This week we learned about
societal trends and the family. The articles and videos we saw were really
interesting and enlightening! Many people have believed that the world will be
overrun with people and there wouldn’t be enough room or resources for us all.
This all started with the “baby boom.” In the video, “New Economic Reality: Demographic
Winter” it said how the baby boom wasn’t really that big of a boom after all.
This isn’t an exact quote but the average women only had about 3-4 children at
that time. That’s less than what even a generation back was having. Now, it’s
the norm for people to have only one or two kids. The video stressed that the
fewer kids we have, the more social and economic problems that we will have in
the future. While those who were born in the baby boom are getting older and
more are starting to retire, the rest of us will have to make up enough money
to provide for the Social Security fund. As the fertility and birth rates
continue to decline, the less people there will be in the work force to replace
those retiring from the work force.
The fear of overpopulating
was just one trend that contributed to the decline of birth rates. There are
also many other trends that all contribute to one another. These include an increase
in those delaying marriage, increase of cohabiting couples, increase of
premarital sex, increase of births to unmarried women, increase of mothers
working, increase of people living alone, and an increase in divorce rates. All
these are contributing to a decline in family, and especially to a decline of
the traditional family, which includes a married father and mother caring for
their children. While other homes may not be bad or detrimental for other
children to live in, there are numerous studies that show that kids who grew up
with a married father and mother in the home were far better off than those who
were raised in other types of homes.
Another big thing is that
people are more afraid to get married than they used to and people are wanting
to pursue careers and personal goals before settling down. While it’s important
to learn about hard work and autonomy, it’s also important to have a family. I’ve
heard so many stories about people who had a life based on their career and so
they didn’t get married or if they got married then they didn’t have kids. Each
time I heard that kind of story it always ended in them regretting that
decision. While they loved their career and success, they also wished they had
taken the time to make their own family. Personally, I think family gives us
the opportunity to learn about hard work and independence and selflessness.
Without these values, we couldn’t have a functioning society.
So
how can we start to change the decline in families?
How
can we fight for the family?
I think one of the really
interesting things in the textbook was all the myths that people have come to
believe about marriage and families. If we can help dispel these, then we can
start to have a realistic view about marriage and family. One myth is that if you
marry for love that that love will last forever. Once the initial “honeymoon
phase” is over and people get into the routine of life, many couples find that they
fear they married the wrong person or that their love for their spouse is fading.
The problem is that love is a commitment. Marrying for love won’t make the
marriage last.
This leads into the next myth
that happy couples don’t have conflict.
THIS
HAS NEVER BEEN TRUE AND NEVER WILL BE TRUE!
I like to compare this to an
individual person. While people don’t love and ask for trials, the average
person will admit that their hardest times helped them to grow into a stronger
person, the person that they are today. So… when a couple has conflict, this
gives them an opportunity to work things out and to grow together. Couples have
to be honest and open and actually communicate
for the relationship to work.
Last, is the myth that
opposites attract. What may be attractive at first, later becomes annoying. If
a couple has nothing in common, it’s really hard for them to find common ground
and interests, leaving them with not much to do together, unless they’re
willing to compromise. My well educated teacher told us that, “The average
couple on the way to divorce have approximately 10 areas of significant
incompatibility (hobbies, parenting styles, etc.).” If you don’t have similar
styles of living or similar goals for the future, then it will be extremely
hard to not drift apart.
Dispelling the myths won’t be
enough though. We have to start within our own families and make sure our
family is strong. If we also want to help in the decline of families and birth
rates, then we need to make sure we have kids! Yes, every family is different
which means that every family will have a different amount of kids. There is no
universal number of kids that has to be met. Personally, I believe that the
decision on how many kids to have is between the couple and God. One of our
main purposes on earth is to “multiply and replenish the earth.” There is a
quote that I really liked that helped put having kids into a whole new
perspective. It is by the prophet Brigham Young and he said, “There are multitudes of pure and holy spirits waiting to take
tabernacles, now what is our duty?—To prepare tabernacles for them; to take a
course that will not tend to drive those spirits into the families of the
wicked, where they will be trained in wickedness, debauchery, and every species
of crime. It is the duty of every righteous man and woman to prepare
tabernacles for all the spirits they can.” Personally, I’ve always wanted a big
family with lots of kids, but this just reiterated how important it is to bring
children to the earth. I want to give as many children a good home as possible
and I want to make sure that my home is a good, righteous home. It would be so sad
if a child that was supposed to go to a good, happy home got born into one that
was abusive or evil.
To help stop the decline of families, we first have to build up
our own homes!
Interesting watches and reads:
·
New Economic Reality: Demographic
Winter Part 1 and 2
·
New York Times video
and article on the author of The Population Bomb
