LOVE

There are a couple of different kinds of love. I had no idea there were 4 different kinds of love. The different kinds of love are storage, philia, eros, and agape. Storage love is the love between a parent and child. You might have a responsibility or a connection with them, and you have a commitment and emotional tie to them. Philia is the love between friends, brothers, sisters which is specific to one person. Eros is the love we most often think about which has to do with physical, lustful, sexual, and romantic. Eros is the love we feel like we always have and might be the only kind of love we have for someone. If you love someone for this reason you probably don't know them, and have no compassion. Agape is the genuine compassion, charity or concern for someone that you have met or not met.

If you truly love someone it might be a combination of all 4 types of love. You will have a responsbility or connection to them, you have a friendship with them before marriage, it may turn romantic, and then you have genuine compassion towards your significant other.

This statement is based off of the Relationship Attachment Model (RAM). You must know more about them than you trust them. Trust more than you rely on them. Rely on them more than you are commited. And be more commited than you touch them. It is true, it is a good thing to know way more about a person than you would ever touch them.

I hope to be able to recongnize what kind of love it is when I think I have fallen in love with Mr. Right. I hope I can really know the person and not get caught up in LOVE.

Gender and Family Life

This topic for this week classes was so broad and I felt like we just skimmed the surface of this topic. We talked from men and women and how they different to same-sex attraction.

Men and women are different and I am glad for that. Females are more detail oriented, are verbal, know landmarks, and more cooperative. Men are competitive, task oriented, protective, and spatial oriented. As far as parenting goes for each gender women are more gentle, comforting, and domestic. Men are more apt to tell their children to toughen up, are rougher, and want their children to have careers, and leadership. With all of these differences it helps compliment each other to make it work. When the woman is worried about something the man is able to calm her worries. Men are able to focus on one task and the women is able to multi task. They bring out the best in each other. Whoever is good at one specific job/task then have them do it. No matter the gender. If it isn't split up equally it is ok, do what you are good at and perfect it. Lean on each other. We were made different for a reason and strive to be the best we can be.

Another topic we covered this week was same-sex attraction. I thought it was interesting that studies have shown that some end up being gay from being molested. Another reason was if the mother is overly involved in the childs life and pulls the child closer, then the child tends to pull away into a same-sex attraction. Also another reason a child might have same-sex attraction is if you keep telling the child that they are gay all the time, after awhile the child starts to believe it. It is very sad how we judge people like that. In some cases we as the public maybe could of prevented the child from being gay by just our words. Sometimes we are too harsh on each other.
I feel that some people can be born having feelings for the same sex. I don't think that parents go out and on purpose tell their children how to love the same sex . Or I don't think they tell them that their same gender is better and they should have a life with them. Even though they are different we should try to accept them as humans. I don't believe in marriage between same-sex, but people should have the freedom to date or marry who ever they want. Also I don't care if the person is gay, but I don't want to see public displays of affection for each other. I won't display it if you won't. I know this is a little contradicting, but this is my honest opinion.

Social Class

It is sad how we judge people based on what they look like and how they dress, where they shop, or where they live. We also judge them by the activites they partipated in. I am very guility of this. We need to watch how we judge people and why we judge people. We need to remember to try to be in their shoes and figure that they are trying their hardest to survive and possibly move up in the world.

If you don't think that there is social class that would be a lie. There is a definite line between the high, middle and lower class. The higher class have pretty much what they want. The middle class is ok but struggle sometimes and the lower class is trying to make it by on what is left behind. Each of us perceives the different classes in different ways. Some of us move up, some move down and some stay in the same place. The higher class to me don't really move down in rank at all. Middle class move around alot in rank. They could be very successful with business but also move around alot too. The lower class could have different disadvanatges by moving up which is rare or by trying to live paycheck to paychek. We just need to put each other into each other shoes and see how they live and what situations could be shaping their life. We must not be quick to judge. Remember to soften our heart and let other into our lives and not judge without getting to know them first. Be nice and love another.

System Theory-Murray Bowen

System theory is where you analyze a whole group instead of all the little pieces. The little pieces referring to individual people and whole group refers to the family. The individuals influence each other and work together and outside influences have very little effect on the whole. An example is a child and one parent are very close while the other parent might be outside the bubble. You need to anaylze the family to understand what is really going on.  Sometimes there are other reason for the disagreements.

We as humans respond to emotional rather than cognitive. This is based on Murray Bowens Theory (1978). We had a mock example of this theory in class. We had a mother, father and child. The child had had alot of asthma attacks and had been to the doctor alot. The therapist (teacher) was asking about what happens exactly when the child starts to have an asthma attack. The mother responded by saying that she got all worked up and was very scared for the child. So that led them going to the doctor. While all this was happening usually the father was not home at all so the responsibility fell on the mother. If the father was home he usually didn't know what to do. He called his wife when the asthma attacks happened and she walked him through what he needed to do. As the therapist was getting the back story he kept asking questions, not in a forceful way and telling them what they needed to do, but having them come to the conclusion themselves. The father talked and said he didn't really feel like the mother gave him enough responsibility and didn't trust him to take care of the child by himself. The mother told the father what he needed to do when the child had an asthma attack. With this it gave the parents equal responsiblity and they felt like they could take care of the situation whenever it happened. The father was a very calm person and so when the asthma attacks happened afterwords he was able to calm the child, and mother down and they went to the doctors less often. Now instead of the father on the outside of the family he was in the middle supporting his wife and child.

I thought this was such a great way to learn this theory and see it play out. It helped to see the hands on experience and be able to understand and to really know how the Murray Bowen Theory really works.

Siblings are a blessing

Sometimes siblings can be a pain in the butt, but I never realized it or thought of it this way before. Because of the fact that I have siblings I know how to associate with others. I know how to work as a team. I know how to have relationships. Now as I think about it, they push you to a breaking point somedays. They will always (I hope so) be my friend, they will always be there for me. They are always there to talk to.

I have a relative that has only 1 child. They don't plan on having any more children. I worry about the child. I worry that he won't know how to share, won't know how to relate to other people, won't know how to have a relationship with others besides his parents. To me (and this is my opinion) they need to have another child. How much more richer that family would be in blessings, in this life and the next. I watch the reality show 19 kids and counting about the Duggar family. They always say how many children God gives them. If God blesses them with another then they are fine with that. I thought wow that is alot of kids and I thought maybe there should be a limit. She has gotten to a point that maybe this isn't good for her body to have these kids, but hey it is their choice and we should not be there to tell them otherwise. To think of the children and how much they are being blessed by having siblings, by being around a group, learning how to interact. They are doing something good for their family and also for the world. They are helping the society by keeping the birth rate from going down even further.

All in all I feel that family is important no matter the size but my personal preference is the more the better. If we are able to replenish the earth that is fantastic. I hope some day when I have children that I am able to have at least 5. Children are a gift from God and should be treated that way. I hope to be able to replenish the earth and help the birth rate go up instead of down as it is going now.

The facts about the birth rate and individualism comes from The New Economic Reality: Demographic Winter Part 1, Part 2. They had many good points about how the society is declining and what has lead to it, and what are the trends of society that lead to low birth rates, and low fertility rate. If you have some time they are very worth your time. Warning though, they are each 54 minutes long.

First Post

My name is Emily Lurker and I am an Interior Design major. I am taking this class for fun and needed more credits.