What Did I Learn? a.k.a Our Final

I had never heard of the concept of structure v. agency before this class. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology defines it as “structured ways of acting, thinking, and feeling that are general throughout a society and that act as external constraints over its members,” and agency is the ability to make your own choices in life. So essentially it’s a question of how much free will we actually have and how much we are just going along with the group, which I think is kind of ironic seeing as though the title of my blog is Bandwagon Blogger. I have a hard time with the idea that my choices aren’t really my own, but through the course of this class I’ve seen revelations in how this is true. The life narrative that we had to make was a good example of how our “choices” are really just a continuation of the path many of our friends and relatives have taken in the past.

The question “why do you want to get married?” is a hard one to answer for me in the first place. I would say that before this class I would say that it was because I wanted to spend my life with someone that I love and that I want to raise children in that context (marriage and children coexist in my mind). Not to say that these reasons don’t still exist in my mind now that I’ve taken this class, I think that my underlying reason for marriage is because it is a logical step in my narrative. My models of life have followed the same plan relatively and that plan included marriage. I’m basing my future of relative success off of the endeavors of those in my life that have followed that same path. The purpose of marriage is another difficult topic to consider. There are many different purposes in people’s minds. Some marry for convenience and other nonromantic reasons. I think that before and after this class I view the purpose of marriage as religious in nature, it is to become one with another person while fostering each other’s faith and that relationship and to bring children into the world. I know that there are some sociological and economic purposes for marriage and all that jazz, but marriage to me is for personal fulfillment and completion. The topic of what kind of person I would like to marry is really broad in my mind at this point. I’m so far from getting married that I don’t know with complete certainty who I want to end up with. Before this course I thought that I would marry someone who shares the same interests with me, was the same religious denomination, made me laugh, and I think that some level of physical attraction is required. While all of this is still true, after learning about marriage in class I know that I am also likely going to marry someone of the same race, socioeconomic status, and education level. Also someone who is motivated and ambitious in their job and that I feel can provide for our family.

The concept of my future family was even harder for me to visualize than marriage. I don’t see myself having a family anytime soon and I’m terrified of how I will turn out as a mother and a wife. The structure of my family is somewhat easy for me to hash out as well as how many children I will have. The answer to these questions hasn’t changed over the course of this class, but I now know the logic behind my reasoning. Before I would have said that I want to structure my household in an equal responsibility fashion, like my parents did. It would be neither patriarchal nor matriarchal, but an equal sharing of responsibilities including cleaning, income support, and child rearing. I also envisioned having no less than two and no more than three children. Like I said, I still feel the same after the course, but I can justify myself in these choices. I still feel that having an equal partnership in the household makes for a more stable and amiable environment. On the topic of children, despite that it was discussed that having more children creates difficulties in the success of the children I believe that having two to three children could still be made to work. My family is a three child household and whereas not all children went to the same types or caliber of colleges or followed the same life plan it was by choice not because it was the only resort. My financial independence in funding my college career was something I chose so I could have a sense of responsibility over my own future. I think having only one child can have a strong pull towards the parents spoiling that one child and having someone around for the child to interact and bond with is healthy in my opinion. Though having any more than three children I think strains how much attention you can devote to all of the children. Additionally, I am getting an education that will afford me the type of career that will enable me to provide for my children and hopefully that will be the case with my husband as well. Before this class I would have said that my family would only compare with my family in the positives that I experienced. The same sense of closeness and the fun and nurturing environment my parents provided. After the class I realize that other aspects of my family affect how my family will function. My parents are still married, but my mom was previously married and my siblings came out of that marriage. Experiencing how the split up and ugliness of that divorce affected their childhood I would do my best to avoid that at all costs. Meaning I will wait longer to get married to be assured that is the right move and will exhaust all avenues to fix problems that arise in the marriage. If divorce still seems necessary, I will maintain a positive relationship with their father to make it easier on the kids. I would say that both before and after this class I don’t see myself as likely to divorce, despite “trends.” Also before and after this class I would view love as extremely important to stability of a marriage. Before I would say just because it is; afterwards I know that because our relationships are no longer based on financial support and family business, that love is the glue that holds these marriages together. My hypothesis for how I will try to stay satisfied in my marriage is to try and always make time for each other, not to let the love and the romance fizzle out, and two follow the 5:1 ratio; also, to respect each other and most importantly, to communicate well.

I took a lot away from this class, not particularly in my outlook for my future and how I see my life developing, but more in why I foresee these things happening. I can be more confident in the success of my future knowing that there is reasoning and a support system behind everything that I do. Finally, I want to thank you for making this course so enjoyable to be a part of, for fostering discussion and allowing us the ability to express our opinions in an academic setting.

20 Kids and Counting Down to Disaster

I recently heard that the Duggar clan is expecting yet ANOTHER child. I’m going to try my best to comment on the subject without ranting. I am a Christian as well and can relatively see their point of view in having a lot of children, but as a person with common sense I see more flaws than good being done here. True, we are called to have children, but I don’t think that that calling extends to risking life to do so. After the birth of her last daughter had such intense complications I would think that they would understand the repercussions of what they’re doing, apparently not. Their daughter, Josie, was born prematurely and spent the first six months of her life in the NICU and the mother wasn’t doing so well afterwards either. I can only expect worse with this next child. Due to her increased age it’s like playing a game of Russian Roulette. The more children she has later in life the more she risks giving her children Down’s syndrome or death of the baby or herself. This to me is something I would never risk even if I wanted more children. There are plenty of kids in this world that can be adopted and would benefit from living with a family that has such strong Christian ideals. I think proceeding in having more kids knowing the potential risks is irresponsible. That’s all I’m going to say on the matter, mostly because thinking about it makes me want to scream.

Co-Sleeping

Earlier I had posted an article about the dangers of co-sleeping. I didn’t have time to comment on the article on the topic yet, so I’m doing it now. The article is about a billboard published in Milwaukee about the dangers of co-sleeping. It is a picture of a baby sleeping next to a knife and says “your baby sleeping with you can be just as dangerous.” The infant death rate in Milwaukee is higher than that of 30 third-world countries, a contributing factor being unsafe sleep practices, not necessarily co-sleeping. I’m of the opinion that co-sleeping isn’t as dangerous as some people make it out to be. My sister co-sleeps with her daughter on occasion when she is particularly fussy or not feeling well and nothing of consequence has happened. I asked her the typical question of: “aren’t you afraid that you’re going to roll over on her.” She said that somehow, even though she is a deep sleeper, she is consciously aware of the baby being next to her while she is sleeping. So I think if done in the right way, co-sleeping can be helpful to a parent if they can’t get the infant to sleep or if you want to monitor them.

I am, however, against co-sleeping for longer periods of time. I believe after a certain length of time children should not be allowed to co-sleep on a regular basis, nightmares and other factors aside. I believe the longer you let a child co-sleep the harder it is to get them to sleep in their own rooms on their own. It’s the same basic principle of pacifiers. Sometimes I see children as old as three or four with a pacifier in still. That to me is a little ridiculous. It makes me think that the parents just don’t want to deal with a child throwing a tantrum so they just give in to their every wish. Stuff like that is a sure fire way to having a spoiled child. Things like pacifiers and co-sleeping  are  things designed for infants and toddlers and should be left in those realms to assure proper developmental stages.

The Ultimate Sibling Rivalry

In listening to the interview with Dalton Conaly I heard some things that weren’t really all that surprising and some others that seemed to be circumstantial. I see some of his theories played out in my own family, but like many of the people who were calling in I feel that the causation of those differences is what makes them occur, not sibling order per say. He talked about distribution of resources in regards to the family’s overall socioeconomic status. I grew up in a middle class family, so while we weren’t rolling in money we also weren’t struggling to survive. I don’t think my parents ever favored an advantaged child or doted more on one to even out the playing field, but talent was harped on. My mother is a musician and my brother displayed an obvious talent in the field. Therefore, she was always at his performances, involved in the parent’s groups, and contributed to his success in that area. He is the oldest.

I think family size only impacted our upbringing as we got older. When my brother was 3 and my sister was 1 my mom divorced her first husband, but they didn’t have the decline in income we talked about today because she moved back in with her parents. Within a year or so my mom remarried my dad and when my siblings were 4 and 2 I was born. I don’t think there was much time for resources to be distributed among the children within that time period, and I definitely don’t see a deficit in the resources afforded my sister, the middle child.  And while I was the youngest child, I never got the experience of being the only child. My sister didn’t move out of our house until the middle of my senior year while she was in the process of getting married. My parents assisted with her education and with the wedding so  I was the one lacking financial support.

As for overall success level I think it’s hard to measure that at this point in our lives. My brother is 25, is a former Marine and is now a police officer in Houston. He is married, has a step daughter, and lives in north Houston in a size-able home. My sister is 23, has a degree as a veterinary technician and works at a clinic in Clear Lake. She is married, has a daughter, and rents a home in Dickinson because her husband is in the Coast Guard. I’m 21, about to graduate this year and will be going to graduate school. While it may seem that as of right now I’m the least successful, that’s not going to be true in a few years. While I at this point am responsible for student loans, once they get paid off and I find a job I’m likely to be equal with my brother. Though I guess my sister could be classified as the least successful right now, I don’t believe it’s because she is the middle child. I think it’s due to the fact that she got married young before she had a stable income.

Honestly, I can’t account for the differences in our family other than life style choices. True, I may have followed more after my mother, but neither of my parents went to college. All of us are successful in our own ways and I don’t really believe birth order had anything to do with it. I was never the spoiled youngest child. I wasn’t doted on anymore than my siblings, in fact we usually joke that my brother is the favorite with my mother. So while Mr. Conaly makes some good points, in my opinion it’s all circumstantial. It’s the ambition that you have for yourself and what you believe you can accomplish. I think it’s the parent’s place to encourage children to strive for the best, but throwing money at the problem only makes the child dependent on the parents.

Co-sleeping

I’m writing a research paper for a class right now so I in no way have time to blog on this topic just yet, but I saw this article and wanted to post it.

Co-sleeping

Exploration of Emerging Adulthood

So I’ve been checking back to see if my blog posted all weekend and then realized that I forgot the whole “click publish” aspect of the assignment. So here’s the delayed post:

What exactly is emerging adulthood? We’ve learned in class and through our book that it is the period between adolescence and adulthood, but that it’s also way more complicated than that. Emerging adulthood is characterized in five ways. It is the time of exploration, the age of instability, the age where we are the most self-focused, the period of feeling in-between, and the age of possibilities. So let’s hash out what that means. Description of this period in our lives as the time of exploration is the understatement of a lifetime. There are so many aspects of our lives that we explore during this period. Those of us following the typical narrative (discussed later) are somewhere in that phase of choosing a college, choosing a major, and ultimately choosing a career. During the period of being in college we’re also exploring who we want to be in terms of religion and morals and most of us are discovering the characteristics that we find desirable in a mate. The next aspect is the age of instability. To me this mostly comes into play with the fact that the majority of us move every year. Even if you live in the same apartment for two years it is likely that you move things home or into storage during the summers. I, myself, have moved to a different residence three times throughout my college career. If you think about it, if you’re parents never went to college, it’s likely that you’ve done more moving in 1-4 years than they ever have.

Another part of emerging adulthood is the idea of being self-focused. I think this goes hand-in-hand with being the period of exploration. You’re discovering who you are as a person and what you want to do for the rest of your life; it’s only natural that that requires a certain level of introspection. The description of this time as one where we feel in-between is self-explanatory. You’re sure that you’re no longer a child or a juvenile, but there are certain aspects of your life that definitely don’t make you feel like a full-fledged adult such as financial support from your parents. The last characteristic is the age of possibilities. That really is the catch all term for this stage of life. In the beginning people decide between college, military, or work for the most part. If you go the college route you pick four year or two year and the list goes on from there. There are so many possibilities for those of us in college. I have no idea how many majors are available at Baylor, but I imagine that the number is quite large. You are also granted the ability to join a multitude of clubs, sports, and organizations. For students in America, the possibilities of what you can do with your life are multitude.

The narrative is something that we discuss often in class and is a concept I still struggle to conceptualize, mostly because the possibilities that we have. So, as we know, the narrative is a sort of timeline that most people almost subconsciously follow throughout the plan of our lives. For people in our generation the narrative tends to include high school, college, some type of professional school, job, marriage, children, and retirement. But as displayed in our discussion in class these narratives have divergences between people. My narrative also included mission work and I recall someone else mentioning something about living in a tree house. So, in my opinion, I think people all posses the same basic skeletal structure of the narrative, but we all put our own twists on them. Your narrative is influenced by your parent’s guidance, your life goals, and also by unexpected events that we happen upon in our lives. This can influence the period of emerging adulthood by giving structure to a relatively chaotic stage of our lives. It’s a huge period of transition which can lead to a lot of confusion. The narrative gives you a sort of path to follow and let’s the “20 somethings” in this stage to not have as big of a feeling of confusion or shock almost when coming across the different changes.

For discussing the areas of emerging adulthood I’m going to attempt to use my own life….we’ll see how successful that is. One area is our relationships with our parents. I’ve found that through my college experience my relationship with parents has grown to become one of equals. True, I still go to my parents for advice and they are there if something were ever to happen and I need help, but when I go home for the summers or for holidays the dynamic is different. I no longer need to ask permission to go somewhere with my friends nor do I need to be home by a certain time. I tell them where I will be and usually give them an estimate of when I will be back, but it’s more that I’m informing them rather than seeking approval. Also, as silly as this sounds, I feel as though I am treated as more of an adult. I’m included in the “big kid table” now at family holidays and my parents feel comfortable discussing their finances and other things in their lives with me.

Another area is work. From my years at Baylor I realize that many of the students here have never had jobs, so I guess that this aspect of emerging adulthood is more prominent and difficult to transition to. In my family my parents were careful to teach us the value of hard work and how rewarding it is to make your own money. My siblings and I have almost consistently had jobs since the ages of 16. I worked at Bed Bath & Beyond starting my junior year of high school. It teaches you responsibility, time management between your shifts and your school work, and helps to develop a healthy work ethic. Once in college I was employed at a campus job every year except this one and had a consistent job every summer. This contributed a lot to the financial independence that I posses. My parent’s still pay for my health insurance, mostly because it is given through their jobs and because it’s still legal, and my phone bill because the family plan is cheaper for everyone. My student loans are all in my name and most of the money that I spend is of my own earning.

Another area is love and marriage. This isn’t a topic on which I can give much input, but in my relationships in college I definitely see a difference in the ways that they are conducted. In high school relationships were more for fun and just for having someone to spend time with in my opinion. In college I feel like I date more to find the person I will spend the rest of my life with. I college you are more likely to find someone with the same values as you and with a relatively similar plan for the future. My last boy friend was in the military and I firmly believe that a reason for that relationship not working was the differences in our life stage. Though we were very close in age, we were really different in life stages. He was about to start college when he finished his four years and I am almost done with my undergrad. Whereas, my current boyfriend has his associates and is about to join the military. We grew up in the same home town, are both very family oriented, and have a strong religious up bringing. The relationships already feel extremely different.

The last aspect I’ll discuss is religion. This is something that for me has changed greatly during my college experience, mostly because of my ability to find a strong group of friends to support me. I’m a Roman Catholic, which is sometimes difficult at Baylor. Though it’s not extremely prevalent, I have met with cases of discrimination in my time here. Whether it be through fellow students or through professors. People make degrading comments about aspects of my faith they choose not to educate themselves on and make claims about my character based on stereotypes. I strongly believe that were I not to find a home at St. Peter’s Catholic Student Center, it is likely that my faith life would have suffered. Instead it’s grown 10x stronger. You are presented with unique challenges in college and having a developed faith made it easier for me to get through some of them.  We learned that emerging adulthood is the period in your life that is the least faith filled. I think at a University like Baylor, that isn’t really the case for most.

Ultimately we are supposed to remark on how we become an adult. Honestly, I have no clue. The book talks about becoming financially independent, having a career, having a forward moving relationship, and having a residence to call your own. I guess I agree with that, but I also believe that it is possible to be an adult even if not all of these requirements are satisfied. Adulthood to me is more a period of self-realization and deciding the person you are, which allows for a more stable base upon which you build your life.

The Feminine Mistake

The “problem that has no name” that is refered to in “The Feminine Mistake,” is the feeling of emptiness or of incompletion that women in the 60s began to experience. These women had chosen to stay home and be a wife and mother instead of persuing a professional career. Many worked only to satisfy their husbands and children and it left them feeling like they had nothing to look forward to or nothing to think about. The episode of Mad Men that we watched in class demonstrated this concept in many ways. In the way that Betty’s husband decided what was best for her in regards to her health and made the statement that every woman wanted to see a psychiatrist just like every woman had wanted a pink oven; it was just the next best thing to have. He also went behind her back to call the psychiatrist after her appointment to discuss what she had said and draw his own conclusions as to what was wrong. The secretary in the show also dealt with some of the stereotypes that women were just secretaries as an ends to a mean. That she was only around to snag a husband and then she would retire and stay at home with the children. The cultural significance of this issue is pretty widespread. To be living in a country where it may not have been the norm for women to have a professional career it was definitely possible and to not take advantage of all the hard work that women before them had put in to win that that freedom is shameful. It was a step backwards in the suffrage movement in my opinion. Women went back to allowing their husbands to make all the decisions for them and to believing that they’re only ambition and drive in life should be being a housewife. I think the Feminine Mystique effects only a small portion of women in today’s society and I think that mostly comes from familial expectations. I think if you were raised to believe that a woman’s place is in the house then you are less likely to try and make a change in that scenario. Someone in class continually mentions that there are a lot of girls at Baylor getting their MRS degress…I don’t think that could be farther from the truth. True, I’m sure there are a few girls who’s ultimate goal is to find a husband, but I think at a school where we pay as much as we do to get an education not many women are going to waste that to be a housewife. I know that if you made that statement to the majority of girls in the Science Building on a daily basis you would get an earfull of just how wrong you were. I, personally, plan to embrace all of the opportunities afforded to me by my upbringing and by the work of those women before me. I plan to be a wife and a mother, but I also plan to have “professional” right up there in the list with them.

To Spank or Not to Spank?

Filling out the chart in class on Monday was way more difficult for me than I thought it would be. I got assigned a middle school-high school child. For some reason I really couldn’t remember specific “values” that my parent’s portrayed. Most of it all just seemed like parenting. My parent’s provided transportation, basic needs like food and shelter, and most importantly discipline. I think that discipline is totally going down the drain in today’s society. I see so many unruly, disrespectful, and down right bad kids out in public and I can’t help but worry about their futures. Back when I was growing up and it’s probably the same for a lot of my fellow classmates, kids that were acting up got spankings. That word is so taboo now. People here spanking and all of a sudden assume abuse. That’s the most ridiculous connection you could make. I’m not saying that spanking isn’t taken too far in some situations, but the majority of my friends were spanked growing up and none of us claim that it was abusive in nature. In fact, most of us are appreciative and realize that we more than likely deserved it. General concensus was that we only got about 4 or 5 in our lives and then we learned to act right.

However, a friend of my parents recently got into a huge mess regarding something so simple. Their daughter stole money from her mom’s purse and got caught in the act. She got a spanking and proceeded to go up to her room and call CPS. The parents were placed under investigation and were no longer to do so much as discipline her for future actions. That was mind blowing to me. People make so many claims that spankings make children afraid of their parents, have low self-esteem, and be socially stunted. I’ve yet to find this claim validated in any of my friends and found no conclusive evidence when I reasearched this topic for a class. Honestly, I think if it’s done in the right way it is very effective. As long as you make sure it occurs right after the bad behavior and explain to the child that you’re not mad and them and they aren’t bad but tell them that what they did was bad it can actually be pretty effective.

The Queen of all Misconceptions

The discussion about strip clubs in class brought about some very interesting view points. Most people seemed opposed to them and that’s not a view point that I frown upon, it’s just not one that I personally hold. True that some of the women there would rather be working somewhere else, but I’ve met someone who used to be a stipper before and she said that it’s not as bad as everyone likes to portray it as. She said that the only people that she’d heard be so opposed to strip clubs were those who only formed opinions based on tv, movies, or stereotypes. She said people always view the girls that work in those clubs as having low self-esteem, being demoralized, and dirty. She said that honestly she took the job to be able to support herself. She said it was her way of gaining financial independence and she had always been a dancer growing up, she just viewed this as learning a different style of dance.

As for the view that they are dirty, sleezy places, that’s not necessarily true either. I’m more than sure that there are some places that are dirty and not well kept, but there are a lot of nicer places around too. They treat the employees well and make sure that they are safe working there. Though I personally have never been to a strip club, I have friends that have been and say they really aren’t so bad. And as someone mentioned in class, it’s pretty common for couples to go together. This is another one of those topics where you never really are going to change someones opinion on the subject. People believe different things for different reasons, afterall this is America….and that’s allowed here.

Marriage and Religion

For this explore assignment I interviewed my parents. They have been married for 22 years this Thanksgiving and they have three children. Both of my parents work; my Dad is a dispatcher for a chemical company and my Mom is an Office Manager for the water department of our city. My father was raised Jehovah’s Witness, but converted to Roman Catholicism about 15 years after marrying my mom. My mother was raised Roman Catholic and still practices. My father said that he was religious, but didn’t know how to explain in what ways. My mother said that she is religious, but knows that she could make some improvements in the level of her religiosity. Both of my parents attend church weekly and pray daily, my mother also leads music ministry for our church.

When asked if there was a difference between men and women, both said yes and that they believed it mostly from having learned it that way. My dad said that men and women have different make-ups, chemistry, social backgrounds, and physical and mental make-up because that’s how God made us. My mom said that men and women are raised differently; that men think logically whereas women tend to think emotionally. She said that men are raised to be the protector and the head of the household and women play the role of nurturer. She said that these differences are caused by gender stereotypes, history, and brain chemistry. My father said that he didn’t believe in submission in marriage; however, my mom said yes and no. She said through the Bible we know that Eve was given to Adam as a partner and as someone for him to protect. She said that men are the head of the household, but not in a dominating way.

In terms of housework both parents said that the chore level was mostly shared around the house. Though my Dad tends to be a bit of a clean freak. He said he spends 12 hours on domestic work (including yard work) and my mom said she spent only about 3. I think this difference comes from my parent’s being in the empty nest stage of life so my mom doesn’t have to spend as much time cooking and cleaning whereas my dad still does yard work. My mom said the only difference in who does what work around the house was based on the nature of the work. She gets migraines in the heat so if it’s hot outside my dad will normally take over. Also if it’s something mechanical that she doesn’t know how to do. They both said that otherwise it was just whoever got to it first. Both of my parents said that religion played no role in who did what in the house.

From this interview I learned that religion plays some part in my parent’s relationship, but not when it comes to household chores.