Final Post

At the beginning of this semester, I was very excited about finally being a senior but very unsure as to what this year would be like and what my future would hold.  I was living the life of an emerging adult before I knew the term existed.  As the semester has progressed, I now have a clearer picture of what my future will look like which has caused my mindset to begin to shift to that of a true adult.  My narrative is very typical of my fellow classmates in that I will graduate, attend medical school, get married, have children, and then retire eventually.  I came into this class with this picture, and I am leaving this class the same way but with a greater awareness of the alternatives.

I want to get married to the love of my life who adores me despite my flaws and chose me over every other girl in the world.  I know that sounds completely cliche and stereotypical, but it is what I hope to find.  This viewpoint did not come about without influence from society.  From Disney movies as a young child to romantic comedies as a teenager, the idea of true love being all you need is everywhere.  This concept has gained popularity now that women are more independent and do not necessarily need a husband for financial stability or even children.  My future career will allow me to be able to provide for myself, so the idea of marrying for money has no appeal for me.  I believe that the purpose of marriage is to draw each other closer to God and provide love, grace, and forgiveness to another person in the image of Christ.  My view has been heavily influenced by my religious beliefs and also by the examples of marriage I am surrounded by.  The person who I marry will most likely be very similar to me in my beliefs and upbringing.  This will probably occur because the people I meet in my social circles share common interests with me.  I am very unlikely to meet a person who does not have anything in common with me and be able to develop a successful relationship that is not based on some mutual beliefs.

My parents have been married for 36 years and still adore each other.  I picture myself having the type of marriage that they have.  I have one sibling, and I would like to have either two or three children.  Of course, I do not envision myself getting a divorce, and I would hope to make that the very last option in response to conflict within my marriage.  All of these aspects I envision for my marriage are nearly identical to the family I grew up in.  The social model of marriage provided by my parents was the only option I knew for the longest time.  My knowledge regarding marriage and family has expanded, but ultimately my views have not deviated too far from my upbringing.  If I had grown up in a difficult family situation then I am sure my views would be very different.

In my opinion, love is the most important ingredient necessary for a successful and happy marriage.  Love is the glue that will hold you and your spouse together whenever everything else is falling apart.  Life is not easy and many unexpected hardships will occur, but while material things fade love will remain.  It does sound sappy but I have seen this principle lived out in the lives of my family and friends.  Finding satisfaction and strength from each other is the best way to keep your marriage satisfying.  Once one spouse turns to someone or something outside of the marriage to fill a void then there will no doubt be issues.

Overall, my views on marriage and family have not changed over the semester.  I am leaving this class with a greater realization that my views are heavily influenced by the structures I live in and are very similar to those of my peers.  I am more aware of the multitude of options available in regards to marriage and family decision making, but I still stand by my original views.  The social models in my life portray similar ideals, and I hope to someday have a marriage that mirrors their own happy narratives.

Polyamory

The basic concept of polyamory is that it is acceptable to have multiple serious and committed relationships with several people and all of the people involved are aware of the situation.  Polyamory sounds like a completely ridiculous concept to me, but I realize that the majority of that opinion is a result of the culture in which I was raised.  In the United States, polygamy is outlawed in many states, and there are reality shows focused on such families portraying them as being abnormal.  Cheating on your significant other is still highly frowned upon and is one of the major catalysts for divorce despite its increasing incidence.  Overall, our society only supports relationships between two people.

We have discussed several times in class that love is now the main reason people get married as opposed to financial stability and children.  This shift may have fueled the concept of polyamory.  A person may feel that they are in love with several people and not want to choose.  Someone brought up in class how polyamory is almost the opposite of “settling” which we discussed earlier in the semester.  If you chose to only be with one person, then chances are that there is at least one aspect of that person that does not line up with your ideal mate characteristics.  Polyamory allows you to find everything you want in a mate but through several different people.  This of course brings up the discussion of whether or not humans are meant to monogamous, but that would take another blog post to fully discuss.

Logistically, polyamory and polygamy seem to be a nightmare.  I watched “Sister Wives” the other night, and I kept thinking how difficult that kind of life must be.  One of the wives was about to give birth, and the other children did not seem very excited.  One son said that he thought they already had enough kids in the family.  How can resources be properly divided within a polygamous family?  The “pecking order” would be unavoidable, and the scrutiny faced by the family would seem to be very detrimental to the success of the children.  Polyamory may sound like a great alternative but logically it would never work.

The Pecking Order

I had never considered what causes the differences between siblings but our class discussion and the interview with Dalton Conley did cause me to reflect on my own family situation.  I come from a middle class family of four with one older sister.  My sister is six years older than me and is a speech pathologist.  My sister also attended Baylor University for four years and then attended graduate school for two years.  I will also spend four years at Baylor, and after graduating in May, I will be attending medical school for four years.

I agree with Conley that the stereotypical oldest and youngest child personality traits are not very applicable in two sibling households.  I would consider my sister and myself to have Type A personalities.  We are both very hard working, responsible, ambitious, and would be considered successful in Conley’s terms.  The age difference between my sister and I has had the largest effect on our up-bringing and resulting choices as adults.  Since we are six years apart, my sister and I were almost raised as two only children.  Each of us had six years of full attention from both of our parents either at a young age or during the teenage years.

The distribution of resources did not play a large role in my family situation.  My father is a math professor, and my mother is a preschool administrator.  My sister was born while my father was working on his PhD, and I was born after my father had been teaching for several years.  My mother stayed home with both my sister and I until we started school.  Both being educators, my parents’ salaries have not drastically increased over the years but the paying of school debt and the contribution of my mother’s income has helped as the years have gone by.  My sister and I both attended public school and participated in many of the same extracurricular activities.  The age difference allowed my parents to pay for our college education with the aid of scholarships.  My sister funded her own graduate school education with the help of scholarships and loans with some assistance from my parents.  I will be doing the same when I begin medical school.

My parents were 31 when my sister was born, and 37 when I was born.  Since my parents were older when we were born, both my sister and I spent a significant amount of time with adults from a young age.  Also due to our age difference, we spent more time with our parents than with each other.  I believe this had an effect on our personality development along with our academic and career success.  Overall, there is not a significant presence of a pecking order within my family.  Due to the age gap between my sister and I, my parents were able to divide their resources between us almost equally.  Having a close relationship with our parents resulted in us being mature for our ages.  These factors have resulted in my sister and I being very similar in both our personality traits and success in our career paths.

In Sickness and Health

In my pathophysiology class this semester, we are required to do a presentation on a disease and one aspect of the project includes interviewing someone who has the disease.  My group chose Parkinson’s disease and decided to interview a woman who my roommate knows from church and has become very close to over the past few years.  The woman and her husband are in their mid-eighties and have been married for over sixty years.  We interviewed her on Friday afternoon and talked to her about the progression of her disease but what stood out to me was her response when we asked her how the diagnosis changed her life.  She said that it changed everything but especially her relationship with her family.  She had to learn how to ask for help for simple tasks that she used to do with ease, and her husband and children took on tasks they were not accustomed to doing.  As she said, her husband did not know how to wash a dish!

The traditional roles within their family were forced to shift due to her Parkinson’s diagnosis, but with a little patience and love the transition occurred relatively smoothly.  I found their story to be a great example of when the “narrative” of your life does not go according to plan.

Childbirth, epidurals, and breastfeeding…oh my!

I really enjoyed hearing the perspective of three mothers and their experiences yesterday in class.  Sometimes it is easy to forget how many decisions must be made in order to have a child and then they never stop once the child is born!  There are so many options today regarding childbirth, medication, breastfeeding, and discipline that it is easy to become overwhelmed by the latest trend.  I believe that there is not necessarily a right or wrong answer to these hard parenting questions, but the decision must be made by the parents themselves after careful consideration of all the options.  Every family is different and therefore the same decision will not be right for every family.

Despite this, I wanted to address the issues related to doctors and hospitals mentioned by the panel members.  First, let me state upfront that I am planning on attending medical school and becoming a physician, so I do have some bias.  I completely agree that the medicalization of birth can become a problem.  There are numerous issues involving insurance, money, and malpractice that have resulted in drastic changes to the way hospitals operate over the years.  It is very unfortunate how much of a role economics play health care, but this does not mean that the doctors and nurses do not still have the mother and child’s best interests at heart.  I am not naive enough to think that every doctor is perfect and always listens to their patients requests, but in the end the doctor has the knowledge and expertise to make the difficult decisions.  In regards to the panel’s concerns about privacy in the hospital, it would be wonderful if you could be with the same physician and nurse throughout the whole process, but they are people too who need sleep so that they can best serve their patients.  I completely understand not wanting to have extra people, such as students, be present in the delivery room and agree that it should be the mother’s decision.  I can also speak from the point of view that while shadowing an OB/GYN, a mother agreed to let me present in the room as she gave birth.  It was a very defining moment for me in making the decision to pursue the career of a physician.  I agree that there are many flaws in the way hospitals handle childbirth, but I do not believe it is worth the risk of having a home birth when something could go wrong quicker than imaginable.

Emerging Adulthood

The concept of emerging adulthood has been prevalent throughout our class readings and discussions.  Emerging adulthood is defined as the period of time between your late teens and mid-twenties.  It is a time of exploration within every aspect of life and is characterized by Arnett as being a time of instability, self focus, feeling in-between, and endless possibilities.  The concept of narrative goes right along with emerging adulthood since your narrative dictates how events in your life are organized and their significance.  A person’s narrative is highly influenced by society’s standards and how he or she was raised.  In general, there is an event in a person’s narrative that tends to indicate that they have become an adult.

This summer, I read The Help by Kathryn Stockett and greatly enjoyed it.  The book focuses on the town of Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960s and the relationships between African American maids and their white employers.  The main character of Skeeter embodies the idea of emerging adulthood before the concept was popular.  The narrative expected of a Southern lady during the 1960s would include attending college in order to find a husband, getting married, leaving college, having children, staying at home, and being a good society lady.  All of Skeeter’s peers followed this narrative and therefore avoided the stage of emerging adulthood.  On the other hand, Skeeter graduated from college with a degree in journalism, has career ambitions, and is single.

Many of the characteristics of Skeeter’s transformation in the book reflect Arnett’s characterization of emerging adulthood.  Skeeter’s relationship with her parents, especially her mother, has changed from childhood due to her being away at college.  As the book progresses, Skeeter begins to develop differing opinions from her parents and attempts to hide her true feelings.  This results in a tense relationship that is further complicated by her mother’s illness.  By the end of the book, their relationship has improved now that her mother accepts Skeeter for who she is and is not forcing her to be someone she is not.  The shift in Skeeter’s relationship with her parents is very reflective of emerging adulthood due to her increased independent decision making and her parents’ ability to view her as a responsible adult.

Skeeter’s dream is to become a writer, and she shows great ambition by applying to a publishing house in New York even though she has little experience.  She wants to escape her Mississippi hometown and sees a world of possibilities before her.  She eventually accepts a a job writing a cleaning column for the local newspaper, but her ambition eventually  leads her to write a book detailing the stories of the town’s help.  At the end of the book, Skeeter is offered a position in New York due to her book’s success.  Her career ambitions led her to take major steps towards adulthood by providing her with financial independence and the opportunity to move away from home.

In Jackson during the 1960s, single young women were pitied and sought to be married as soon as possible.  Despite pressure from her family and friends, Skeeter is not in a hurry to get married and is more focused on her career.  A terrible blind date eventually turns into a serious relationship for Skeeter.  She and Stuart eventually become engaged, but when Skeeter realizes that he does not share her ideologies regarding segregation, she ends the engagement.  Like most emerging adults, Skeeter is not ready to settle down and uses this time period to figure out the kind of person who she would eventually like to marry.

The topic of religion is not a strong focus in the book, but Skeeter’s change in ideology mimics that of religion during emerging adulthood.  During the 1960s in Mississippi, segregation and discrimination were an accepted and even encouraged part of life.  Skeeter begins to distance herself from these practices when she starts to investigate the stories of the help whose lives are directed by discrimination.  She starts to make independent decisions about what she believes that are not determined by what her peers and family believe.  Emerging adults typically are the least religious during this time in which they are deciding what they believe.  In the same way, Skeeter is not following the social rules and ideology she was raised with but is instead realizing there are other ways of thought that are more appealing to her.

Strip Clubs

I wanted to express my opinion on the discussion we had in class last week on strip clubs.  First of all, I am opposed to strip clubs for my own personal religious and moral beliefs but I wanted to address several of the arguments presented in class.  I was very surprised at how many people had either been to a strip club or were not opposed to going to one!

The discussion started with whether or not we would be okay with our fiance going to a strip club for their bachelor party.  Several people expressed the opinion that it would be okay since it is for a social function.  It was also brought up that it is acceptable to go to a strip club with a bunch of friends but it is considered “creepy” to go alone.  The social aspect was also expanded to include the many business deals that are supposedly formed at strip clubs.  The social aspect excuse does not make any sense to me!  Yes, the guys may want to go out and have fun, but can’t they do that at a bar?  The fact that they would rather socialize at a place where there is less talking and more watching suggests there are underlying reasons why they would go to a strip club to bond with their friends.

The argument that is okay because the guy is only watching and not touching was also brought up.  I find it hard to believe that any woman would be okay with this as a legitimate excuse!  If you are in a serious relationship, you should respect the person you are with enough to not allow yourself to look at others in a suggestive manner.  Especially if you are married, your emotional and physical contact with your spouse should be all that you need, and if not there is most likely something wrong with your relationship.  If I heard that my spouse was going to strip clubs, I would be devastated and would feel as though I am not enough to for him.

The Feminine Mystique

The feminine mystique describes the feelings of housewives who despite their seemingly perfect lives experienced feelings of wanting more in their lives.  Women with the husband, children, and household that they had always dreamed of found themselves feeling empty and unfulfilled.  These feelings manifested in many ways such as affairs, depression, illness, reckless behavior, and even suicide.  Betty Friedan called it “the problem that has no name” and explored its effects and possible causes in her book The Feminine Mystique.

The feminine mystique is portrayed very effectively in the episode of “Mad Men” we watched in class.  The character of Betty is married to a very successful and handsome husband, has two beautiful children, and a lovely home and various luxuries.  Despite her seemingly charmed life, Betty begins to experience tremors in her hands and expresses her concerns to her husband about it being a psychological issue.  Don believes that psychologists are for people who are not happy and tells Betty that she has everything and has no reason to be unhappy.  When Betty finally does go to a psychologist, Don calls the doctor who tells him all about their session.  The portrayal of women in the workplace showed how women were not regarded as having the ability to be successful in business.  Peggy and Joan are subjected to inappropriate comments from their coworkers and are seen simply as objects and not women with ambition.

The phenomenon of the feminine mystique had a strong influence on the second and third waves of the feminist movement.  Women received political equality with men in the first wave of feminism with the women’s suffrage movement.  It wasn’t until the 1960s and 70s that women fought for social equality.  Women longing to have lives outside of the household helped encourage equality in the workplace and the legalization of birth control and abortion.  The waves of feminism helped pave the way for the increase of women in the workplace and higher education.

The feminine mystique still has an effect on women today even if may not be as obvious.  Women are now able to attend schools of higher education and have very successful careers, but society still tends to look down on a woman who chooses her career over marriage and family.  Women are still expected to fulfill the “second shift” of being a good mother and wife even if she works as much as her husband.  Women are now able to find fulfillment and life outside of the home but the traditional roles expected to be filled by women have not changed.

Learning How to Fight

Last Sunday night, I had a wonderful conversation with a friend discussing pretty much anything and everything including relationships.  My friend is a senior who got engaged in the spring and will be getting married in June.  She mentioned that at the beginning of the their relationship that they never fought.  She said that she realized that sometimes it is important to argue in order to determine what is really important to each person in the relationship.

I found my friend’s words very insightful, so I found it very ironic that we discussed this same topic in class this week.  The idea that discussing and arguing can be good for a marriage was confirmed in the study by Gottman and Krokoff and the interview with the couple who authored a book about the first year of marriage.  The study found that conflict can be beneficial in the long-term for a marriage.  The exception is if the conflict involves defensiveness, stubbornness, withdrawal, or whining then it could be harmful to the marriage.

The shift from being single to married will no doubt cause conflict simply because you are not just acting and making decisions on your behalf anymore.  The time period of emerging adulthood is characterized by a selfish attitude, so the transition into marriage can be difficult on both spouses.  If the selfishness continues into marriage, then the defensive and stubborn attitudes will no doubt follow behind.  If the spouses are able to work through their conflicts in a way that considers both opinions, then their chance at a successful marriage will definitely increase.

Homogamy

Several figures were presented in class today regarding the trends in religious homogamy over the years.  Almost across the board, every religious group’s percent of homogamous marriages has dropped as time as passed.  The sociological reasons given for this trend were very logical and showed how culture shifts have had a large impact on the percentages.

While looking at these numbers, I began to wonder what percentage of these heterogamous marriages result in divorce.  We have discussed many times how partner selection is very much determined by your own characteristics.  Also, the major sources of conflict within a marriage are money, housework, sex, and children.  Religion has a definite effect on all of these aspects.  It seems as though it would be impossible to agree on things such as how to raise your children if the two spouses do not have similar religious views.  Religion is a major sociological factor that determines many of the actions and beliefs of both the religious and non-religious.  I am very curious about what the success rate is for hetergamous marriages, considering they are entering the marriage with differing opinions on a major social issue.