Reading through the prompt for this assignment, I began to realize that a lot of what was discussed in class this semester hasn’t changed at all for me. I expect the reason is because I’m the kind of person who likes structure. I like to have a plan that is the same as one has been before, so in the context of marriage and family, I believe that I will likely do what I have grown up around. That isn’t to say that learning about new things or ideas or different aspects of life will change my mind. Or sometimes, there are certain things that (because I have grown up around them) I know I do not want to do. But for the most part, this all has to do with what I have experienced. So for me, I think my personal choices have little to do with the way I will live my life. Stating it is kind of werid because I have never realized just how much I’ve been shaped by my family, but because I have the same values as them, many of the structures in my life will mirror the ones that my parents set up for me and my sisters.
Prime example: getting married. I want to get married. I always have. Is this because I’ve already found the guy I want to marry? No. Is it because I want to make sure I have my husband’s income as well as my own? No. Is it because I want my children (because I definitely want those too) to have a stable father figure and have a nuclear family? No. It’s because my parents are married and I’ve just always known this to be the structure. All the reasons I just listed are valid reasons to get married, but they aren’t the reasons for me. Is it sad to say that this is really how influenced I am by other people? I would say yes, except that this is my family. They raised me, so naturally I have found that I agree with many things my parents say and do. Going to college hasn’t changed my views about many things just because I am so firmly rooted in my beliefs. I have enjoyed hearing, through this class, about all of the other reasons people get married, but I have never felt that any of them apply to me. So therefore, in the realm of marriage, I am hugely influenced by the structures around me.
Along with that, I believe the purpose of marriage isn’t for any of those reasons I stated earlier (being more financially stable, having a nuclear family, etc.). Instead, I believe that God created us for companionship, and the best way this is manifested is in marriage. I know that I cannot live thinking that I can do everything myself. We are created to rely on others and to be built up by those around us. So in addition to love, I want my husband to be supportive of me, to be there when I need him most, and to love the family as much a I do because all of these things have to do with companionship. Because of this, the person I am likely to marry will have similar ideas about life as me. However, as we talked about in class, I know that the person I marry will by much like me in many ways. We will probably come from the same socioeconomic status, be of a similar intelligence level, be the same race as me, etc. These patterns are just part of the mate selection process, but my choices in this area will still be influenced by the structures around me because that’s what I have been exposed to. Most people that I even know are of the same SES as me, so this narrows my pool of potential mates to those of similar SES. Most of these categories work this way as well. So I could choose to go outside this group (SES, race, etc.), but that would take a lot of effort and it would involve a great number of people I don’t already know.
So because the person I will likelymarry will be like me in many of these categories, I expect that we will have similar views about family structure as well. I grew up in a structurally sound family with no divorces or remarriages or anything like that, so I think that my family will be the same way. I don’t plan on ever getting a divorce (it could happen, but I don’t believe that it is very likely) just because my parents didn’t get a divorce and I plan on waiting to get married until I know that the person I marry will be with me forever. I don’t want to get married with the backup plan of getting a divorce. I want to be in my marriage for the long run. If that’s not the case, marriage just seems like a more intense version of dating (with kids involved). I want three children….because my family has three children. I have grown up with a family of five, and I believe that five is a good number for a family. I could definitely go with two children too, but the point is that I want a smaller number of children. I definitely don’t want more than four, but I also don’t want just one. This is because I’ve grown up with siblings and I want my children to experience the same thing. So once again, I’m so influenced by structure that it’s getting annoying.
I think that love is the most important component of my future marriage. I want to be so in love with my to-be-husband that the only thing left to do is get married. I want to be excited about having a family and having childern with my husband because of our love, not just because I’ve married him and that’s what husbands and wives are supposed to do. I know that my parents (and the parents of my friends who have had a successful marriage) are completely in love, and I want to model my own marriage after theirs because it has worked, and I can see that love is the reason it has worked. Although love isn’t necessary to get married (this course definitely taught me that), I believe that it is the glue in most marriages and the thing that makes most families tick. And in terms of being always satisfied with my marriage, no matter the stage of the marriage cycle, love plays a huge role. If I am in love with my husband, there is no fear of becoming bored once the kids move out. Or of having disagreements in the way we want to raise our children. Or of being always focused on saving money for retirement. If love for each other is the main focus of the relationship, the relationship overall won’t change based on the activities that occur in everyday life and throughout the marriage cycle. I get so much of this from my parents because I see them as my models for the way that I want to live. They are happy with each other and with their lives, and it is because they are in love. So love is my number one priority for marriage.
So as we can all see from the extensive way that I make no decisions for myself, I am highly influenced by the structures around me. This class has simply opened my eyes to the beliefs of others and to the views and norms of society. Therefore, I believe that most of my answers now are the same as they would have been at the beginning of the semester. Now, I just have the views of others to compare my ideas and beliefs with. I have enjoyed this class so much. It has opened my eyes to so many things that I (being the obviously sheltered person that I was/am) have never even thought about. I just believe that we are created to love and to create relationships with those around us (in families and friends), so if we can’t do that, we have missed our entire purpose of being here.
December 9, 2011
Because of our class discussion on Friday, the debate about monogamy and polyamory has been in my mind, and I’ve been talking about it to a few of my friends too. Are we really built for monogamy like society tells us we are? Or are we built, like other mammals, to have multiple partners?
Society has put a certain stigma on having an “open” relationship with multiple people at one time. We’ve come to a point where we are looking for our one true love, and we intend to be with this person forever. Before now, marriage and having a family was more about spreading your genes and having a large family line (think of kings and their multiple wives and resulting heirs). People would choose the most beautiful women or strongest and most powerful men to provide their children with the best possible genes, but love really had nothing to do with it.
In class, we talked about how we no longer need many of the things that our spouses would have been able to provide for us before. For example, when the only job expected for women was to raise the children and teach them at home, women relied on having a man who had a stable job and who could provide for the family. Men looked for a woman who could do this well, or were even sometimes a subject to arranged marriages where love played no part in the marriage. Now, we no longer need a spouse who can provide the entire house’s income because often times, both parents can bring income into the family. Women are much more independent and can even live alone now if they can support themselves. So a husband or wife isn’t really necessary anymore. So then why don’t we just have children with whoever we want to and raise them by ourselves? Because we are looking to fall in love. We have been shown love stories, listened to love songs, and been told about couples who were so in love. We are conditioned to search for that in a spouse, and we don’t settle until we have found the person we just can’t live without. So then can’t we be in love with more than one person? Well, that’s an entirely different matter. So let’s go ahead and skip it, and say we can only love one person to make matters more simple.
On the other hand, most other mammals are polygamous (or polyamorous) in order to spread their genes around. I’m a biology major, so I could talk about this forever, but the “survival of the fittest” definitely plays a role here. Most mammals have a much larger number of offspring than we do as humans, so it makes sense for mammals to have offspring with many different mates and see which survive and thrive in order to pass their genes on to their own offspring. The idea is that the most fit – the ones who have the best genes – will survive and pass down their superior genes. However, humans don’t have this same policy. We have (usually) one offspring at a time, and our infant care as humans is much greater than that of animals. Think about baby turtles. There are about 150 turtles that hatch at a time, and they all scuttle toward the sea to see who can survive. Usually about 20 do. Great parenting, huh? That’s just part of it for animals. They aren’t as involved as parents to their offspring. But we, as humans, care greatly for our babies. We do everything possible to make sure they are being taken care of in the best way possible. So if our babies mostly always survive once they are born, there isn’t a need to have babies with 15 different people to see which ones can get the best genes. We don’t really need “good genes” to survive. Our parents make sure of that.
So I guess overall, we are sort of built for monogamy. We have higher cortical function as humans, so we can love, and we use that ability as best as we can. What use would it be if we could love, but never used that ability? If we can focus our love and attention on one person, we should because it will benefit the children that come in the future. So in my opinion, science and normal reason back up monogamy. We really are just meant to love one person and dedicate ourselves to them to have the best relationship possible.
December 5, 2011
I am lucky enough to say that my parents are not divorced, but the conversation we had in class today still really made me think. I have always viewed divorce as something that is very negative in terms of the family because I have always believed that keeping a family together is the best thing. However, talking in class today made me realize that sometimes there are circumstances where divorce can be a really good thing. I have heard about situations in which the divorce has been positive for a family (like if there is a lot of fighting or abuse), but I never thought about it being a general situation for which divorces happen. I’ve always thought of people divorcing mostly because they have just fallen out of love or have too many differences to keep a marriage going. But knowing that divorce is sometimes one of the best things that can happen for a family made me realize how blessed I am to be able to say that my parents are still together.
When I was younger, there was a time when my parents decided that they were seriously considering getting a divorce. As a sheltered kid, the thought that my own parents might ever get a divorce was so foreign to me, so I was shocked that they had “fallen prey” to the kinds of actions and attitudes that would bring about a divorce. But as I already said, my parents are still together, so they didn’t end up getting divorced after all. I just know that at that age, I was shocked that apparently so much discord and arguing was going on behind closed doors. It was a complete shock that divorce could ever be an option because I hadn’t seen anything lead up to it. So overall, I am glad my parents did not get a divorce because I think it would have really negatively effected me. I probably would have been bitter toward one of my parents for treating the other badly (even if it was mutual), and I think I would have had a negative view toward marriage. So in a very large way, especially in my case, the children’s point of view is very important in how a divorce can affect a family.
I am thankful that through a year or so of marriage counseling, my parents did not get a divorce and are now happier than ever…especially because they are almost empty-nesters and are loving it. I know now that I want to model my own marriage after my parents’ and make sure that I always discuss any problems or disagreements that arise. I know that talking over problems is the best way to fix them, so I will definitely be in favor of that in my own marriage. And knowing that my parents worked through their differences is such an encouragement to what I want in my own life.
November 29, 2011
Listening to the interview with Dalton Conley again brought out some new points that I hadn’t noticed the first time through, and it really made me think about my family and how our differences allow us to be a very diverse group of people, even though we are in the same family. I have two sisters, so there are no gender differences among us three, but the three of us are still different in many ways. My older sister, now in her second year as a teacher, is very laid back and not high maintenance at all. My little sister, a high school senior, is extremely organized and in-the-know, has big dreams for herself, and never looks like she just rolled out of bed (even if she did). I am much closer in personality to my younger sister because I’m also very type A, and I have very strong goals for myself.
My older sister, as the oldest child, had a period of her life where she was the only child…just like all other oldest-children. However, my parents were both still in medical school or residency when she was born, so they did not have very much money (read, resources) to share with her. Even though she wasn’t an only child for long (about 5 years), I think that this period of having to live with what they had really had an impact on her. She is very minimalistic, doesn’t require a lot of material things, and doesn’t have any desire to make a lot of money. Yes, she would obviously benefit from making a lot of money, as everyone would, but she doesn’t have that as a goal for herself. Therefore, being an elementary school teacher and having a teacher salary doesn’t bother her. She is satisfied with where she is and loves her job.
My little sister and I, however, were born once my parents were successful doctors and were making a lot more money. We both grew up having a lot more material things and benefiting from the extras that aren’t necessary but definitely help a lot. My little sister went to private school for a few years (an example of using greater resources), and I went to a preschool that specialized in teaching gifted/talented students. My older sister, however, just went to day care at our church or stayed at home with a baby sitter. So my little sister and I had an advantage of getting better schooling right off the bat when we were younger, while my older sister learned on her own.
The differences in our personalities also show in our educational attainment. My older sister (the simple, more easily satisfied one) went to a small college in Louisiana that’s only an hour away from home, but that has a wonderful education program. Her college education was not very expensive, but that’s something that probably came about from her feeling that she doesn’t need a lot to get back a lot. She didn’t look around, but figured that if what she needs is that close to home for such a good price, why not take it. On the other hand, I looked around for a long time at colleges before finally deciding to go out-of-state and coming to Baylor. My college education is a lot more expensive than hers was, but my parents are willing to pay it because Baylor has such a good pre-med program. After I graduate, I will then go to medical school, which my parents have so gratefully offered to help pay for, and then I’ll finally be on my own. So my education will end up being a lot more expensive than my older sister’s, but then again, I will be making a lot more money that she will. So in Dalton Conley’s terms, I’ll be more successful. My little sister has very similar goals to me, and she is coming to Baylor next year too. She wants to go to professional school as well (probably dentistry or something), and will need a lot of education. So overall, available resources have influenced our views on what we need and want a great deal.
Family size is also something that has allowed us to become the way we are today. My older sister is five years older than me, so it’s almost like I am the second oldest-child. If there were more middle children besides me, it might be a little different because of the number of us, but three kids is a good number for each to be able to decide what their identities will be without impacting too much what the others’ identities will be. Dalton Conley also talks about how the more middle children there are, the less resources they all get, and the less successful overall they will be because they never are the only child at home at any point and they are always sharing their resources with a lot of other people. However, our family is successful overall because there is only one middle child (me), and I have a lot of goals for myself and will be relatively successful as a doctor in the future. So the fewer middle children there are (a.k.a. the smaller the family size), the more successful they will be.
The spacing between my older sister and I has caused me to be a little closer to my younger sister, and it has allowed the two of us to become more similar than she and I are. My little sister and I are very similar in that we have similar goals and a similar work ethic, among other things. I think this is due largely to the fact that my older sister and I have such a large gap between us compared to my little sister and I. My little sister plans to come to Baylor, like me, and will follow a similar career path as me, whereas my older sister is on a completely different level. We don’t relate to her as well as we relate to each other, and it is just because of the age gap, I think.
In terms of gender differences, obesity, and race (or differences in skin tone), none of these apply to my family. We are all female (my poor dad), none of us is obese or has weight problems, and we are all similar in skin tone. These factors don’t affect my own family, but I can definitely see how they would affect other families. These seem like they would relate to the point that Dalton Conley made about having one child who shows some sort of ability or is special in some way and having the parents put all their eggs in that one basket. It does seem unfair to bias yourselves as parents against your children, and I am glad that my own parents did not do that to us. My parents gave as even of a playing field as possible when raising my sisters and me.
For our actual birth order and the way it has influenced us as people, I don’t think the sterotypes really apply to my family except for my little sister, the youngest. She is rebellious and always gets what she wants and all of that. However, in terms of getting what she wants, it’s is relatively annoying because she kind of deserves a lot of what she wants. She is super smart and strives to be the best all the time, but she just doesn’t listen to my parents and does what she wants. So I guess there’s a little something to say in being that successful without the help of your parents or listening to them when they tell you to do something. She’s driven and is going to be successful, which is typical of the youngest child. My older sister is just wacky in terms of fitting into any stereotype though. She isn’t a typical oldest child, but she doesn’t really have middle-child qualities either. I, however, have a lot of the qualities of an oldest child, and I think it’s because of the age gap and because I just have a more driven personality.
So overall, my family is relatively successful. We all have (or will have) a college education, a good job, and a steady paycheck, even if they are different amounts. But then in terms of happiness, as Dalton Conley mentions a few times, I think my older sister would have to be the one who is happiest of us all. She is already married, loves her job and her husband, and is happy where she is in life. She is satisfied with what she has and doesn’t always want to strive for more. But then again, I think that just has to do with her personality. She is so carefree that I think she’d be happy no matter where she was in life. My little sister and I on the other hand…. we’ll see if our stressful jobs get the best of us in the future. But I plan on being happy, if that’s something you can really plan for!
November 26, 2011
After (finally) listening to the interview with Dalton Conley, I found the concept of sibling rivalries really interesting. I have always heard that term, but I’ve never really thought it applies to my family….it does. I have two sisters, one older and one younger, so yes, I’m the middle of three girls. Because we are all girls too, the idea of sibling rivalry is even more real. I’ve never thought about it before, but I definitely compete with my sisters. As the middle child, I am supposed to be the least successful (still can’t get over that), but I definitely put up a fight with my sisters to see who is the best at whatever we are comparing.
In terms of school and education, I would definitely say I’m a lucky girl. Somehow, I got good genes and an awesome work ethic, and I do pretty well at school. My younger sister is the same as me. She works hard, cares about her grades, and tests very well. She’s going to be successful for sure. My older sister, however, is not like the two of us. You’d think that, as the oldest, she would work even harder than me and my little sister, but that’s just not the case. She is a little more lazy, and she does fine, but she just doesn’t have to be the best. She doesn’t really display typical oldest sibling behavior, but that’s fine. The point is that because my younger sister and I compete more with academics, she puts up a good fight in athletics. She has always been the sporty one of the three of us, and was even tomboy-ish when she was younger. So maybe she doesn’t excel at school, but she beats me in athletics for sure. To make up for that, I have developped a sort of barrier against being athletic at all. I was a dancer and a cheerleader my whole life, and I never played a sport that involved a ball. Ever. So sibling rivalries say my older sister is best at sports and I’m best at school. So even though we aren’t really competing in the same areas (because we know we’d lose to the other), we still win in our own ways. And what’s my little sister best at, you ask? Well, to be honest, everything. She’s smart, outgoing, athletic, creative, and beautiful. So how does she really win if she is competing with us in our respective areas? Well, I don’t want to be shallow, but she’s definitely the most gorgeous girl in our family. So then with all of her other skills that rival my older sister and I, she gets to win in that category and be good at everything else.
So sibling rivalries, while maybe never blatantly stated, are a real thing. I know my place in the family is the smart one, my older sister is the athletic one, and my younger sister is the perfect one haha. So we all know where we stand among the others, and we are okay at being where we are. Maybe growing up was rough, trying to establish who played what role, but now that we have it all figured out, we can just assume our respective roles and move on with life. So it’s a rivalry while we are living at home, but once we all move out, we just accept it and move on. It’s not really so much a rivalry anymore as it is an acceptance of roles. I like where I stand, and so do my sisters. So things work out. And we still love each other. Good thing we all had different talents.
November 17, 2011
First of all, the panel rocked. Boys, sorry if it freaked you out. But I doubt that I am alone among girls saying that it was really cool to get lots of different opinions about things that I bet most of us haven’t even thought about before. I mean, yes, I’ve thought about having a baby, but I’ve never thought about actually birthing the baby. I guess I decided to skim over that part in my mind every time. Listening to these moms was a great experience though, and it is so helpful to know a little more about what to expect….when the time comes.
One of the most interesting things we talked about was how women are treated so differently than their newborn babies while they are in the hospital. It has always seemed to me that women are treated wonderfully while they are pregnant, and everyone is always excited for them, and things are perfect. But when listening to the panel, they all definitely made it sound as though the baby’s life is much more important than the mother’s life, at least when there aren’t any complications with the mother.
They also all mentioned that the number of people in the room throughout the whole process is stunning. I know that I’m going to be in pain when I’m giving birth and that I’m going to be thinking about my baby and all of that, so I guess I’ll be a little distracted, but I know I won’t be distracted enough not to be annoyed when 15 medical students walk in to stare at me while I’m in pain. Not okay. I feel like I’d really rather it just be my husband and me and all of the absolutely necessary doctors and nurses. But apparently they don’t really listen to that kind of request. At least they know what they’re doing and my baby will be okay. So then maybe that’s the reason they can treat the mothers with less respect and care – they know the mommys will do anything for their sweet babies and that as long as the baby is okay, the moms will be fine. I know I’d probably be that way. I’d be annoyed that I was in pain or that no one was listening to me, but in the end, I know that if my baby was okay, it’d all be worth it. So then I guess the doctors really do know what they’re doing…in more ways than one.
November 15, 2011
Becoming an adult is a big task. It doesn’t just involve turning a certain age or being able to do certain things. It involves an entire change from one outlook on life to another. Because this is such a huge change, it is also very gradual, and emerging adulthood is a perfect name for this gradual change.
The change from teenager to young adult is probably one of the biggest changes that any of us will ever go through simply because it involves so many different aspects of our lives. Changing ideas about our relationships with our parents, love and sex, marriage, and work are just a few of the things our minds will be processing during our emerging adulthood years. Arnett’s book describes many different categories that undergo changes during emerging adulthood, and those are just a few of them. However, these all change in terms of our own narritves. A narrative is like writing your own story about your life and looking at how and why each part of your narrative has meaning in the overall scheme of your life. Emerging adults are deciding on the course their narratives will take as they go through various parts of decision-making and living.
Pressures to follow a certain life path and to create a narrative that suits your life goals are strong during emerging adulthood. While we all figure out what path we want to take on our way to becoming an adult, we learn about ourselves and figure out who we really are, little by little. Not knowing who you really are at the beginning of emerging adulthood is completely valid because many of us don’t know what we really want, but by the end of the time period, most people, now adults, do know who they want to be, and they create their narrative to fit this conclusion. Emerging adulthood is a time of self-discovery and recognition of your own desires. It is a special time where we all get to be a little bit selfish as we figure out how we want our lives to play out.
My own narrative is very typical. It involves going to college, attending medical school, getting married, and having a family. However, the events that will take place during each of these stages will be unique to me and my narrative, and they will all help me to discover who I truly am.
Emerging adults’ relationships with their parents begin changing during this time because most of them are away at college, so their parents don’t have as much control over what they want their kids to do. Emerging adults realize that they can be in charge of themselves, and they use this as a time of self-discovery. For example, many emerging adults change their views on religion from what their parents believe because they are on their own and don’t have the pressures of agreeing with their parents. I have decided to strengthen my religious beliefs while I am away from my parents because they have set such a strong foundation for me. I am glad to be able to live away from my parents and figure out how to live on my own, without relying on my parents for everything. I am learning things about the world of adulthood, even though I am not yet an adult. I am learning how to pay bills, how to cook for myself, and do other skills that are necessary for living on my own. And all the while, my relationship with my parents is growing stronger, even though I’m not with them all the time. I don’t have to talk to them about things unless I want to, so I get to build my relationship with my mom and dad on what I want to build it with instead of what they want to. I can call my mom when I want to and talk about things that I want to talk about, and I don’t have to worry about curfew and getting in trouble for anything. Being away at college is highly related to my growing relationship with my parents, and it also helps me grow and make decisions on my own. My relationship with my parents, though it is changing, is something that I will have forever, so emerging adulthood is a good time to strengthen what we do have.
Another characteristic of emerging adulthood is figuring out my views and opinions on love and sex. Arnett talks about how culture now is full of hook-ups instead of dates, and it makes me glad that I don’t do that. For me, this is a time where I want to discover more about myself before I decide that I want to be in love with someone. I date people occasionally, sometimes for longer periods of time, but I know that I won’t have anything that ties me down for a little while, mostly because I still have 5 years of school left. But most of the purpose of this dating that happens during emerging adulthood is to see what kind of person you can see yourself with. Dating different people allows me to see personalities that I like and ones that I don’t, it allows me to understand the role that I want to have in a relationship, and it helps me to gain a sense of how it feels to partially rely on someone else for emotional support. Arnett talks about how most people don’t want to get married until their later 20s (the average age for women is 26 and for men, it’s 28), but I wouldn’t mind getting married sooner if I thought I found the right person. But then to reiterate, that’s the point of dating. So basically, I see myself dating for a while until I find “Mr Right,” and then that will be a different matter altogether.
Marriage is something that I have always seen as a hugely important part of my narrative. I feel like building relationships with other people is one of the most important reasons why we are on this earth at all, so I look forward to the day that I get married, knowing that I will be building an important foundation for the remainder of my life. Getting married is something that may not cause me to be classified as an adult right away, but it will certainly make me feel much more like one. I feel like financial independence is an important part of being an adult, and I will be financially independent once I get married. So marriage is a sort of huge step out of emerging adulthood in my opinion, just because it changes your situation so much from what it was before. I cannot wait to get married and have a life to share with someone, so marriage is so important to me. A lot of things in emerging adulthood prepare us for marriage. For instance, I live with three other girls right now, so this is preparing me to live with someone later on who I won’t be used to living with. I am learning how to take care of myself and my household, which is very important, especially if children are going to be in a future marriage. There are just a lot of things that living on my own is preparing me for. And even though emerging adulthood doesn’t explicitly end when marriage occurs, I feel like a lot of it does, so I’d better start preparing myself now for the end of my experience. Arnett talks a lot about whether getting married is even an option for some people, but for me, it definitely is because I know I want companionship and the partnership that marriage is. I am excited to let my life start to fall into place as I look for love and a person who I believe will be a good husband and father.
One of the most important parts of my narrative, and the part that is allowing me to be getting my education right now, and the part that forms a lot of the framework for the rest of my life plan, is work. I want a job. But not just any job. I want to be a doctor. A good doctor. I want to be a doctor that cures people. I want to be a pediatric oncologist. Pretty specific, I know, but I feel like that’s where I’m being led. So along with all of the other crazy pieces of my life that I’m trying to fit together, I’ve gotta add 4 more years of school, a few years of residency, and some internships. Pretty hectic. Good thing I know I have to work hard for it, I guess. But my future as a doctor is affecting a lof of the different things that are going on in my life right now as an emerging adult. Every summer, I work at a hospital or at a clinic, but during the school year, I don’t have time to have a job. So I’m not really testing the waters in terms of what kind of job fits me or my personality best, even though Arnett talks a lot about that. I don’t really have the luxury of jumping around from job to job, just because I need to have a clear focus on what my future plan is. So in terms of discovering my likes and dislikes in the working field, I’m going to be pretty undecided. However, I do have my goal laid out, so I know what I’m working toward. And that’s what I feel a big part of emerging adulthood really is – working toward your future and getting yourself lined up for what you want to do later. I just know that there are a good number of things that I should be doing during this stage of my life so that I will be able to be a good doctor later.
Overall, I know I am not yet an adult. But I know I get closer and closer with every life experience. I don’t know when I will have decided whether or not I am fully an adult yet, but when it happens, I’ll know. It has a lot to do with independence (financially especially), so I know it’ll still be a while for me because I have a long way to go until I am fully independent. But besides financial independence, marriage and knowing I am with the man I love in a relationship that we want to last forever is a super important step. Becoming more independent from my parents is also an eye-opener because one day, I will be cut off from them completely, and I feel like that may be when I will have reached full adulthood – when I don’t automatically turn back to my parents for everything, and I use my peers and people around me for advice and help. All in all, I know that my emerging adulthood experience is coming along just fine. I have goals I want to reach and people I want to build relationships with, and that’s really all I need to be doing right now. Well, that and preparing for the rest of my life. Turns out it’s no small task.
November 11, 2011
Talking about budgets and finances in class the past couple of days has been really eye-opening. The fact that they can have such an impact on your life and your future makes them important to every aspect of living. Looking at the three hypothetical families with the differing incomes allowed me to see just how easily they can change your future and the path of your life.
Everyone has different desires for the outcomes of their hard work – some may want to go to college and then professional school, while some wish to go to college and then get a job, and still others want to graduate high school and then become a member of the work force immediately. I’ve always seen this as just a difference in ambitions and what your goals are in your life, but focusing on finances in class made me realize that sometimes, your life situation has so much more to do with it.
Growing up, my mom was in between the lower two brackets we talked about. Their family lived paycheck to paycheck, and sometimes, they had to cut out a lot of extra things so that they’d have enough money to fix the car or celebrate a birthday. My mom had three siblings, so money was very tight for their family of six. Yet, I always saw my mom as being someone who had always expected to go to college and be a successful doctor. However, after class on Wednesday, I called my mom and was thanking her and my dad for allowing me to be able to come to a college like Baylor and get the life experience I am getting, and she told me that she wouldn’t have been able to even attend college had she not had a full-ride scholarship. She literally was the perfect example of the kind of teenager who really had to work hard for what they knew they wanted in life. In my mom’s case, it was academically. She focused on school and getting into a college where she would not have to be a financial burden on her family. I never fully appreciated the hard work she put into this until now though. I always thought she had just gotten a full ride because she was smart, but she got it because she knew that if she didn’t, she wouldn’t be able to go to college and medical school and become a doctor like she dreamed.
So besides the example of my mom, there are a bazillion people out there who are in the exact same situation. I personally never had to worry too much about scholarships because I knew that I could take what I got and my parents would take care of the rest. I am so blessed and privileged, and I never even realized how much I take that for granted until we talked about all of this in class on Wednesday. My parents are allowing me to go to a nice college, and then medical school, and to graduate with no debt. And that’s more of a blessing than almost anything else I could ask for.
November 10, 2011
When trying to use words to describe just what the feminine mystique really is, I came across this definition, and it seems pretty accurate to me. “The Feminine Mystique is a book written by Betty Friedan in 1963. It explores the life of a middle class, educated housewife in suburbia. The feminine mystique is something that traps a woman. It is a struggle between having a career and being a “good” mother and wife. When being held captive in the feminine mystique a woman can lose her identity within her family and domesticity.”
The feminine mystique is the idea that caused housewives to question their roles in life and whether or not they have a greater purpose in life than being a good mother and wife in their families. Even though women know their roles as mothers and wives are important, many still feel as if they are missing something in their lives, something Betty Friedan calls “the problem with no name.” This idea rose from the thought that many women were showing and expressing their unhappiness in life, but the problem of unhappiness cannot be fixed without knowing what’s causing the problem in the first place. Thus, the problem.
Women felt as though their roles in life were more insignificant and that they were only around to be good wives to their husbands and good mothers to their children. They felt unfulfilled, but they had no one to talk about it to because their husbands would see them as ungrateful if they expressed doubt about their “perfect” lives. In the eyes of their husbands, being a woman seemed to be much more materialistic, and if a woman was provided with everything she needed to live a good life, there was no reason she should not be happy or satisfied. This cycle caused women to feel trapped in the roles they played at home because there was no safe way out of their situation. Working would help women to feel as though they have more of a set purpose in life, but it would cause them to leave their children and duties at home unattended, which was unacceptable. However, staying at home and doing the same things over and over each day just caused women to become more and more depressed, feeling as though they had no higher purpose in life.
In Mad Men, the typical viewpoints of the feminine mystique were displayed, and the episode shed light on some of the reasons women could have felt the way they were feeling. For instance, outward appearance and material things were highly emphasized in the lives of the women in the show. The wife was given a watch and a night out to dinner when she was feeling shaky and alone, yet she probably just needed encouragement from her husband and family to get back on her feet again. The women in the office also were not treated with much respect, and they were even seen as material objects themselves to the men, showing that women were not assumed to play a role in the workplace of men. The lack of appreciation for women was also very obvious in the episode because even when the women would speak up about themselves or their thoughts and opinions, the men would often just ignore them or diminish their comments until the women felt as though it was unnecessary to give any input at all. Another example of the materialistic views of the time is when the wife is talking to her husband about the fact that their daughter could have scar on her face and what a devastating life she would have if she wasn’t considered to be pretty. This makes me wonder if all women felt this way deep down and placed this much value on looks and appearances, or if maybe they were just trained to believe this was so because of the way they were usually treated by the men around them. It looks as though women can “earn” a higher place in the world by being beautiful and marrying a good husband, but there is never an opportunity for a woman to work her own way up there. Maybe this is part of the reason that women felt so empty and felt the desire to see psychiatrists – no one encouraged them to be themselves and only encouraged them to be more like the other people around them: beautiful and happy.
In our culture now, women have a much more equal opportunity to earn their own livings and not to rely on men, and the wave of feminism that arose from the reading of the book by Friedan helped cause this. As women began to realize that they were unhappy and dissatisfied with their lives, they looked into ways to fix this. As a result, women today are equal to men in most, if not all, aspects of public life. Women have all of the same rights as men, and we believe ourselves to be more independent than the women in the past. Women have grown to have roles that are just as important as the roles than men play in families. Surely there are some families who still have the same attitude that the previous generations had, but for the most part, women are very much independent and do not have to rely on a man to provide everything for them. They still keep care of the house (although now many families split the chores in this area), cook, and raise their children, but they do so with more respect from their husbands, and they do so because they love their families, not because it is their job. Women’s role-change between then and now has been gradual, but it has allowed for a more positive outlook of women for themselves and for their families and those who surround them. It is incredible to think that women could ever feel so alone in life, but now, with more supposed meaning and purpose in their lives, women can be fulfilled and do what they love while still being respected greatly.
November 5, 2011
Even though talking about this was at the very end of class, and we didn’t get to thoroughly discuss it as much as I feel like we could have, I really thought that the ways couples deal with conflict was very interesting. There are 4 ways to deal with conflict: Accommodation, Compromise, Standoff, and Withdrawl. I don’t know why I capitalized those, but I did. Oops. Anyway, I related this immediately to our planning for Sing 2012 because I am a Sing chair for Tri Delta, and we have decided to do it with ATO. Awesome, yes. And we are so excited. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t conflicts and kinks we have to work out between the different styles and ideas of our two totally different groups! With this said, both of our groups have been really good at compromising with a lot of things, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t difficult to give up ideas or thoughts that we have because someone else sees it differently and we want the best of both worlds. I feel like we have all learned that compromise is the best way to deal with conflict though because the other three don’t usually seem to lead to as solid of results. With compromise, everyone can be happy in some ways and it’s worth it!
Accommodation is good as well, especially if both ideas or viewpoints really are good or valid. But I feel like it could sometimes make one person feel like they have more influence on the other person, and I don’t feel like that is positive or healthy in a relationship. Accommodation should probably happen occasionally, but not for every conflict because it could lead to bitterness toward one person, especially if he or she is the one whose ideas a couple usually leans toward. I also think that standoff and withdrawal as ways to handle conflict are never good. Like that awesome quote: “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” I think that these two ways are much easier to actually do than the others because you don’t even have to choose one way or ther other. You j ust get mad and decide you won’t make a decision about the conflict, or you just choose to not have a say in the conflict. That’s indifference, and it isn’t something that I’d ever want in a relationship. I want my husband to even care about silly things that matter to me, like how many throw pillows we put on the bed. Sometimes things like this are what can start up an argument or conflict anyway, so why not talk about it and agree so that one indifferent person doesn’t make the other one go crazy.
So maybe I ended up going off on a little rant? Sorry about that. I just think that handling conflict is something that’s really important in a relationship. We are all human, and we are all selfish. It’s sort of something we can’t help. We all want what’s best for ourselves. But compromise and discussing conflict in a healthy way is such an importnant part of relationships and making them work. Conflicts are inevitable, so why not go ahead and learn how to deal with them the right way. I mean, who wants to have conflict about the way you deal with conflicts? Sounds like a huge circle that never ends.
November 2, 2011
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