Week 10

On Monday we learned about how manage the family finances. It was very informational. There are several steps to managing. The first is to pay an honest tithing because the blessings are exponential. The second is to learn to manage money before it manages you, learn self-discipline and self-restraint in money matters, use a budget, teach family members early the important of working and earning, teach children to make money decisions in keeping with their capacities to comprehend, teach each family member to contribute to the total family welfare, make education a continuing process, work toward home ownership, appropriately involve yourself in an insurance program, understand the influence of external forces on family finances and investments, and appropriately invoke yourself in a food storage and emergency preparedness program. These techniques really do help when couples first get married so they can not have hardly any financial disagreements. 

Week 9

This week we have been talking about whether or not mothers should stay home or work outside the home. This is a topic that is very touchy and is unique for every family and frankly every mother. I personally think that if it's necessary for a women to work then she has to and there's no other way around it. I know it's important for the mother to be home and to raise her children, but for myself I know that I wouldn't be able to just stay home and not be doing something. I'd get very bored and unfilled with my life. For some other women they would be too overwhelmed with just raising the kids. It's different for every women and family. It's important to realize that you can't generalize for an entire population. Even the study that we discussed in class that only looked at a small population of women- that isn't enough to go off to make a general conclusion. There needs to be a study that's statistically sound so we can believe the evidence.

Week 8

This week we have been talking about Crises and how we can cope with them individually and as a family. We had to list 10 crises that either we've had or other people that we know. I had a hard time trying to think of 10 crises and how they affected my family or the other families. What constitutes as a crisis and how did it change the family? One that I could like of is that my youngest brother has epilepsy and this has changed my family considerably since he was born. My family has learned how to take care of him, to defend him, and be there for him. At first it was very hard to understand that we had a "handicap" in our family because of how epilepsy affects his learning. My family had to pull together to be able to help him and to support him. Also we're more understanding of disabilities because no one else in my immediate family has one. We love him and we had to learn that there's just some things that he can't comprehend at this time in his life and how rough it is for him. What's affected him most is his medication and how it affects his moods which has been very difficult. My family has been better off because of this continuing trial in our lives- it's not going to go away and we hope that it's going to get better as time goes on.

Week 7

This week we've been talking about developing your couple relationship early on in marriage. It's very important to develop a strong bond early on and develop patterns so that later on there won't be as many problems. The main focus was to warn about fidelity and how it can happen. I had never really thought about the ways how people get themselves into those types of situations where they might cheat or get a divorce. People who look outside their marriages for bonding have problems arise because they're not supporting each other. This can be done in innocent contexts where the last thing on the person's mind is something inappropriate. The problem with this is that sharing feelings and bonding with someone who isn't your spouse early on in marriage can be harmful because that bond isn't there with your spouse- it's with another. I also learned that fidelity is tied very closely with emotions. Emotions are the number one cause of fidelity. When we start to get more casual with our relationships outside the marriage, the problems arise. What I didn't agree in class was that we shouldn't ever develop close relationships with other people other than our spouse. I think that this is true in early marriage, but not your whole life. It's also different for every single couple- you can't generalize for everyone in the whole world. These are guidelines. I personally think that it's healthy to have friendships with other people. Like parents, siblings, other couples, and family friends. You can't drop the people you love just because you get married. There has to be a balance between your bond between your spouse and the others in your life. You can't be paranoid your whole life wondering if your spouse is cheating. I personally think that when you have these thoughts it just makes the marriage fall apart. I grew up with having family friends and having them come over all of the time. My parents have a great relationship with each other, but they also have friends and spend time with them. My parents also have close relationships with their families are talk to them often. I have grown up this way and also have close relationships with my immediate family as well as my extended family.