Do we still have strong families within our homes in
today’s society? Have we forgotten the meaning of tradition and family? I feel
that the normal traditions between families in the past and present are very
different. They are not minor changes but in my opinion they are dramatic and
in some cases unhealthy changes. I think that the biggest reason for this is
because of the economical and social changes that our society has gone through
throughout the last few decades. We have become a high class, high spending,
and self consumed materialistic society. We have become less dependent on
families and more dependent on our own materialistic wants.
A decade or so ago and even longer had a traditional
family lifestyle which in my opinion consisted of a mother who’s occupation was
to take care of the household needs; such as laundry, cooking, taking care of
the children, cleaning, ect. The fathers role was to go to work every day to
support the entire family then to come home with dinner already prepared for
him and then to relax the rest of the evening. This gave the parent figures
time apart in the day and quality family time in the evening, thus resulting in
a healthy family environment. The children were to go to school, do homework,
and have normal healthy friendship relationships in their spare time. Past
families had more children to not only help with household work but to help
bring income in. A family with five or six children was not uncommon what so
ever.
In today’s family lifestyles the mother usually takes on
all of the same responsibilities including having a part time or full time job
on top of that. This creates less time with the children and more stress on
living life. The father figure role now consists of the same responsibilities
but, the difference is that there are many more men that are unemployed that
look at the women to take on the financial responsibilities. This creates
stress and tension in the relationship between the mother and father in the
household. I feel that this is a primary reason that the divorce rate is so
high and common amongst the world today. The children now a day’s still go to
school, with higher drop outs and lower education; partially in my opinion due
to problems at home. But the will to succeed and have an education for the
children today seems to be more of a struggle than for the children in past
traditions. Families today typically only have one or two children because of
the cost of living and the want for things. People feel that children are
expensive so they would rather have money to spend on other things in life than
children. How do you want your family to be brought up in the next generation
to come? Will you bring them up with strong qualities and traditions? Or will you
be overtaken by the future and what it holds for all of us?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IK_20_9830&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HI2ALjJaXQ
I love family traditions. My dad's side of the family is HUGE and we have a few traditions that my cousins and I will keep for our generation and future generations to come. We get together each Thanksgiving and have a "thankful circle" where everyone takes turns saying what they are thankful for in the past year. It's really nice to catch up at that time because most live far away and we don't get to see them much, other than via facebook pictures. I hope that our family traditions never diminish because I feel that they are very important and great ways to make lasting memories.
ReplyDeleteThere are parts of this response that I agree and parts that I don't. I do agree with the second half of the argument, that relationships are struggling more than ever because the man in the relationship isn't supporting his side of the marriage financially. However, I would say that the role of women was going to change, regardless of the male's contribution to the relationship financially. With the growth of feminism, women were going to take on the responsibilities of men, because they wanted to. The role of men losing their jobs was just a way to accelerate the coming events.
ReplyDeleteI think family traditions are changing with the time we live in. Of course not every family can have a sit down dinner with everyone everyday. The way society is today it is impossible to have relaxing peaceful evenings with there family for many reasons. One, children are expected to do homework, study, and play outside. Then as a teenager you add a job in to that as well. And some parents are expected to take there work home with them. With trying to balance these tasks where is the time for family interactions? On the other hand, I still think it is very important to plan time for everyone to be in the house.
DeleteI have to agree that back in the day families did have a lot healthier relationships than they do nowadays. But I feel as if we had no choice in losing traditional ways and to assimilate to new traditions. I also agree with Choward in that when women stayed at home and the men took care of the family, the entire family was happy. But once women started to get jobs, prices of everything rose because now there were two incomes for some households instead of one income (the dad). I believe that this change in prices was what caused most of the changes to occur. Now both the parents have to get jobs to support a family and even then sometimes its hard. If we could go back and make life be as simple as it was back in the 50's, I think the family traditions and relationships would be much healthier.
ReplyDeleteMy family has so many traditions. Every person in our family has a holiday and we all go over to that persons house. Another tradition I guess is that everyone argues at these parties. I honestly think It depends on your family. I know a lot of my friends never see they're family, but for my we see each other on q weekly basis.
ReplyDeleteI want to have a big family with some of the traditions back then and some of the traditions today. I want to have a full time job as well as my husband, but my husband will help with the house work and dinner, but I will do most of it. I want as many children as I can afford and my kids will not have computers and cell phones until they turn a certain age they will be playing outside a lot and I will do a lot of things with them. I grew up Catholic so divorce is out of the question. I will make thing work even when they are not working. I hate how families are today. So selfish!
ReplyDeletebe careful with the slippery slope statement at the end of your blog, don't jump to conclusions. And you did not talk about the future and how will it take over us, in what aspect are you talking about? Also, a decade ago was only 2002, the goal of the wife was not to do the household chores. We were well beyond that at that point in time.
ReplyDeleteAnd I do not know what you mean by strong families. Do you mean in physical, mental, money, religion, value, etc... ?
Try to be more specific some of the things you said are vague.
Family traditions are very strong with my fathers side. We always ate a family dinner where we could talk about our day, what was happening; it was really important to my dad to make sure that we could always be there for family dinner. So, I think it is a tragedy that families do not on average spend times with one another. I think that the decline in importance on family and traditions has to deal with the advancement of technology. Everyone is always to busy talking, texting or browsing on the internet with their phones to even communicate with the person right in front of their face. It is a sad thing and the only way to stop it is if American culture takes a step back, look at whats happening, and then make changes.
ReplyDeleteI do agree women should be the ones taking care of the kids and cleaning etc, however myself personally I like to work and I don't believe even if I had the opportunity would I become a stay at home mom. On the other hand, my sister is a stay at home mom by choice and by staying home she works just as much if not more than her husband. She has a four year old and most days he's up at 8 and doesn't go to bed until 8. I think times have changed and today it's the "norm" that both parents have a full time job. At least thats what I expect. My mom was a single parent, worked full time, and went back to school. Even through all of this we still have very strong family traditions. I believe the divorce rate has gone up because in the past you were looked down upon if your marriage failed but in todays world its a regular thing. I don't think relationships are different now I believe it is more acceptable to let it be known there is problems instead of like back in the day.
ReplyDeleteI think that women should be doing household things but the way the the economy is today its almost impossible to just live off of your husbands salary alone, unless he has a very well paying job. It was bound to happen like Melo said with the rise of feminism women were bound to go out and get full time jobs just like their husbands. I think that if you have a strong bond with your family you will have a strong relationship that can't be broken regardless.
ReplyDelete