Family Relations Class Week #5

            Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog about my Family Relations class. Last week we talked about family systems and how they can change when a family moves from one part of the world to another. These changes can take place through different means such as the family living separately and the journey it can take to move from one place to another. This past week during class we talked about some rather controversial topics such as what can make a man and a woman different and same-sex attraction. Though I will not be sharing my personal opinion on both of the matters, I simply wish to relate to you what was talked about in my class.

            To begin, let’s start off by talking about the differences between a man and a woman. In class we made a list of differences that are noticeable between men and women. When it comes to women we see that they can be more relation based, detail oriented, cooperative, gentle, creative, verbal, connective thought process, and have a wide variety of things that are on their mind at the same time. When we talked about the men we could see that they have a more myopic way of thinking, they are more competitive, more aggressive(can be used in a good way), more destructive, more active than verbal, and have a compartmentalization way of organizing things. 

Even as little kids, there seem to be noticeable differences between boys and girls. These differences can be seen in the types of toy that they play with or the way that they act with others. When it comes to kids, the girls are much more likely to play with dolls or dress up and to talk amongst each other and have those relationships with each other. Boys were more likely to be more loud and rough and be competitive with each other as well as ‘fighting’ each other. We also talked about how girls, even when they are very young, want to model their mothers in ways such as mouthing back at their mother before they can even speak. Not only that, but girls will even act in ways that are similar to their mother. Just as a mother will love and nurture their children, young girls pick up on that and will act the same way towards dolls.

Another core thing that we talked about is The Family Proclamation of the World. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the leaders of the church released this statement in a general conference  held in Salt Lake City on September 23, 1995. A part of the proclamation states: “By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation. Extended families should lend support when needed.” 

I think that this statement is interesting that we talked about this as it relates to the differences between a man and a woman or boys and girls. It says that mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children and it seems to almost align pretty well with the list we came up with, which is to be gentle, detail oriented, and very good with connections and relations. The same can be said with fathers who are to preside, provide for, and protect their families. These similarities can also be seen with the list mentioned in class as men are more active than they are verbal, they are competitive, and they are very good at being focused on a particular thing. 

Now, all things being said, I think that just because these things were stated to be specifically for boys or specifically for girls doesn’t mean that boys can’t display certain qualities of a girl or that a girl can’t display certain qualities of a boy. What I’m saying is based on research that we talked about in our class.

This is mostly what we talked about in our class this past week and I hope that I was able to teach you something that I myself learned. If you have any questions or comments about what I’ve talked about, please feel free to respond. Thank you for reading and I hope to see you next week!