Love?

What do you think when you hear the word: LOVE? Chick flick fantasies? I have to admit that at one point that is what I thought of and imagined as reality for a long time. That's not real. It's actually not a great idea to fall in love and decide you want to spend the rest of your life with someone within a few weeks of knowing them. There are a lot of hormones that confuse reality at that time. The best way to make sure that your mind is clear and able to make rational decisions is to follow the Relationship Attachment model (RAM).

The basic idea is to know more than you trust, trust more than you rely, rely more than you commit, and commit more than you touch. A common mistake is to jump into the touch category too quickly. It’s a bad idea to even hold hands before you are exclusively dating. Once touching enters the equation it confuses the rest and you feel like you know the person and can trust them more than you actually do and can. 

Gender Roles

There are some people in this world that believe that we should raise our boys more like our girls and vice-versa. I don't think this is a good idea. The truth of the matter is that boys and girls are different. There are physiological differences in our brains. Boys and girls see the world differently. To treat them the same wouldn't make sense. Obviously I believe that we should treat them with the same respect and love but maybe go about raising them a little bit differently.

Some Differences Between the Sexes: 

Male
rougher/ tougher
competitive
carreer and leadership oriented
protective
aggressive
less verbal
more talk oriented

Female:
detail oriented
more relationship oriented
object oriented for directions
more verbal

Equality?

America is known for it's freedom, right? Equality for all? Sound familiar? Ha! that's funny. We all know that equality is much more complicated than that.

The truth is that America operates on a social class system probably as much as other countries. We've all heard the terms "upper class" and "lower class." What does that mean? Are there some people that are better than others? What is "upper class" and how does one obtain it? Is it, necessarily, a terrible thing to be "lower class?"

"Upper class" is not just about the money. Although that is a large part of it. The truth is to really be at the tip-top of the class scale you have to be born into privilege. From the time of birth you have people wait on you and you get used to having the best of the best and being the best. It's true that people climb the social ladder but they can only go so far within a lifetime. It is much more likely that the children of the people that work hard to climb that ladder will be considered "upper class." Apparently, it's not something you can fake.

We all seem to want to be more "upper class" than we are, but is it really all it's cracked up to be? Considering family life it's not. It's true that parents in "upper class" situations are able to provide for their children and help them to have the best education possible but something that an "upper class" family usually lacks is time together. Wealthy families are very busy and tend to hire out things like nannies or cleaning people. The problem is that the nannies and the cleaning people are with the children more often than their own parents and usually bond with them more and feel more neglected by their parents. It's true that this doesn't ALWAYS happen, but the majority of the time it does.

Moral of lesson: Don't worry so much to be "upper class," it's not worth it.

Family Theories

I decided that I might actually have an interest in becoming a family and marriage therapist. I would love to be able to help marriages and families because, after all, isn't that the most important part of life on Earth? So to become one of these therapist types it is helpful to know some general theories on how families work and how problems arise and can also be solved. I learned about four main theories. 

 1. Family Systems Theory- This theory is based on the idea that it is better to look at the family unit as a whole than at each individual. The family unit is a system and the whole thing changes when one person makes a permanent change.  

2. Exchange Theory- This is the idea that we, as humans, like to get more or at least the same as what we give. When the scale is tipped and one person feels like they are giving more than it is worth  problems arise. 

 3. Symbolic Interaction Theory- This is based on the idea that different actions are different "symbols" for different people. What one person would think was a nice gesture another could find it offensive. This is one of the reasons communication is key in any relationship. 

4. Conflict Theory- I don't like this one as much because it is based on the idea that everyone is constantly in a power struggle. We all want to have the upper hand. I know that some people think this way but I don't want to accept that most people do. 

So... There we have it. Four family theories that can make it a little easier to see what is happening inside the family unit. 

Population Boom or Doom?

A few decades ago the world was worried about over-population. The idea was that population would continue to exponentially grow, like it did in the "baby boom", and the world doesn't have enough resources to accommodate that growth and people will starve. It became unacceptable to have a lot of kids because that meant that someone else couldn't have kids because there weren't enough resources to go around. That WAS the idea. The problem is that for most people that is STILL the idea. 

The truth is the opposite. Fertility rate is declining and is lower than it needs to be to sustain a population in most wealthy countries. America's fertility rate is riding the line but it is expected to decline as well. Why should we care? Well for one thing as the older "baby boom" generation retires it rests on the few young adults to cover their retirement. It used to be that there were 13 working adults to each retiree. Now, however, it could be three working people to one retiree and if fertility rate continues to decrease we could have one working person, single handedly, paying for another's retirement... That's A LOT OF TAXES! Now that I have your attention let’s look a little closer. This is the white American population pyramid right now. You can see that the baby boomers are in the peak of their lives and are SOON TO RETIRE. You can also see that there aren’t as many working citizens to pay for their retirement.

prb.org

Another PROBLEM with this is that as the baby boomers get older they will be selling their houses

and there aren’t enough younger people that have the money to buy those houses. This will undoubtedly create a real estate CRISIS! Believe it or not… there’s more. As the baby boomers retire there will be less human capital, which roughly defined is the skills of a population. There will be less capable people to take over the baby boomers jobs. This means LESS PRODUCTIVITY and LESS ADVANCES. Basically it will be extremely difficult to maintain the standard of living that most of us are used to having now.

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?

The truth? We, as Americans, are becoming more individualized, more self-centered. This is just a statement not an insult. More and more people are putting off marriage until they finish their degree or are well into a career. The average marrying age of 2007 is 26 for females and 28 for males, and that was 5 years ago! So what? Well people that get married later tend to have less time to have kids. Another thing is that people don’t want to have kids anymore. As women are more accepted in the workplace some decide that they would rather have a career than be a mother. All of these things and more are contributing to the fertility decline. And the fertility decline is

CHANGING LIFE AS WE KNOW IT.