My thoughts

Before taking this course I always knew there was a plan to get married and find my Cinderella but now I am starting to question what I have been raised on. For instance, my personal narrative has been continuously influenced by my parents, as it should, but this course has pointed to other options as ways of life. I have so many choices to make regarding relationships and future families that I didn’t even know existed before Ashley opened my eyes to her teachings. I guess maybe the shock of marriage and family came from my absence of sociology courses. Indeed I am a senior accounting major anxiously waiting to leave Baylor and jumpstart my career in public accounting but I am happy with my decision to take this class because it really taught me what to look for in relationships and what factors are detrimental to families and the like.

Prior to SOC3354, I imagined myself pursuing the recommended guidelines in life. For example, the expected life pattern my family had bestowed upon me was: graduate high school, attend college, graduate college, find a job, get married, have children, support the family, retire, and live happily ever after. This is the ideal narrative and a lot easier said than done. I have noticed Disney really affects people in America. For instance, everyone has been fooled, dooped, and led to believe that the Disney happiness is attainable and meant to be. Of course I believed there was one person out there for me but after discussing “settling” in class it became hard for me to actually believe my childhood ideology. I remember in class we watched an experiment where partners dressed in identical clothing and chose their partners by attempting to match with the highest possible number on a scale of 1 to 10. In a sense each person settled for what they could while trying to attain the 10. On a side note, most guys have a hard time distinguishing what is a 10 or even if a 10 is attainable. I don’t think a 10 is attainable because that means the girl is perfect. Back to the topic, in a sense everybody settles because we can’t constantly seek the perfect match otherwise we would be single for eternity.

I wanted to get married solely because it was recommended by my immediate family unit and also by my Christian faith. I was constantly reminded as a toddler that one man is meant for one woman. Monogamy was subconsciously on my mind since I was a child. This makes sense why I constantly try to find a relationship. For some reason one of my goals, which can be attributed to the narrative, is to find a girl and raise a family together. Now that I understand what I’ll be getting myself into, I want to get married so I can explore love and enjoy love to its fullest. The purpose of marriage is to spiritually, economically, emotionally, physically, and parentally share duties. Marriage is a beautiful thing between two people that should be regarded as the highest attainable achievement for a relationship. I feel like marriage is slowly being demoted in society because of cohabitation. People are living together without being married first which belittles the concept of marriage. I am likely to marry a trustworthy, thoughtful, loveable, and honest girl. She will need to laugh at my witty jokes and be able to make me smile. She must share my Christian beliefs and outlooks on life. She should keep me on my toes and put me in my place every once in a while. While looking for a potential mate I will also be looking for the previously described characteristics while also emphasizing primal qualities like being a viable mate and procreate healthy children.

I expect to have a family of five. As long as I have one boy I’ll be happy but I want to have three kids because I was raised in a family of five. Following the pecking order I believe I have efficiently worked my older siblings because I am great at talking to people and communicating with others. I have effectively used my social cues by learning from my older brother and older sister. I don’t plan on getting divorced but I guess nobody does except Kim Kardashian. My parents are still together which has definitely encouraged me and my siblings to find a viable partner who will be in marriage for the long run. Since my parents have been in their marriage through thick and thin I think that will influence me to pursue an ideal partner that I will never consider leaving or vice versa. My chances of divorce are very slim because of the atmosphere I was raised.

Before SOC3354 I believed love should be the focal point of every marriage and after the course I still believe love should be the foundation of a healthy and fruitful marriage. My future romantic relationships will hopefully emphasize love otherwise they will probably not be successful. I truly think it is damaging to the relationship and to each other if love is not maintained or upheld. In class we discussed the uterus marital life cycle which showed the happiness of a married couple. At the beginning stages a couple is happy until they have children which causes stress on the relationship and then their happiness will suffer. By the time the children are off to college and the parents are ready to retire, happiness is restored and the couple can live in a peaceful, empty nest. After learning this marital life cycle, I plan on maintaining satisfaction in my future marriage by trying to enjoy the process of life. I think it is easy for people to be wrapped up in results, or be result-oriented, but I want to enjoy the process of life. We only live once so we might as well enjoy it.

Turkey drop: the end of a long-distance relationship typically around Thanksgiving or two weeks before Christmas. I want to comment on this topic by saying turkey drop is probably the best invention of breaking up. It is the ideal time for a couple to stop dating because it saves money by not buying overly priced gifts. It also allows the dumpee to consume more stuffing, turkey, sweet potatoes, and egg nog throughout the holiday season without feeling the pressure to impress the ex-boyfriend/girlfriend. Turkey dropping can relieve stress throughout the holidays by exploring newly found freedom and not having to deal with drama from long distance.

Turkey dropping could potentially make or break someone’s Christmas, depending on the dumper or the dumpee. For instance, if the dumpee does not see the break up coming then he/she could be heartbroken and spend Christmas lonely and very upset. On the other hand, the dumper might be jumping in excitement because he/she has finally escaped a troublesome relationship. I recommend turkey dropping to relationships that are not working out.

Regarding the Victoria’s Secret fashion show that aired last week, my friends were split between either supporting the show or upright appalled by the fact women parade around in front of spectators. Personally I was excited to watch the show and see Alessandra and Adriana. I invited multiple friends over to watch it and actually got four guys and three girls show up. For the people who wanted to watch it, the guys wanted to see the attractive models and the girls wanted to see the cute and crazy outfits that were worn. The others felt the show was degrading towards women and revealed too much ‘sex appeal’ than what should be shown on CBS.

I realize the show was very scandalous but it was also a form of art. The elegant women were given skimpy lingerie to reveal beautiful designs and reflect the image of Victoria’s Secret products. The deeper meaning behind the show should be analyzing why it is acceptable for sex to become prevalent in everyday life. Maybe this is just my conservative-texan-view but I think society has almost favored beauty rather than other character qualities. For example: should a prettier person be given a better job opportunity than a better-qualified-person? I see this as a threat for hard working people and I want society to go back to PG!

In class, Ashley challenged the controversial idea of humans being monogamous. After researching and reading online articles, I found that although society sets us up to fail through social media and universally accepted divorces, we are indeed monogamous. Dr. Sue Johnson summarized human monogamy very well in her article “Monogamy: are we – can we be – monogamous?” Sue reveals why polygyny could be maintained in society. More specifically, sex is the most basic instinct for humans and “given any opportunity at all, [men] are wired by evolution to pass on as many of their genes as possible.” Paralleled to what we’ve learned in class, divorce has seemed to plateau rather than increasing at an aggressive rate like in the past. Divorce has removed he bonding ”until death do us part” clause in marriages. If it is socially acceptable to leave marriages, what is holding people in them (marriages)?

After showing polygyny support, Sue stated reasons supporting monogamy. First and foremost, humans are in nature caretakers and dependent upon another person in order to maintain and direct a family unit. Second, our brains are wired for bonding and intimate synchrony of emotional connection. In fact the ability for humans to connect and rely on loved ones is more fundamental than sex. Monogamous mammals, such as humans and beavers, carry “special cuddle hormones like oxytocin… It turns off stress hormones, turns on reward centers, and fills us with calm-contentment.” Oxytocin allows us to find peace and emotionally invest in one partner. In summary, human beings are built for monogamy. Boom.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hold-me-tight/201003/monogamy-are-we-can-we-be-monogamous

Last week we were blessed to have three current mothers share their baby stories with us. I want to start out by saying family is a wonderful thing and the process of having children and leading a family is powerful. Although it is always entertaining in class, the day of pregnancy panel was extra entertaining but hard to listen to at times. I was raised very conservative and I guess my parents’ parental techniques involved me learning things on my own. I never knew all the choices women have throughout the process of pregnancy. I think empowering women with control in the pregnancy is more beneficial than them getting bossed around by an insensitive doctor. This could potentially allow women to carry more stress while dealing with the pain. For example: the option to choose whether to lie down, sit up, have a rail, or squat could potentially relieve stress. I think it is wrong for hospitals to hide options from pregnant women.

I know I am a guy and will never understand the intense pain women will have but when one mother said “I never knew my body could stretch that way,” I got pretty freaked out. I think we will all understand the process better when we experience it ourselves. In time.

Related to Dalton Conley’s interview and our class discussion, children in every family have varying traits. For starters, the first born has the strongest personality and takes on leadership roles. In fact, first borns naturally take the role of their parents when their parents are not home. They also have faster decision making because of the initial attention being the first child. Next we have the middle child. Typically, the middle children do not get a lot of attention and try to be the peacekeepers of the family. Because middle children do not attention as children, they strive to get attention in other aspects of their lives. Finally, the youngest child tends to get away with everything and knows the ins-and-outs of the family. Money is also distributed differently, just like the cookie problem in class. Money gets distributed first to the oldest, quickly passed the middle child, and ends up as one giant lump sum for the youngest child.

I am the youngest of three children. My family’s size actually is beneficial to our family structure because I view three as a small/average size for family. This allows the distribution of income to be relatively high per person. The more money my parents make, the more there is per person. If I had more siblings, there would be fewer resources available per person. I am 21 years old, my brother is 22 years old, and my sister is 24 years old. I am only a year different from my brother but I don’t feel close to him. I am probably closer to my sister because I believe she took on more roles as the mediator. There is no one obese in my family. My sister and I are very fair skinned and my brother has olive skin. I feel like skin tone could contribute to him acting similar to the “normal” middle child outcast. I am the most athletic of the three children and I think this is due to me constantly running around and chasing my siblings as a kid. The immediate  environment relative to my parents established how I live my life. I believe parents have the biggest impacts on children and it is up to parents to raise their children accordingly.

Since our class is mostly girls, I wanted to know the female opinion on what the ideal manliness level of man should be. The comedy central special ‘Workaholics’, which features new episodes on Tuesday nights at 9:30, pokes fun around what men should act like. Because our marriage and family class involves the sociology, you guys can help me figure out why men are perceived to act in a certain way.

On this week’s new episode: beer got poured all over Adam’s head at karaoke night and the gang didn’t man up and fight the big bully. Their female friend Jillian had to save them once again which showed them how much of girls they were. After being punked they decided to go on a man trip and become men. They viewed men as people who shoot animals with guns, eat meat, do dip, know how to fix cars, and listen to heavy metal music. So they proceeded to buy weapons in order to kill animals. They tried all the actions but didn’t enjoy them. At the end of the episode they gave up on trying to do “manly actions”.

Why are there social trends which reflect these views? I guess I have always associated these actions with men but I’m not sure why. Just a thought.

Dr. Pepper 10 calories. Just for men.

In class we have emphasized the narrative and emerging adulthood. The narrative is the average path of life people take or in a sense the “recommended” path. For instance, most people buy a car, go to college, get a job, find a girlfriend, get engaged, then get married, and happily retire. In fact, if people don’t go through the recommended path, society nearly rejects them or notices their unorthodox behavior. For example: if Jeff didn’t go to college, many people would question why he didn’t and wonder what his parents were thinking. It’s almost as if society is set up to be beneficial for path followers (i.e., tax benefits for married couples and better jobs for higher education).

Emerging adulthood is the phase a person goes through from youth to an adult. It is the period of time that everyone goes through. Comprehensively, there are many factors that help contribute towards a person becoming an adult. I will draw from experiences from my life in order to try to wrap our heads around this concept of emerging adulthood.

My relationship with my parents has slowly become more distant. I am the baby of the family so I got the most attention out of my siblings back in the day, especially because my brother and sister were both in college so it was just me and the parents. Ever since I came to college. we  have talked less on the phone and I rarely make trips back home. I’m not sure if the decreasing communication is from them living abroad or me being at college or maybe a combination of the two. I think emerging adulthood can be linked with your relationship with your parents. Although building a continual relationship with your parents is ideal, I feel like the inability to go out and be independent can harm a person’s transformation to adulthood.

Marriage. How can marriage be a factor in achieving adulthood? Maybe the idea of caring for someone at a greater level or better yet: having the maturity to care for someone at a deeper level of compassion than a normal friend; allows that person to change perspectives in life. Hopefully a person in a marriage is not selfish and doesn’t think of their outcomes only for their own benefit. This can make or break any relationship and ultimately help influence the maturity of an individual which transfers to adulthood.

College is probably the most beneficial for an emerging adult to become an adult. In my experience, I have been able to get out of my niche group of friends from high school and really explore networking opportunities with business, athletics, and students.  I have been able to establish myself as an individual and build reputation while not necessarily falling under the wing of my parents. College helps emerging adults understand responsibility and timeliness because we are all given unlimited opportunities and it is up to us to decide how to spend our time.

Work is also a great opportunity for an emerging adult to become less financially dependent from his/her parents. It is a factor in determining an adult because financial stability is one of the most essential things for a person to live on his/her own.

Boom. PR.

What is the feminine mystique? It is the idea of women having the sole purpose, or role in society,  to raise children and be the ideal housewife. The feminine mystique supports ideas of housekeeping and child-bearing while rivaling the idea of equality such as women being the breadwinners in the American family.

In Mad Men, Betty’s happiness was determined by her husband. She was not allowed to think for her own economic benefit but only put in place by her seemingly superior husband. For example, Betty quickly submitted to her partner’s decision making yielded by her own when dealing with her anxiety problems. It became so bad that she could not drive or even put on her makeup at times. The feminine mystique was also exemplified by the perception of beauty of a woman. Women are always expected to be pretty while obeying every command of men. In fact, Betty’s mom even told her that it’s not polite to talk about herself because women are supposed to give way to men.  A third hint I picked up referred to women in the workplace. Two men were talking about “women copywriters” in contrast to plain “copywriters” which should be men.

The significance of this phenomenon is how women react in public. They are subconsciously affected while setting goals, interacting, or performing daily routines. Because of the feminine mystique, it is now a norm for women to be considered housewives and take care of the children while the responsibility of house work should lie upon both people in the relationship. It is also normal for people to presume that women prefer to take care of the children rather than working. For some reason equality got lost in translation.

Of course the feminine mystique still affects women today. Slowly it is being diminished, but I think there will always be remnants in society. I believe it will be prevalent because I think women will always be held to this double standard. Naturally women are caretakers and beyond the shadow of a doubt the peacemakers in the home. Honestly, if men took on the sole responsibility to take care of the kids, violence and stubbornness would be at all time highs! Obviously that is an extreme but somewhat true. Society needs natural caretakers to uphold strong family networks.

On Friday, Josh brought up the idea of interracial couples in class. As usual, the fishbowl question resulted in a thirty minute discussion based on nearly everyone’s life story. In a world fighting for equality in every which way, this should be a no-brainer. Of course interracial dating should be welcome and not frowned about in the slightest sense.

Personally I would date any person of any race if we met each others’ standards for dating partners. Heck yes there is a large enough pool of available dating partners to find a match…. But what is the problem? Past experiences and close minded relatives influence personal views of life.

People and media influence a person’s outlook on interracial dating. For example: If my parents were to say I could date whomever I wanted to (which they did) then I would go out and date anyone with full support of the people who have the biggest impact on my life. But if my parents were to place limits on who I could date, then I would be forced to abide by their rules.

It’s always the old grandparents who say “Back in my day……… BLAH BLAH BLAH.” Who cares what the old geezers say. Go out and do what you want to do.