Welcome, welcome. 

As always, I've learned a lot this week. I didn't really know what I was getting into when I signed up for this class. I only knew I needed it for my major. But this class is causing me to love my major even more. 

This week we discussed a little bit of culture, social class, and immigration. 
We were asked to answer this question: 
What do you think? Are all cultures equal in terms of being right and wrong, good and bad? Do we have the right to proclaim one set of values to be better than another?

I don’t think it is our place to judge another culture. We all come from different backgrounds and grow up in different circumstances. We don’t really have a right to proclaim one set of values to be better than another because we don’t walk in their shoes. What I mean by this is that we haven’t lived the same life as them. In class, we learned that culture is a sort of social group. Inside of each culture are shared arts, attitudes, and behaviors. Elder Oaks teaches us that, “This gospel culture comes from the plan of salvation, the commandments of God, and the teachings of the living prophets. To help its members all over the world, the Church teaches us to give up any personal or family traditions or practices that are contrary to this gospel culture.”

Next, we discussed some measures of social class and SES(Socioeconomic Status). Some of the measures included:

• Income
• Ancestry
• Behavior(mannerism)
• Confidence
• Recreational
• Education
• Time
• Location
• Speech
• Dress

We watched a video about Tammy and how her social class affected her family and future generations. One thing that we discussed in class was how Tammy's life could've been changed if she had a husband and her children had a father. One more person in that household could've made a huge difference; Tammy could've had a support system. Here's Tammy's story:

Thanks for reading. Families are great. I'd like to leave y'all this week with another quote from Elder Oaks:

"If we could only see above our current circumstances and know our true location on the journey to eternal life, we would realize what great progress we are making."

Have a great week. I encourage you to try to find a way to strengthen your family relationships somehow this week,because they are one of God's greatest gifts to us. 

Thanks for reading,

Karly B.

Howdy! 

This week was pretty short due to no classes on Monday for MLK day, but it was great and full of learning! One important thing I learned from class this week was that families are hard to generalize and study. When people know they are being studied or observed, they will often act differently than they would while at home going through their daily routine. There are a few theories that we discussed in class on Tuesday:

1. Systems Theory
2. Exchange Theory
3. Conflict Theory
4. Symbolic Interaction

The systems theory is summarized as meaning the whole is greater than the sum of parts. This basically means that when there is change in one family member, there is often change in all parts of the family. An example of this is when my mom was diagnosed with colon cancer a couple of years ago. This was unexpected for all of us and it was hard to adjust, because my mom does so much for everyone in my family. She was the cook, chauffeur, doctor, and the nurturer. Not to overlook my dad, he was the main provider for our family growing up and still is. He always supported his children in all our extracurricular activities. He was a coach, teacher, and protector. However, when my mom got sick every one's roles had to be shifted, whether we liked it or not. Of course we had a lot of help from church friends and extended family, but my dad really stepped up in a time of need and I am very grateful for that. 

The exchange theory is pretty self-explanatory. It has the mindset of "you owe me." There are a lot of expectations that are set. Exchange theory doesn't explain all of family life, "but it is clearly of value in our efforts to understand" (Marriage & Family 8th edition, Lauer). In this theory people try to determine if a situation is fair or appealing or worthwhile. 

The conflict theory is an explanation that focuses on two types of groups: social class and gender. Power--->Influence. The higher your social class, the more resources you have available to you. With respect to gender, some believe that men have advantage in the power struggle because they possess more of a crucial resource- money. However, I believe that communication is key in every relationship and if you sit down as husband and wife, you can discuss things, such as money, and just be willing to help each other out when needed.

The last theory I'll discuss is the symbolic interaction theory. All interactions are(can be) symbolic, representing/ conveying something. We don't all share the same meanings. Like I mentioned earlier, communication is important. Talk to your spouse if there are issues, because the longer you hold it inside, the bigger the explosion(fight) will be when you cant take it anymore. Make sure y'all  are on the same page with things to prevent confusion or feelings getting hurt.

As you can tell, lots of learning is going on in this family relations class. Brother Williams makes an 8 o'clock class worth going to. We even got to do a skit on Thursday of a small family going to therapy. It was an eye opener and kept me engaged in the lesson, while on other days I'd probably be struggling to stay awake in an 8 am lecture. 

As always, thanks for reading! Families are great and make the world a better place. Always make time for them, they are God's greatest gifts/ creations.

P.S. Happy Birthday to my big brother, Kirby :)
-Karly B.

We did it! Week #1 is down guys. Has it only been a week though? Because I feel like I’ve learned so much more. First I’d like to get started with some myths that we discussed in Family Relations this week. The first myth is that love lasts forever. Not that I’m a professional, but I’ve heard and witnessed that love/marriage is hard work. The second myth was that more similarities lead to a better marriage. It was funny discussing this because I imagined finding a guy just like me, and it sounded amazing! But the more I thought about it, the more annoyed I got. Haha I think that it is important and perfectly normal to like different things. Another myth was that a happy marriage means that there are no conflicts. Like I said earlier, marriage is hard work! You have to learn to live with a different person and find out what works and doesn’t work with each other.

After we talked about myths, we discussed different trends that are happening around the world. There has been a delay in marriage. The average age for women is 26 and men is 28. For my LDS friends, women are 24 and men are 26 (Are these numbers higher than you expected?). Delaying marriage has influenced declining fertility rates. Women are having an average of 2 point something kids. Cohabitation has become very popular. About 60%-80% are cohabitating. This also contributes to premarital sex increasing and children being born outside of marriage increasing. Mothers are then often times left raising a child by herself and therefore having to go to work to provide for her and her child. There are increasing divorce rates. More people are living alone. All these trends contribute to the average household size declining.

We were also asked to share our opinions on the question, “Does it really matter how many children I have?” We were provided with the following quote,

"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."

- President Brigham Young

I absolutely love this quote. God gave us the beautiful power to procreate and he’s asked us to save this power to use within the bounds of marriage, between husband and wife. I believe that it is very important to communicate with our Heavenly Father often and more importantly to ask Him about your future families. God has a plan for each of us. We may have ideas of what we’d like our future families to be like. We can pray to God and cry unto Him our desires. However, God already knows. His plan is perfect and flawless and He will give us what we need. 

Here's a picture of the people who are most important to me. They've made me stronger and helped me become closer to my Savior, Jesus Christ.

Hey everyone!

This is my new blog for my Family Relations class here at BYU-I. My name is Karly Buchanan and I am studying Child Development. I am starting my 4th semester and I can tell that this will be a busy one(and a cold one). I'm looking forward to this class and being able to share my insights with all of y'all(I am from Texas). I am ready to learn and I hope you are inspired by the things I post on here. Happy reading and have a great weekend! :)

-Karlyshay