Saturday, January 14, 2017

Fighting for the Family

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

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