Individual Cultures

Hello everyone! Sorry for the crazy format this week. Hopefully I can figure out how to change that and make it a bit easier to read. I hope you have all been doing well! This week I wanted to talk about culture. When one usually thinks about culture they think of a big community in which traditions, language, and different ways are common within the whole group. But how often do we think about what kind of culture we have had and we want to create within our individual families?  I mean there are different cultures within different families aren't there? So I guess we should first start out with an official definition of culture. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary culture is "the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group or the characteristic features of everyday existence (such as diversions or a way of life) shared by people in a place or time" So according to this definition a family which is a sort of "social group" could have its own culture or "customary beliefs" or "social forms". This made me think about what kind of family cultures there are, and what kind of family culture would I want for my future family? Hopefully as I go through this I will be able to answer these questions.

First, what kind of family cultures are there? Does the class system you are in affect the type of family culture that you may have? The type of family that you have probably also affects the familial culture. For example, if you are in a traditional family usually the parents would probably work together and be in charge of the family, but if you compare this to a family that does not have a father things would probably change. As the father is no longer there, the mom will probably have to take on some of the roles the father would usually take care of. She may have to work more, she may have to be more strict on the children when she is home because she is not there as much to see what is going on. She will also have to help the children get through emotional trials that will arise from loss of the father whether that be because of a death or divorce. If it's a close knit extended family some of them may need to jump in to help the children. The same thing could go for families that lose a mother. The father now has to take on all of these roles. An example that comes to mind is of a friend I met while serving a mission in Washington. This man's name was Jose, he had been divorced from his wife and he was left to take care of his four young and energetic boys. He was an amazing father and he was trying his best but he admitted to me and my good friend that it was extremely hard. He had to work a lot to be able to support his family and when he got home he had to cook dinner, help the kids with their homework, and get all of the housework done. He had to take on both those roles, and sometimes because he was not home very often, the boys would get into mischief that he wouldn't know about. He didn't want to always be hard on them but often it was difficult to find a balance. Luckily he had support from members of his faith and friends who were willing to help with his needs. This outside influence made the culture of this family a little better because the kids were able to see how much their father loved them and how much he was trying for them. It was really amazing to see the change in the familial culture as outside "family" members stepped in to help. It went from kind of chaotic to less chaotic and more loving.

The other main question I wanted to address is how I want my future family culture to be like. When I think of what kind of culture I would want for my future family, I think I would want to make sure that my kids know that I love them. I want to feel united with my husband so that our kids know that we have each other's back. I would like to do activities with my family that would bring us closer together. I also would like my kids to know that they could always talk to us about things and that I will support them no matter what. I don't know exactly how my family will turn out but I think these are some of the values that I would like to develop within it. 

Anyways thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it and that you will think about what kind of culture you would like in your future families! :)