Aio, quantitas magna frumentorum est.

Thank you, Ashley, and thank you classmates for this wonderful experince.Prior to taking this course I had little understnading of the benfits of sociology. As someone who started out as a psych. major, I put a lot of stock in hard, scientific, brain-based research. But thanks to our class, i  have learned the wonderful importance that sociology plays.

I especially enjoyed learning about emerging adulthood. It’s really helped me in my own life to make sense of the world around me, and also how to handle the disparties of my future mother-in-law who is struggling with the concept that her son is not a teenager anymore, but he isn’t an adult entirely either. I paln to give her a book on EA’s causually, in the hopes that it will improve the relationship between her and her son.

I loved that I could relate Mad Men back to several of the concepts taught in class, and I loved when it related to the real world around us.

So thank you all for this wonderful class experience. Also for teaching me about Dulas, so I can have one when i give birth.

As you think about the relative impact of social structure vs. personal autonomy in decision-making in these areas, you might find it helpful to think back to the beginning of the course.  How would you have answered these questions at that time?  How can you answer them based on the sociological understanding of marriage and family you have garnered from our time together in SOC3354?

At the beginning of this course, I would not have known if the major decisions in my life are a result of social structure or personal autonomy. While I certainly feel that structure plays a HUGE impact on our lives, it is ultimately our personal decisions, our choices that lead us on the path we take. I feel that everything in life truly boils down to the choices we make, otherwise how can we say that we are humans? Is it not our duty as sociologist to study the path of human choices. Certainly there may be outside influences on how we make a choice, but in the end, we are greater than the our parts. We are the choices we make in life.

• Why do you want to get married?

I want to get married because I am in love with the most wonderful man on the planet. I believe that while I may have been socialized into loving weddings, it is my personal autonomy that compels me to want to walk down the aisle and share my life with the same person.

• What is the purpose of marriage?

The purpose of marriage is impacted by social structure almost entirely. The purpose for marriage is principally love. Then there is sex/reproduction, economic gain, resource allocation/protection, and other cursory factors. We have autonomy and choice in what we decide marriage is to be about chiefly for us.

• Who (what kind of person) are you likely to marry?

Social structure guided my choice in mate selection. I was socialized to admire men like my father; successful, intelligent, caring, sports-minded, a strong family man and a devoted Christian. When it came time for me to begin isolating further characteristics for my mate, I chose things such as strong, but still comfy (who doesn’t love to be carried up the stairs or cuddle?) blue eyes, a wonderful sense of humor, and loves comic books and other nerdy things like me, and sports. And I made a promise to my future self when I was in 5^th grade that I would marry a man of Norwegian descent, and I just happen to land one. It’s God’s plan. J

• What kind of family structure do you expect to have?  How many children?

Family structure is completely by choice. I want three kids. Two boys, then one girl to be my little princess. My future husband wants three to six boys, so that he and his best friend (who is marrying MY best friend) can have a sports team together. I am hoping initially for a DINKS family structure, and then once it is time to have children my husband will be making enough so that when child # 2 is born he is making six figures and I won’t have to work, I can focus on raising our kids. I’ll go back to teaching when the kids are older.

• How will your family compare with the family you have come out of?  (e.g. if your parents divorced, how will this affect your chances of divorce)

My family will end up being just like the family I have come out of. No divorce, husband is the chief earner; mom teaches for the joy of it, happy little family of generally normalcy.

• How likely are you to divorce?

Highly unlikely. I have had little exposure to divorce in my life, and i have been through enough unfortunate relationships to know the value of choosing a partner who is in it for the long haul, so to speak. I have been structured not to get divorced, but if i felt that it was necessary, than i would exercise my rights.

• How important is love in the context of the stability of your future romantic relationships/marriage?

It is 95% of the motivation behind my marriage. Love will keep us together!

• Assuming this a general goal of long-term relationships, how will you remain satisfied in your relationship/marriage across the marital life cycle?

He is my best friend. Contintuing to keep the romance alive will be important to keep satisfaction up. But honestly, even the most hum-drum of household chores are fun when he’s around. I’m looking forward to every part of our marriage, no matter how routine it may seem. He is my adventure, and greatest gift.

Marriage ought to be a wonderful celebration of your love to another person. Your engagement should be the start of that wonderful celebration. But what happens when you have become so embittered that you cannot feel happy for someone when they get engaged. What happens when the one person that you’ve never been so fond of gets engaged before you do?

It eats you up inside, that’s what. I never realized just HOW important marriage has become to my personal narrative. In my narrative, I will be engaged either by next christmas, or four years from now. If my boyfriends mother had things her way, it would be the latter, as she is under the notion that we should date for seven years. However, seven years is a long time from now, and I do not know if I want that. We would not be able to co-habitate, and in this economy, a teacher cannot really afford to live on her own as a financial independent.

The first of one’s peer group to begin marriage is a startling thing to be certain. it signals an approaching end to emerging adulthood. Perhaps that is what upset me most about the recent engagement of a frienemy; they are juniors in college, and he is not in school, he works at Old Navy. They are no where near the end of emerging adulthood, and yet it seems to be hurtling toward us all at the speed of a wedding march.

So, are we too young to get married? Or are we seeing a trend of lower marriage ages?

The character of Pete is an interesting sociological study. On the one hand, you can analyze him in terms of marriage. He is in the “Newlywed” stage, and in the earlier seasons of the show he seems by-in-large satisfied with his marriage to Trudy. But i think that there’s a lot more to Pete that isn’t explicitly stated. A few weeks ago we started talking about birth order and personality. I can not think of a character better suited to expound upon birth order than Pete Campbell.

Pete is the last born son of a wealthy upper-class family. His older brother is regarded by his parents as the successful one. Pete seems to exhibit the characteristics that we as a class ascribed to the last-borns. He is creative, but he is also spoiled, and rebellious. Pete is certainly outgoing.  His parents are resentful that he did not follow in his father and older brother’s footsteps of going into law. In season 2, Pete’s father tells him “We gave you a great name, and what have you done with it?”

Even though we learned that birth order and personal success are not the only thing at play in a persons’ life, one cannot help but see how Pete’s life is determine by his treatment in life as the second born.

Pete Campbell is NOT my homeboy.

My future husband and I frequently find oursleves discussing things that will relate to our family structure, and the question of child rearing is one we are rather accustomed to discussing. Whether or not to spank our children is a topic of rather legnthy debate for us. But i think that we did eventually come to a mutally agreeable conclusion.

As a reality-tv junkie, my mom and I watch quite a few “parenting shows”, like Super Nanny or Toddlers and Tiaras (AKA “How not to behave as a parent”) and suprising or not, spanking comes up quite often in the world of parenting. I myself was perhaps only spanked once as a child, for the mere threat of it was usually enough to straighten me out.  My parents never used an open hand or a closed fist. My parents used a wooden spoon with a hole in it. We called it Mr. Spoon. It was my parents’ descion to use a spoon so that if they ever needed to spank my brother or me, we would never associate their (my parents’) touch with punishment. It was always placed on an inanimate object, in this case the damn spoon.

I think that my parents had the right idea, I think that if a parent is going to spank, it should be with an unassociatable object, or an open hand. It ought never to be out of anger. If I am going to spank my child, it will be after several warnings and potential lesser consequences. Spanking is to be done as a last resort, and afterwards, we will dialouge with the child, ensuring them that we love them, and that we do not like spanking them. Chlidren need to be reassured that they are loved.

I do not thibk that using a belt is a good idea, because it is like a whip, and can be very painful, and could come across as abusive.

I do want children, I really do. But pregnancy frightens me. First, the idea that i may never be able to get pregnant worries me. But once i do get pregnant, the greatest worry i have is about cesarean sections. In the mother pannel we had in class, two of the moms mentioned how a c-section is a major surgery and that it will be very bloody and they cut you open and it sounds horrifying.

That being said, i really admire these women and the courge that they have to go through the pain of child birth. I am very intriuged by the idea of having a Dula. I don’t know if i would be able to afford it with my first child though, but having someone who isnt your mother or your partner running around and doing things for you sounds great, because then your family doesnt have to resent you for barking orders at them for 9 months because its 3 am and you HAVE to have lemon custard and salt & vinegar potato chips.

I really admired the mom who is planning to have a natural (home?) birth with her second child. I dont know that i would be strong enough to go without the epidural, much less with no hospital staff in case something goes wrong (i am a worry wart).

All in all, child birth seems like a double-edged sword. It is both painful, and rewarding; terrifying and magical. Let’s just hope my future husband doesn’t faint when i’m giving birth.

This assignment has asked that I hammer out what it means to be an emerging adult in the context of a narrative. Emerging adulthood is a new phase of life that has come about with the uprising in the number of students attending college. It lasts from about 18-25, and is an age of identity exploration, instability, is self-focused, and above all, a time of feeling in-between. I know that I am definitely an emerging adult.  Part of emerging adulthood is discovering for one’s self their attitudes on relationships with parents, love & sex, marriage, college, work, and religion.

For those of you reading this who do not know what a narrative is,  (people like my wonderful mother who reads my blog to know what I’m really up to. ) a narrative is merely a way of explaining or planning your life in the structure of a story, much like a narrative plot. I have been asked to draw upon either my own narrative or one from pop culture that explains what it means to become an adult.  Ironically, however, most of my previously constructed narratives were based around the teachings of pop culture. Pop culture had led me to believe many erroneous things about emerging adulthood.

First off, in terms of relationship with parents, pop culture taught me that I would be at constant odds with my parents over ever single aspect of my life, from the time I first hit puberty, until I was married.  It is true that we have had some fights, but most of the time my parents are very supportive and understanding. The time from the onset of puberty to about 16 was the most difficult, but now that I am in college, we (my parents and I) are on much better terms. We have gone from conflict to companionship.

In terms of love AND sex, pop culture lead me to believe that the only way to find a man to love you is to hook up. Pop culture disenfranchised me. It said to me “why should you wait for your husband? He’s not going to wait for you.” When I believed this, it only led to a string of horrible men who treated me like crap, and ultimately dumped me because I would not give them what they wanted.  But I held out, and it was all worth it. I should have known that God would bring an amazing guy into me who was waiting for me!

The other big area that I have had expectations about that pop culture dictated to me was the college experience. College was going to be one giant party with people getting drunk constantly. Well, that is kind of true, but most of my college experience has been late nights, hard work, and football games. I never liked the idea of drinking underage. I hate getting in trouble, I do not really enjoy the taste of alcohol (I’m 21 now, so I know what it tastes like) and I never wanted to get arrested and screw up my chances of getting a good job.

Sometimes i wish that i didnt have to go to college, that i could just get married and have babies and never try for anything else. School can just be so frustrating that i just want to elope. Im stressed out right now reader, in case you cannot tell. Its one of those weeks where i am going to just break down.  i had a break down this morning, and im having one right now as i type.

sometimes i feel like life is one big social pressure cooker, a crucible of wills, if you will. We’ve been talking about the feminie mystique, and the quitter in me says that it would be so much easier to have lived back then. minimal exceptations, with nearly everthing taken care of for you.

But the woman in me knows that i cannot give up on my dreams to succeed outside the home. my mother regrets not doing so herself, and she does not want the same to happen to me.  but whose life am i living? am i achieving for myself or for my mother? I am the first woman in my family to obtain a bachelors degree. My parents have very high expectations of me, and i have high standards for myself. its hard work taking care of myself, my life and my domestic irresponsibility. If i wasn’t around, my apartment would literally fall apart. My roommate doesn’t do dishes or take out the trash. She doesn’t clean either. The extent of her cooking is heating up frozen, processed crap.  All these things fall on me, and some days i wonder if it wouldnt be easier to just quit school and become a houswife.

But deep down i know that i need to do more than my husband, children and my home. I will become an actualized woman, i just need some support.

So i asked my boyfriend to be honest with me. “Would you ever go to a strip club?” i asked him. He vehemently denied that he would ever go. I told him “its okay, just be honest with me.”

“Honestly,” he said, “even if it were mine or Marijan’s (his roommate/high school football buddy) bachelor party i still wouldn’t go.”

Curious, i asked him to go into detail. He began to tell me that to him, it would be disrespectful to not only my feelings (i am a little jealous at times) but also to women in general, and that he knows if the situation was reversed, and it was I who was considering going to see a male stripper that he would not like it.

I was relieved. The strip club thing for me tends to be a double standard. Its okay for men but not women. Which is silly, because although male strippers tend to be for women to laugh at each other about how embarrassing the whole thing is, i have seen recent episodes of Bridezillas where they hire a male stripper, and he will do things much more similar to what i understand a female stripper to do. Their actions are overtly sexual.

I guess that’s where i get my main hang up. sure you can’t touch yourself in a strip club and not all strippers are prostitutes, but if sexual fidelity is important to you, than a strip club just does not fit those standards.