which they let the children run over their parents. They let their children do whatever they want to, without any consequences and rules. A way it was described was through an example of a parent asking their children to eat greens. Then they asked the child would decline and that was that. Through further study, they found that these children soon grow up with high chances of receiving health problems. They also tend to go into the route of pain, finding themselves in circumstances leading them to jail. They also tend not to have the best grades in school. The way we parent our children affects them in the long run. I know many of us do not want to see them failing in this world. We would rather want to see them succeed. To do such a thing I believe we need to change the way we parent our children to an active role. It is not easy, many may blow a fuse due to some of the things our children do, but we need to may an effect. If we do become angry, simply state that you will talk about making consequences together at a later time after you have calmed down. Something we need to know is that all of us need five things to fill our needs. The five things are contact and belonging, power, protection, withdrawal, and challenge. If we don’t tend to these needs the children start to have mistaken approaches to undue attention-seeking, tend to control others and rebellion, revenge, undue avoidance, and undue risk-taking. There is a way to tend to these five things. It is through a wise parental approach of offering contact freely, teaching our children to make contributions, and giving them choices for consequences and response-ability. Also, it is through Assertiveness and teaching them to forgive, teaching them to break a task, and go back and encourage skill-building.

Fathers and Finances

This week of class we discussed Fathers and Finances. In contrast to what the world may say and view fathers as being, they are an essential part of the structure of families. Some researchers have found that there has been a correlation between school shooters and the shooters having a loss in father-figure in their family. They indicate that without a dad as a role model the boys are unable to have a way to direct their ways of interacting with themselves and others. They start to indulge in videogames, pornography, and in essence, they start to become a destructive force according to what they have found. Boys are not the only ones that are affected by this as well. Girls are affected as well, they become more prone to promiscuity, depression, and self-harm. Fathers are naturally the provider in the family and are usually the breadwinners of the family. Providing can be able to make money for the family. It can also be described as providing in the sense that they can be able to take care of the finances that their family have. Although it is balanced between both the mother and the father, fathers are usually the ones that as noted to be the budgeter. Men are usually more hyper-focused on the activity that is taking their attention. This hyper-focus allows them to be able to go to work and come home and interact with their children as nothing happened. They can leave work at work and leave home at home. This is why for men it is a lot easier for them to be able to work, without feeling a sense of trouble that they didn’t do something at their job. It is interesting as well that we don’t need both parents to work usually. They have found that when both parents work there are more expenses the family has then there is again. This happens due to one of the jobs requiring the person to be well dressed, making the family spend on expensive clothes. Then many people believe that since they are both gaining a good amount of money, they can spend a bit more. Another thing that also affects their expenses is the false idea that if they can bring their family to something big like an amusement park once a year, they can make better relationships with their family. I’m not saying taking a vacation to go to places is bad with the family, but it shouldn’t be central in making the family happy and to be able to make relationships. From my own experience, it is when we are both working together, may we be sweating from hard labor or washing the dishes, that we can build relationships. In times like these, we can talk, joke around, and be able to teach one another. We both have the same goal of accomplishing something, we may be at different points in that goal, but it brings unity. I’m not here to point out that being a single mom, is bad. There may be big reasons why they are not with a male. I just want to point out that fathers must play a part in the family structure and are important just like mothers. I feel there is a wide-range of hate towards fathers, that people ridicule them and say they do nothing for the family. Another important thing that I would like to state is if you are not doing good financially, start to make changes to get on track. Ask yourself what is causing me to be bad financially? What can I do differently? What am I doing good?

Communication and Mutual Problem Solving

This week of class we discussed Communication and Mutual Problem Solving. It is hard not to communicate because communication is more than just talking. Some ways that we communicate are through our words, tone, and non-verbal. Most of the time we communicate through our body language. Some may say that they are sad, but if you look at them, they are smiling and are very jumpy, which is the opposite of being sad. Also, the manner that they say things express something completely different from what they are saying. Take for instance sarcasm, you may know people who talk in this way, but actually, they do not really mean what they are saying.  One of the biggest problems that most people resort to receive help from family therapists is communication. It’s not surprising due to the rise of communication through cellular devices. If you want to send a message to a grandparent across the world they can instantly receive that message through text messaging. They can talk to their friends whenever they, and wherever they want. It is honestly amazing how much we can progress, but of course, it does cause some problems as well. People, the youth especially are learning more about how to communicate with one another through text, and lose more learning opportunities to communicate with others in person. It doesn’t come to surprise that when they get married they have a hard time communicating with their spouse. They might have had an easier time texting them than actually talking with them. One of the main problems that arise is the power struggle in marriage and how wedded couples make big decisions together. In life, we usually can make a decision and do the things that you want, but when you add a person to be with you at your side, your whole line of thinking changes. Sometimes it does not change though, one of the wedded couples makes all of the decisions while the other passively agrees with what they decide. This is not the case with everyone though, some hate or get frustrated when they cannot get their opinion across. Usually, arguments start with this difference of opinion and then leads to a problem of who holds the power in the couple. Something that we learned in class though it is alright to have differences. Each person has their own likes and dislikes. Feelings and aspirations that they hold are not expressed, frustrations and doubts are not told, and most of them just want that to get their opinion across to their spouse. So the way to do this is through consensus. This is when each person can express their feelings and opinion and can agree and disagree with each other, then they start finding ways to make it so that a decision can be made that both of them agree upon. Sometimes both will not come with the same answer immediately, it may take many days and that is alright. What this does is create a balance in the family and wedded couple due to each having the ability to express their feelings and in the end being able to make a decision in which they both can agree on. Although each person needs to show actual interest in what the other person is saying and listen to them even when it is something you do not like. We need to also make sure to try not to interrupt the other person, if we do it shows to the other person that we are not listening to them or that we do not care what they are saying.

The Family Under Stress

For this week’s discussion, we focused on the families under stress. There are countless numbers of things that give us stress in life whether they be good for our health or bad for health. To be better understand how these stressors affect families and individuals and how they ended up coping with these occurrences, family scholars created a model. This model was called the ABCX family crisis model. A represents the events of stress and the difficulties it produces. B represents the resources that the family uses to cope and it also represents how the families respond to such situation. C represents what cognition of the family and how they define the events that happened. X is the result of A, B, and C when they interact to produce the crisis. A, B, and C are all crucial to the outcome. Some stressor events can include the death of a family member, a severely injured child who is placed in the hospital, or a loss of a job while providing for a family of nine. Stressors can be both internal and external. Some internal stressors are mental health problems and a moment in time where you are unable to think clearly to decide. Something that we need to understand is that not all stressors are equal, and the impact that it deals with an individual may not be the same as it would for you. A big part of stress is what we do with it.  We can cope with it or we can just get by. Coping and getting by are two different ways to react to stress. Coping is when we make fine changes to be able to be proactive to react in a manner that will allow you to deal effectively with something difficult. While getting by results in dealing with things that do not result in much, in the end, it does not result in helping at all. There are many ineffective coping patterns some of them are denial, avoidance, and scapegoating. Denial could be one of the most common ineffective coping patterns, it is when people will not believe what they observe. An example of this is when someone is married to a person who has drinking problems, but they refuse this person as a drinking problem. This can be useful when it is used as a temporary measure that enables family members to prepare their resources. Although if it is used for the long term it can be very destructive. A way to break out of denial is for family members to openly admit that there is a problem or that they have a problem. Sometimes when people openly recognize their problems it can lead to their avoidance of the problem. Avoiding usually is counterproductive. So those who abuse drugs and avoid making any actions to stop can increase their risk for more health problems. Another occurrence that can happen is that when people admit their problems, but they direct someone to put the blame on their problems. Unlike the other two, in a short time, it does not provide a use to the benefit to the family or individual. Scapegoating is a way of shifting responsibilities to another person or thing so that they do not feel guilty or responsible for dealing with the crisis. What I believe that families need to understand is that nothing can truly be resolved with action. If we leave something to be how it is, it will never help the family to grow in the way it should. This family would be shackled by what happened and will drag them until the very end. It may seem hard at the beginning, and it may produce problems and stress, but in the end, it will entirely worth the risk to do.

Sexual intimacy and Family life

This week of discussion was focused on Sexual intimacy and Family life. Something in this life that we face is our sexual desires. Surprisingly enough it plays a part to have a happy marriage that everyone wants in their life, although it should be regarded with much care and attention. The care that must be put into it is one that people rarely place. The once action held only in marriage has changed to something that people do for momentary happiness. Let me be clear this is not what will bring happiness to people. This happiness that people look for comes after when two people come together and become one. When their thoughts change from their selves to what they can do to help their spouse. This idea is thrown out the door with many people taking sex as something they can do in the meantime. Sadly this depiction started for many at younger ages due to encounters with pornography from curiosity or friends. This depicts sex as something that is prevalent and leads many to thinks as people as objects. This also leads to damage in marriage in which the one or the other may think of their spouse as an object in sex only to fulfill their every beck and call, and desires. In the end, it results in divorce or infidelity. A way to combat this is by giving our children at the so-called, “Talk.” Now pornography can be seen anywhere at any time, one day our children will see it and be misconstrue sex. If we give them the talk it will help them understand what sex is and will help them in the later future. Something also to be considered is that if a married couple does not take sex seriously it can damage their relationship. I say, for instance, the husband wants sex, but his wife does not since she is so tired, she should respect her and hold back that sexual desire and visa versa. Also, if one of you is uncomfortable doing something then express your discomfort and do not do it. Both husband and wife have a say in sex, in what they like and do not like. Due to our differences, it also plays a role in happiness in families, men usually rely on sexual intimacy to then be able to be warm, safe, and secure with their spouse. While for women, they like to first get warm, safe, and secure to then be able to have sexual intimacy. If both husband and wife do not realize this it will become a never-ending cycle in which one of them will never be able to be satisfied. Also if both partners understand about organisms it will help both of them to be able to have a better sexual experience. For men, it takes about ten seconds while for women it takes about twenty to thirty seconds. If men do not take that into account, they will in a sense have only their desires satisfied while their partner is left unsatisfied. Another natural occurrence in life is that men have been more allocated with being hyper-focused in one thing at a time. On the other hand, women have been allocated to being Multi-tasker in which they can think about so many things at the same time. This usually leads to problems in the family, since the wife is focused on the kids and other responsibilities, most men start to believe that she has no longer any interest in him. If they do engage in sex the women are more likely to first think about the children and other necessities needed to get done before the end of the day instead of sex. To be able to have a more fulfilling sex life there is much to be learned and I hope this helps.

Transitions in Marriage

In this week’s focus of discussion was Transitions in Marriage. For those that do take this step they soon find it being more than what they asked for. There may be unspoken disagreements between spouses, there may be unexpected financial debt, and there may be an unexpected child that throws the entire system that the wedded couple had thoroughly planned out. These problems are a natural part that happens in marriage. Sadly, most of these problems also comes through miscommunication like when the mom focuses mainly on the child and when she talks with her spouse, she usually focuses on his faults. This does not mean that she does not like him, it is the opposite, she wants her spouse to learn and grow. Although the spouse takes it as harsh criticism, and he starts to space himself from the family. Another problem is also the involvement of the families. This can cause a big rift in the development of the boundary those people want to create when they get married. The average cost of marriage is around twenty thousand, making it hard for young couples to afford. Most do not even take the chance due to how much it costs. When those who do go for it, they usually ask for help from their parent to help pay for it financially. Now this is where the problems start to come in, say for instance, the wife’s parents pay for the marriage, they start to plan most if not the entire wedding. Now this newly wedded couple is indebted them for all that they have done. With most things that happen afterward the wife’s parents will always be included to participate in, if not the parents start to get defensive. They start to attack the couple why they are not included when they were the one that made it possible for the both to get married. At this point the husband’s parent are not included in most of the things that happen in this couple’s life and that also causes conflict between them as well. Now this may seem to many, what is the point of getting married when all it will bring is conflict. I do not believe that the only thing we will get form getting married is problems and pain. I believe that there is a happiness that we can obtain that we will never achieve with getting married. As we discussed there are ways to involve both families on the wedding and have it so the couple are the ones that are planning everything. This is by choosing the cheaper and more affordable route, you both come from families that have different skills that can provide to the whole, maybe the husband’s mom and cousins are amazing cooks. He can ask them if they could provide food for the wedding. Maybe the wife knows friends that are amazing that doing interior design they could help create a place look beautiful. The possibilities are endless and can help establish a sense of unity in the family while making boundaries. To resolve or take away assumptions both of the newly wedded couple need to make a plan together in what they want to do to raise the children, how they are both going to be involved in raising the children and if problems do arise how they are going to fix it.  Believe the number one fix to most relationships is open communication between the both sides. If there even a slight disturbance it can lead to a big problem later. Now that being said if you are going into marriage with a mindset that is fixed and set on the ways of the world, you can never achieve pure happiness that you will get when you have a growth mindset and plan together as a couple for your marriage.

Preparing for Marriage

This week of discussion focused on preparing for marriage. Due to slow, but recent change, marriage is started to become less likely to happen. Most people go with the easiest route of cohabitation. Today I would like to share some information about cohabitation, marriage, and preparing for marriage. This is a bit of a controversial topic so please respect the opinions of others here.

In the past many people prepared for marriage through the form of dating. In which a man would invite a lady to do an activity together and get to know each other. In this they see if they have a chance at being compatible with one another. Growing up the culture I lived in define dating in which one person exclusively goes with someone for a time and share feelings with one another, if that relationship doesn’t work they breakup and find another partner that they can exclusively be with. In class, we called this Serial Exclusive dating. Going to Idaho I experienced a completely new culture in which people do go on dates, but in a different manner. They do not go exclusively with one person at first, but rather they go on many dates with many people. Seeing this culture hit me for a culture shock, it is rather interesting that in fact neither is a wrong to go on about dating. They both in turn help to reach their purpose in finding your partner for life.  I would like to share a little bit about these two types of dating and the pros and con I feel come with them. With Associative dating we discussed that it was a way to be able to seek quickly the qualities that you want to have in your future spouse, it also is a good way of getting to know many people. Contrary to what I think, it is supposed to be a lot easier to be able to go normally on dates as well since it is not exclusive, but more to get to know the person. Some cons that I see in it, is the desperation those people have while doing this. Most people that I know who do this, right when they find that person that they want to be with they take drastic measures to get married quickly without actually knowing the person leading to problems later, like divorce. With Serial Exclusive dating I believe that it is a good way to know someone more than just the surface level, form this you can make judgement in the qualities that you want in your partner. You have more chance to see how they act in a normal basis than just on a single date for an hour. A con is that from what I see is that it leads to have higher chances of cohabitation. Studies have found that those that cohabitate are not as happy as those who marry and on top of that it leads to higher chances of divorce if they eventually marry later. Usually the cause of this is that, there is not a new kind of relationship when they marry, it becomes more of something they do to just do it. They have already found out the ins and outs of their partner so there is no sense of new experience or adventure with their partner. From my own observation I noticed that cohabitation leads to much pain to the family, not just the individuals themselves, but their parents, siblings, and other family members as well. If you truly want to have a happy lasting marriage, I believe that you need to make that effort to take the chance and get married instead of cohabitating first.

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Gender and family life

This week’s class discussion was quite interesting. We focused on genders and family life. As we know it the world is having an increasing population of men and woman stating their change in gender. As you know here I would like to share information gathered and read for class and my own opinion. This is quite a controversial topic so please have respect for all those you may comment and share their opinion. Now society has created different types of genders and there is much talk about it in the world, but I would like to talk about the original two. When I say, “the original two,” I am referring to male and female. From the beginning the World began with the inhabitants Adam and Eve and to this humanity has procreated and advanced to this day of age. In a video we watched, it stated that we as children unconscious separated ourselves as genders. As children, boys would be attracted to toys with cars and without any outward influence would play aggressively and imagine themselves with guns shooting one another. While on the other hand girls would be more attracted to toys that they can take care of and nurture. A lady in the video we watched, went on to say that she never liked makeup and would never use it. One day her daughter came to her and said that they needed to put make up on, because that will make us prettier. The video goes on to share that no matter what toy the boy gets, even though it may be a more feminine directed toy, would play with it in an aggressive way and use it as a gun or a weapon of some kind. The same is for the girls, if they play with some of the masculine directed toys, they will then continue playing with it as they would with the others. They will nurture it and doll it up. Now this is not saying that every boy will do this, and every girl will do this. There is always the exception with this. There will be boys that are more nurturing and there are girls that will be more aggressive. That is a part of life. Many take this inclination that they are different and that means that they must do different things, like having a liking to those of the same sex. There are so many things that could be said and discussed about same-sex attraction. I would just like to talk about a part that I recently learned. For class, we watched another video of people interviewed who had same-sex attraction. Many of them had horrible things done to them as a child. They were either sexually assaulted as a young child or were bullied and looked down upon. Many stated their confusion later on in life, they started feeling lonely and had an attraction to the same sex. They wanted to be a part of something, and they wanted to not feel lonely. These people indulged their selves in many acts to attain this sense of belonging, but to no avail. They were caught in depression, after much help they found themselves no longer having this attraction to the same sex and that they were not as depressed as they were before. After watching this made me think a lot about how many people in the world went through the same cycle or are stuck. I know others willingly choose to have an attraction to the same sex, but for those that had this cycle happen, I wonder if through help, these people can find a bit more fulfilling happiness.

Culture in family

Have you ever gone to a friend’s house and notice the strange things that they do? It may be strange to us, but honestly it is perfectly fine them, this is a way that we can define culture. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary the definition of culture is the customary beliefs, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group. Each family has his or her own culture, are all of them right or wrong? Do they all meet the same purpose with the same effectiveness? That is something I would like to share about today.

In some cases, cultures can be beneficial. Like in families that eat together, play together, and have certain rules in the house. These rules can create a lasting effect in the hearts of the children. If by chance we look in the future at what would happen to these children, we can see them more responsible. We can see them as leaders in this world, doing amazing things such as creating a lasting foundation or filling the foundation that their parents have put for them. These foundations can last for eternity and effect their family forever. With cases like these, family culture can be amazing.

Now let us look at the other side. Cultures at times can be detrimental. Power and the lack of power in an individual in their family can cause a never-ending cycle for their family. In the future they may probably try to take all the power in the family to probably try to “regain” lost power and authorize it in the family. Then, their children will be having a higher chance of doing the same thing. Another way that it can be bad is through abusive cultures, some of which are when the father or mother returns to the house from work and drinks alcohol. After the parent has intoxicated, they may start to abuse the family members. Cultures like these are not healthy and should change.

In my opinion I really believe that culture can be good, there are amazing people out there that have their own culture which makes them unique and outstanding people. They lead through good morals and care for their family. Although, I do not condone cultures in which family members are affected negatively.

I do not think that all cultures meet the same purpose with the same effectiveness. I feel that each holds their own effectiveness, like with every coach they may have the same purpose in their teachings it does not mean that they get the same results at the same time.

I would also like to talk about what we can do now to help the rising generation. Many of may see great things that our families do and the bad things, so how can we keep and change the culture that we lived in when we have our own family? Well, keeping the culture that you had before will be easier than changing. If we do not plan anything on how to raise the family, then assuredly enough you will find yourself having the same culture that you had before. Although if you want to change some things it will take a great deal of effort in your part as well as your spouse. You will both need to come together and plan in which you discuss how you both want to raise the family and in what kinds of way. I remembered a friend of mine discussing with his wife the things they wanted to do differently, they did not want to fight, they wanted it so that their children will be raised in a home without the parents having arguments and fighting each other. Since that day, they have kept that plan and many others that they have created for their plan. It has been around forty to fifty years and they have kept hold of that plan and they have had wonderful children who have gone and done amazing things in the world.

Family System Theories

With the many people around the world there is so many types of systems that people naturally categorize in. There is also so many factors that play into these systems as well. If you want to come and find out more about your own family system, here is a good place to find a start in your own research. To explain, what I am about to share, the paragraphs below are about theories. Meaning it is an attempt to explain a phenomenon, so we do not know necessarily that it will be true.

First let’s discuss System Theory. In this system not one person is insignificant in this family system. Each person contributes to the whole well-being of the family. This type of system may be found in families that might have abuse involve. For example, the woman may remain in the marriage only because of her and her child support and protect each other from the attacks of the abusive husband and father. Something that I thought about is that it might also explain why special families stick together when one of the family members is special in any sort of capability. This family works together and helps each other take care of this member of the family. I have never had the opportunity to experience this for myself, but I know it is an arduous task that takes a lot of effort and love.

Second is Exchange theory. In this system the usual discussion may be, “what’s in it for me?” People stay together only or the benefits if they do not then they leave. The individuals usually decipher out the pros and cons, the costs and rewards, of a situation. This is pretty natural reaction that most of us do on a daily basis. For example, in family life it would be decision-making, child rearing, and division of labor in the home. This may not explain too much about family systems, but it does explain a lot of the efforts that families make.

Third is Symbolic Interaction Theory. In this system what people deem to be true effect the whole and believe it is true when it may not be. This system can be highly dangerous in that it may affect relationships in a bad way. For example, take for instance, when a guy starts to believe his girlfriend is flirting with other guys, the man would start to be more overprotective causing an unstable relationship. A big emphasis that we talked about is how when a married may have some mistrust and confidence to the other partner, they may seek help from friends. If it is a friend of the opposite sex, the person may start to confide in that person more, thinking that he or she understands me more than my partner, leading to big problems like an affair. This theory can also be coincided with exchange theory.

Fourth is Conflict Theory. In this conflict system, it is revolved around power. Everyone holds a certain number of powers. Sometimes people abuse that power and it affects the way they are in the future. In some cases, if people felt like they had the lack of power as a child in their family, they tend to assert their power in their future families. Even though this system may have a bad sounding name and is viewed as a negative thing, it is not. Couples may come together to help each other. One may take the role of having the power while their partner learns and then the partner takes the dominant role.

These systems may not be necessarily the root for all family systems, but can be a way that we can further understand them.

This week's class we focus our discussion around family trends in the population. We watched, The New Economic Reality Demographic Winter, which provided a good deal of different information. To start out with, the video provided a gloomy feel to it with the way the researchers provided information and the subtle music in the background. What really surprised me was how in the beginning it talks about a book called, The Population Bomb, and how it affected the human society. It provides predictions that as the human population increases, the environment would be harmed causing mass starvation soon. This is interesting to me because more than fifty-two years after this was published the complete opposite happened. Why? What brought this to happen? The bringing forth of this book brought a huge impact to the people of those time. This impact was psychological, people thought that having many children would be more harmful than good. This led to a gradual decrease in the fertility rate according to these researchers. I have always been a firm believer that life finds a way. I know there are difficulties bound to happen, but there are happy days ahead of us as well. This includes with having more children as well; I know that nothing bad would happen by this increase. Now if the world continues to decrease in fertility rates, the population may degrade back to what it was before the so-called baby boom. Even now fertility rates are still low. Maybe this could be the cause of those who believe in the same ideology, whether it be intentionally after reading the book or just pure opinion. I believe that it should a natural flow of life and that things books likes these bring harm to the human society. Yes, it is important to be informed about the things going on in the world, but too much information can be detrimental. One of the effects can be seen through the fertility levels in states. Only two states had fertility levels above the replacement level in 2017. The replacement level is the number of births needed to maintain the population at its existing level.  If this ideology is not affecting the fertility rates, then what is causing this decline? In the video mentioned earlier, the professors discussed that some of the causes of the decline in fertility rates was due to the women’s revolution and the sexual revolution. Women were starting to go to school more and get jobs requiring them to be away from home which was the opposite than how it was before. The age in which women decide to get married effects the population growth in a big way because of this change the age of marriage grew while the fertility rate decreased. To me, I guess this was bound to happen and is a natural phenomenon of this change. In the Sexual Revolution, the birth control pill was created. Many were having sexual relations satisfy their intimate needs with a partner that they did not marry. They did not have children and continuing with life being single. When sex became separated from reproduction it affected the fertility rate. This change led to less marriages and more individuals living off on their own. The more individuals the world has the more there is a fertility decline. This fertility decline affects the economy. The reason that the economy is affected is because with more individuals staying off on their own it affects the overall Gross Domestic Product. The Gross Domestic Product is calculated through the product of the amount of people and productivity. Productivity here is human capital. There may be the only hope for helping the economy go stable, but it is a hard one. If there are broken families, we need to change it. Through better family structure it will bring an increase in human capital. Human capital is the skills, knowledge, and experience that someone has and is viewed as value or cost to a country. I believe we can change right now if we focus our attention to how we are teaching our children and what we are teaching them.

Hi, my name is Esteban, I hope this blog will be a place where much may come to read and discuss topics about family freely. Throughout the coming weeks I will be posting controversial topics discussed in the Family Relation class that I am currently taking. I will also share some events, thoughts, connections and insights I had in the class.