January 30th

I think the way our family is greatly affected by our social class and who we are surrounded by. I grew up in a very diverse city and went to a diverse school. There were so many different cultures around me I was able to learn and grow as a person by meeting the people I met. But also, with this there are downfalls, around where I grew up there were a lot of Hispanic kids at my school and with this, they didn't always have the best home life. A lot of the kids had family members who were back in Mexico and so they weren't able to have the full family experience like other people.

I also think being in a higher social class can help and hurt your family dynamics. Sometimes when families have more money, they tend to spoil their kids and then the kids never learn to work for themselves and end up getting money from their parents all their lives. Being in a lower social class doesn’t give the parents or kids as many opportunities to get jobs and earn money but also to go out and experience the world. People who don’t have as much money aren’t as able to go on vacation which limits their experience in the world, while people with money can travel the world and see many different cultures.

For my family and I being in the social class that we are in and the environments that we were surrounded by it made us closer, because we saw so many people go through hard times it made us appreciate each other at a different level. I saw that some people didn’t have a dad from a super young age and so it made me appreciate mine while he was here all that much more.

In conclusion I definitely think are social class and the culture around us affects us and our families. That can be for the good and for the bad. Each family has to learn for themselves what type of environment works best for them to have a successful family dynamic and to raise children who know how to live in the world and run their lives in the world. The children they raise can then raise their children the same and we could be able to live a little easier in the crazy world that we are living in today.

January 23rd 2021

 It was really interesting to listen and be a part of this week's class. We talked about roles in the families. I want to talk about my family and the roles each of us had. I think that the roles we took on moved a little bit as we got older but for the most part, they stayed the same. The role that I took on in my family is Peacemaker. I am somebody who doesn't like fighting and will do whatever I can to calm down the situation. I like to avoid confrontation, although there was definitely the normal sibling fighting between my brother and me growing up. After attending the class, I asked my mom what she thought each of our roles was in our family. She had a few for each of us, for me, she said Peacemaker, the quiet one, the avoid all confrontation one, and the kind one. Each of these brought its own strengths and weaknesses. Being a peacemaker, I was able to settle fights that were happening and keep the peace in tough situations, being the quiet one I am able to listen. 

Family roles are super important but not every family has every role. There are so many different combinations of family roles. I think there are some families with different roles that works well together and each role compliments each other but there are definitely families that don't have quite such luck. For example, if there is somebody who has no patience but there is also somebody who takes their time, then those two people are probably going to butt heads a lot. But an example for the other way is when someone is a good listener, and the other person is a talker than they are going to get along because one person can listen while the other one just speaks their mind.

I think in finding a spouse you need to look for their qualities and try and determine what their role is going to be and see if you have any conflicting things about you. The only thing is you will never know completely what somebody’s family role will be until they are in that setting. Also, even if you do have conflicting roles there is always a way that you can work on it and improve yourselves to be able to work with them better in a family setting.

January 16, 2021

     I am so excited for this class this semester and the opportunity I get to learn more about families and why they are the way they are. One of my roommates took this class last semester and she was always sharing what she learned, and it sounded like something I wanted to learn more about. When she told me, she had to do a blog post every week it kind of made me nervous because I didn't know what I could write about that would make a worthwhile post but after class on Thursday, I am feeling a lot better. This blog is a place where I am going to be able to share my thoughts on the different topics we talk about in class and I think it is such a great idea. I am a quiet person and so I do not always get the opportunity to share my thoughts in class, so the blog is a good way for me to share those thoughts with not only my teacher and classmates but also my friends and family and anyone else who wants to read it. I can express what I think about everything we are talking about and in doing so I can learn the subject better than if I were to just sit and listen. The blog is a way for me to not just take notes on class and forget but to take notes and look back over them later to write my blog post.

    We have only had one full week of class, but my professor shared a few stories of people's blogs that were insightful. He shared about how there have been people who have created these blogs that have been able to share them with their friends and families to help them learn more about what we are learning about in class. The topic of families has become a kind of controversial topic in the world today. Many people have different opinions on what a family is and if having a family is important, my family is so important in my life and I am so grateful for them. With the topic of families being as controversial as they are it makes it hard to talk about and research because how do you know what is true. It is difficult when you know that somebody your close to disagrees with you because it turns into either you bring it up and have a chance of stepping on some toes or do not talk about it and keep the peace but not have the opportunity to share your opinion.

    Families are also becoming less of a priority for many people. A lot of people are okay with being alone or not marrying and just living with their boyfriends/girlfriends. Marriage is not as special for some people as it used to be.  In this blog I want to share what I believe to be true about the family. I know that there are so many different kinds of families. A lot of things can happen within a family, there are single mothers/fathers, there is divorced parents, sometimes grandparents are the parents and there are also different dynamics among families, some are close, and some are not. There is not set family to be like, everyone is different and goes through different trials and challenges with their families, but as long as we are trying to be the best, we can be then that's a family, I am interested to learn what makes a family a family. I am also interested to read some of my classmates thoughts on what we are learning in class.

Welcome

 

Hello!!! My name is Kassi Burwell and I am excited that I get to share my thoughts and insights on families through this blog.