The Thing About Family

       When you look at how dating was when your parents, or even your grandparents, were young, it is vastly different from how dating is today. There was no Tinder or Mutual. Dating was only “mutual” when you met through mutual friends. Which was, actually, how it happened a lot. Back then, you met people by going out and talking to people. That, or someone you know introduced you. Nowadays, you usually meet people online.      Call me old-fashioned, but I do not use dating sites or apps because I would much rather meet someone in person and get to know them, instead of judging someone based off their initial appearance. I also feel like dating today is not taken that seriously. It is a lot more “hanging out” rather than going on dates.      In class this week, we talked about how there are four stages of dating: dating, courtship, engagement, and marriage. I really enjoyed looking at these stages, and how it is important that we g...

       What makes men and women so different? Are these differences a good thing? In today’s post, I want to point out that I am going to be talking about things that are true on average. There are some outliers and those who do not fit into the average. It just goes to show that everyone is different. We should all celebrate our differences. They make us unique.      It seems that there are certain characteristics that are generally associated with women, while there are others that are more associated with men. These characteristics help us in who we are, and I believe these distinct differences compliment each other. They help balance each other out.      Men generally have a more protective nature. They also tend to be more aggressive and active. I have four little nephews, and I enjoy watching the ways they act and interact with each other. The two that are old enough to get around on their own are highly active. It is like they...

The definition of “culture” is “the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group.” So how does that apply to family? Well the family is a particular group of people that have their own “customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements.” Each family has these things that are specific to their family. It is different for everyone. One thing that contributes to the family culture are rules, spoken and unspoken. We all had rules in our families. In my family, we had rules like having all our chores done before we could hang out with friends or watch television. During the summer, it was expected of us that we did 30 minutes of weeding outside in addition to our normal chores. We also had some unspoken rules as well. We always knew that if we talked back to our Mom or disrespected her, Dad would find out, and we would get in big trouble when he got home. We also had a lot of unspoken rules that had to do with our beliefs. W...

       Families are made of many unique individuals. Because each person is different, it can be difficult to find your place in the group. I know for me I had an exceedingly difficult time finding how I fit into my family. I am sure a lot of people feel the same way. We all are trying to find themselves and their places in life. One of the challenges of being in a family is finding your place and role.      Every family member has a role in their family, and it is not quite as simple as you would think. We know of the common family roles: the protector, the funny one, the oldest child, the youngest, etc. I did not think about this in much detail until one day in class this week as we went over roles in the family.      Some of the roles we talked about were the family disrupter, the family mascot, the family mediator, the family comforter, peace maker, and the provoker. The family disrupter is the one that is always challenging others. ...