Rules and Roles

      Have you ever broken a family rule or role? Or do you have any? They are often seen as traditions and can be taken with you as you go through life. Today, many families have different roles and rules in their households that to some people may seem strange. Lets take a look at a few of those examples. Having specific seats at the dinner table, saying I love you regularly to your family, older children are to help with the younger children, a clear executive or leader, etc. Murray Bowen once said "Every family needs an executive or sub-system." There are so many different examples in each family as to what is okay and what is not, and if someone breaks a certain rule, everyone is going to be thrown off, and it could potentially lead to contention. Often times, as we grow older and move out of the house, we may see that we have carried these traditions with us, and when someone breaks it, it feels uncomfortable because that isn't what you are used to. It takes time to get used to what others do, and for them to get used to what you do. Whether this be with roommates at college or with your spouse, it can take time to develop your own family systems.

     Having these set rules and traditions is also something that can help a family have order and structure. Without these, a family can be left in pure chaos. Going along with that, we can see that when a mom and dad work together in the family and they don't fight, it can give a child a sense of security and safety versus a family that is always fighting. No not every family is perfect and we do fight, but if everyone can learn to work together and understand one another, things will go more smoothly overall. Salvidor Minuchin is one who is known for family mapping and looking at what he observed in families. With this, he was able to establish some boundaries. A few we can look at are, rigid boundaries: information is not shared as much; open boundary: some things are shared that shouldn't be; healthy boundary: enough is shared the to meet the needs. When we look at these boundaries, we are looking at the relationship with the parents and how well they get along. This can be a big key in families as to how they interact with each other, and how they treat others. Something else we can look at, is the relationship of the parent and the child.With Minuchin's family mapping theory, we can take a child and look at his/her relationship with both the mom and the dad. Often times the mom is closer to the child than the dad because they around them more and have more opportunities. When the dad is at work he misses out on some of these bonding moments.  However, there may be some instances where the dad is closer to the child than the mom. At times we could even observe a close relationship with both mom and dad. However things happen is just the way of the family and everyone is different. What may seem normal to one person could seem absolutely strange to another family. These family systems are what shape us, and the traditions we learn can be taken with us throughout our lives. So next time you are at a family gathering, pay attention to the little details that happen and see if you can discover your little family rules. See what happens when you break one and see what other reactions are. Try sitting in a different spot at the dinner table and see what happens. All of these are fun little quirks that makes a family who they are.

Family Trends

This week in Family relations, one main thing we talked about was the different trend in families today. Whether this be in single-parent families or in a two parent household, there are many different trends that we can see. They include: Age at first (age at which people are marrying), cohabitation, employed mothers with children under 6, living alone, depression, sexual intimacy before marriage, cut of wedlock birth, decrease in household size, decreasing birth rates, and divorce rates. All of these are some trends we see in different families, yet there is a correlation between them.

Just to compare a couple, if we look at say living alone and depression, we can probably figure that there is a good relationship between these two. Whether it be social loneliness or emotional loneliness, it is something that we should be concerned about for those struggling with this. When we talk about the loneliness of some, we could also probably guess that there is some sort of depression involved because they feel that they are not meaningful to someone, or that they simply just aren't good enough. 

There are many different ways to compare these trends to one another. Another one to look at would be cohabitation prior to marriage, and divorce. Often times when people get married at a young age, they do it so quickly because they think they really love each other and they think they have things figured out, but in reality they don't know what's coming for them. They want to get married to say they are married, but then in the end they figure out they don't love each other as much as they thought, and then it leads to divorce. This is something so scary to me, because I feel like it it's important to be on your own for a while and experience the world before you decide on who to marry. 

It is probably easier to say that those who come from a husband-wife typical household versus those who come from a single parent household have a little better of a life. Looking at different statistics with different situations is interesting to see the different rates. If you would like to take a closer look at this, check out the website familystructurestudies.com to look at the different scenarios for each type of family and the outcome!

About me!

Hello everyone, my name is Kaesi Keck and I am from a small town called Menan here in Idaho. I love sports and most things outdoors. I am excited to start this blog, so here you can follow me and my posts, and feel free to leave any feedback!