Marriage stuff...

Well, we only had one class hour this week and we talked about marital intimacy. It is a little awkward so i am not going to say much about it, just that it is good for marriage and you should be open to discussion and be willing to talk about it with your spouce. I wouldn't know much about this because i am not married or engaged. Sooo, if anyone has any questions i know who to direct them too. :) thanks.

Dating to Engagement to Marriage!

We talked abou alot this past week, but a subject that really stood out to me was: dating, engagement, then marriage. There three things are so important in anyones life and they are important to know and study/ do. There are certain steps to each of these 3 topics that you must know and learn how to do to be succesfull in any of them. First of all, you MUST go on dates. None of this hanging out nonsense. We talked about the 3 P's in dation and those are Planned, Paid For, and Paired Off. You need to do/ let the guy do these things so you can see how he will react to these things. When you get engaged there are alot more steps than if you were dating. Im sure people don't really think of it like this, but there are. The two of you have to practice and prepare for marriage by practicing mutual decision making, problem solving, establishing boundaries, relying on eachother, and practice making sacrifices for and with eachother. Then there is marriage. There are plenty of things that we have to change/ get used to in the fist month. You have to learn to become as one. I really enjoyed this topic in class and it amde me think of things i should be doing now, and things i will definatly do in the future.

Cohabitation

Well, my topic this week is going to be on cohabiting. This is a big problem in the world at this time. 80% of Americans are cohabiting and in other parts of the world it is even more than that. I think this is one of the big problems people are facing in this day and time. People think that it is ok to do this and my even think that this will prepare them for marriage. The truth is that it will not. When you get married you tend to learn how to share things such as finances, money, bills, payments, and the little things. When you cohabit you are not learning how to share, you are just living with the opposite sex. They do not share things in which married couples would, they do not give complete commitment and they do not last nearly as long. I think the (RAM) Relationship Attachment Model is a great think to know about. We talked about this in class you can feel free to look this up for more info, but it just shows how much of what is expected. The 5 points of RAM are; know, trust, rely, commit, and touch. I just believe that marriage is a much better rout than cohabiting. If you have any questions, feel free to comment.  

Family Gender Roles

My opinion on the subject is that each parent need to do their jod of proving a positive gender role in a household. I think there can be some exceptions to this rule though. I think that if a mother and a father have chosen to raise their kid in a certain way, then they should. I just think that there should be a lines that shouldn't be crossed. Family dynamics can change because of gender and the age of a child. Most people wouldn't raise their son like a little girl (although there are those weird exceptions) and most people would not raise a girl to be too much like a guy. I think that as long as we ask in prayer and seek guidence and wisdom through heavenly father and christ we will be shown and we can learn how to raise our children the way they should be raised. I love learning about all of this information. It really has changed what i learned about families and i am so very greatful for that.

Social Class

I believe that the social class of a person/ family can greatly influence how children/ loved ones can be changed or raised. There are great differences from each social class therefore the ways children are being raised is completely different from the way other people other places are raising their children. I will look at it from a low social class point of view and a high social class view. From the lower class point of view, the parents would probably both be working to keep up with ends meet, therefore children are not having a parent at home to tell them what to do and what NOT to do. Who knows what a child could be doing while their parents are always gone. From the higher class point of view, children could be raised to only expect certain standards. Children could be set up for disappointment and grief from being built up to believe such things. I think we all just need to be extremely aware of our own situations and apply them to our lives.