In the world that we live in today, many people have mixed  understandings of the position and role of a Father. We see overtime that family units have evolved over the centuries. When I hear about my grandparents relationship with their parent and siblings I am jealous that they had grown up so close together, even with really hard circumstances... when I read an article about how families used to work together and how they work now I discovered something that was very interesting. Back when farming was one of the main sources of work for men they were able to stay home and work on their family farm which often involved the helping hands of their children and wife. The family worked very closely together to support each other and while doing so created a bond very strong between them all that would last throughout their lives. But now today, work has taken the man out of the home and into an entirely different place that causes him to be away from the family. Often for long periods of time. We see that our children and families are not as close with their fathers (and sometimes even mothers) because work has pulled them away and their energy and attention has been shifted. 

        Has this had an impact on the society? I absolutely believe that it has. Fathers being away from their homes, not being their to support their wife and teach their children important values has greatly caused problems in our society today. How? Well just by my own experience growing up in a public school system and seeing the data from research. I noticed that my friends who didn't have a father figure in their life (or didn't have their biological father) or their father was never home, or they lived in a broken home, seriously struggled with morality, education and making good decisions when it came to relationships or problem solving, they begin experimenting with drug and committing crimes. They were always looking for something. These problems that they had led them down hard roads that made their lives a little more difficult like teen pregnancy, broken hearts, droping out of school, etc. And this isn't even just my friends or the people in my community, this is all over the United States. And because so many young adults are making these decisions they are causing a shift or a change in (not only family values) society and the economy. And what I mean by that is these decisions are leading to more single parent homes, less marriage, more STDS and other problems which would effect the economy. 

  

       It has also been researched and proven they the majority of teenagers who get involved in these kinds of acts have no father in their home. No influence that can teach their boys how to be man and handle their thoughts, feelings and desires. I absolutely believe that God has created both man and women to balance their families and teach their children effective life skills and working together to create the most happiness hey can achieve in this life. I am extremely grateful for my father and the influence he has been in my life. while my mother nurtured and understood me, and helped me through my problems and drama, my father taught me to work hard and to be respectful and have integrity no matter where I am and no matter where I go. I believe that it is true that the mother brings in the children while the father helps prepare them for the world.   

  

The relationship between me and my family members has changed a lot for me throughout the years. I remember that my relationship with my older brother was horrible because we fought all the time and never could see eye to eye. My older sister always stayed to herself (partly because me and my brother was so different, she never wanted to take sides). My relationship with both of my parents was an unfamiliar one, they were the authority that I listened to and had to respect and was expected to love, because they were not home all that much and I especially felt like I didn’t know my father. And as a result of all of this, I know that I made not the best decisions as a youth, because I didn’t receive that kind of guidance from the God given helpers that I had. They, just like every parent and family is for an individual, were my foundation. And if that foundation doesn’t get taken care of, cracks start to form, and eventually the foundation falls… and so does that individual.

The reason why I say all of these things, is because this family dynamic that I had changed as we moved to a new state (due to my father’s job), away from the rest of my family (so all we had was each other) and my mom didn’t have to work anymore so she stayed home with us as we went though school. Which was the biggest blessing ever. I can see, almost immediately, the effect that these changes had on my family because we became closer together. As my mother started focusing more on fulling our needs as a family, she helped bring us all together as she applied family councils. Because of some beef that me and my brother had in the past, we still never really got along. My sister still stayed to herself, my brother still had anger issues and I was a huge mess because I was being bullied in high school. And plus, my dad was spending so much time away from us as a family. But my mother knew so much better than us, she knew something needed to change in our family and she turned to doing family councils every night after our family did Family Home evening together. In these councils we discussed our week, talked about our worries, stresses, maybe what we learned, what we were going to do that week (relating to school, sports, performances, jobs, church activities). We were able to settle our differences and were able to all get on the same page. I found out how my family members were stressed out in their daily lives, what bothered them and how I can change to help them. They also listened to me and the things that were bothering me. We all agreed to work on what we needed to change as individuals to help our family at this stressful time in our lives.

I noticed that my brother began to try harder, our communication was now opened that we could talk to each other about our feelings rather than be enemies and fight each other all the time. My dad began to spend less time at work and more time with us. I began to develop the best relationship with my dad. We are now the bestest of friends and I understand him and what he goes through. I help him by making him laugh… I would have never known half of the things I know about my family members if it wasn’t for having family councils. Which opened the door of communication for us and seriously helped our relationship as a family. This is something that has saved my relationship with my family, and it is something I highly recommend for all families.  

What are some major problems that drive families apart? Research shows that some of the top stresses in family life are the loss of a child (extremely likely for the marriage to end in divorce in under 2 years) losing a spouse or a loved one and of course money, among many other things. As we all have experienced trials and tragedies in our lives. Can you think of times when you and your family was able to work through a difficult trial? How did you all get through it? How did you personally respond? Did it bring your family closer together or did it push you all farther apart? Did you learn and grow from this trial or period of stress you all went through? These are often good questions to ask ourselves when we are either going through the hard trial or looking back at the hard trials that caused your family so much stress. But what even is stress? I know of a couple in my life that handle stress in very different ways, the wife always stresses to be the little monster inside of her that turns her into the hulk. And the husband just shuts down and let things go. How come certain situations in our lives cause us to respond in different ways? Well, let’s talk more about the process of stress and figure out what influences to react or respond in different ways.

                But first of all, we are all different, we have different trials and experiences, point of views and ideas. We all are going to naturally respond differently to different situations. Like when the wife gets mad and when the husband shuts down. But in these moments, we can’t just be thinking about ourselves… but how is this affecting their relationship with each other and their family. the wife lets her emotions fly while the husband keeps them in. How does that show their children how to respond to stressful situations? Sounds like they don’t cope too well as individuals and this could affect how they cope as a couple…). But what effects that way that we cope.

I think the first element has to do with the particular event that we face as a family. Like I mentioned earlier, all families go through very trying times and trials that cause tons of stress. But each situation is different, like the relationship between husband and wife at the time, it can be very good, or it could be very bad (possibly shifting the relationship to the opposite during the time of trial). Or there could be more stresses that the family could be going through at that time that makes the current situations even worse. What is most interesting about this concept though has to do with our mindset or perspective of each trial. I have known and have heard of many families that coped very well with so many difficult situations in their lives that resulted in bringing their family closer together verses letting it get farther apart. I have also known and have heard of many families who did the complete opposite and their family broke apart. I think the main difference in each outcome has to do with the family members looking outward instead of doing what is totally naturally and looking inward thinking of their pains and emotions. 

The next element has to do with the resources that are available to us at the time of trial. Who is there to support us? Do we even have a supporting family? Do we go to church and turn to our faith or do we go to work and avoid home to avoid the pain of the circumstance? Sometimes we choose resources that will give the wrong impression to a loved one because they don’t understand the intention behind the action that we do. But if families come together, they are more likely to handle the hardship of the trial together in their family unit and can come out even stronger because of the trial that they faced.

Going through trials is hard, but its also a chance to grow. Not only as an individual, but also as a family.  

I have a memory that I look back on and realized juts how much of a learning experience to was for me. At the time, it was very embarrassing… but I laugh at it now. When I was in the second grade, I believed that sex was something that only big-time sinners did, one of the worst sins you could possibly commit, according to how I understood what my parents taught me. I then remember one day in school when one of my friends was joking about sex, I thought his soul was going to be in danger if I let him go any farther with his jokes so I told him what I believed. He looked at me like I was the crazy one and told me that se was something that everyone did, and he tried to teach me that sex was the only way to have babies. I told him that he was wrong because God sends you babies when your married. When I got home and told my mom about the situation, she just laughed and informed me that my classmate was actually correct in some ways. She told me that sex was something that was absolutely ok as long as you are married to the person you have sex with. I remember that I was absolutely floored by this, and it was hard for me to accept because I had believed it was something so horrible for as long as I could remember. And then I thought it was absolutely gross. But, the moral of me telling this story is just how important it is for us to educate our children about his very important subject. Not by giving the easy answer like “its just bad” and pretty much lying to our children, but giving them the full picture of how this subject is a very sacred thing, so this way our children will know how to handle it (and themselves) in future situations.

Why is sex important and what is the purpose of it? I love how a past Bishop explained it to me once, referring back to genesis where God said a man should cleave unto his wife and they become one, he said that sex is a way of connecting a husband and wife that allows their bond to grow stronger. It’s a symbol of them “becoming one” but physically, it’s also literally. This is not something to taken lightly or mocked in any way shape or form. Sexual intimacy between a husband and wife is a very sacred relationship. And something that will very much determine our happiness in family life and with life in general. It strengthens your relationship with your spouse ONLY if it is used in a sacred way.

                Why is it ok? Or maybe a better question is when is it ok? In the world, sex is ok with anyone as long as you are doing it safely, but in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saint culture we tend to think that if you have slipped up in anyway shape or form, no one is going to want you. This can often lead to the idea that if someone was molested or raped, they are unclean and cannot be forgiven. While we don’t believe in the world perspective, we also know that the atonement is for all people, a way to heal and become clean.

               Now with this being said, kids now a days are taught more about not having sex, and less about having healthy relationships with other people. I have learned that the key to relationships is boundaries. We need boundaries between our friends, parents, teachers, leaders… everyone or our relationships can be very unhealthy, especially when it comes to dating and marriage. If you don’t learn how to set boundaries at an earlier age, you will definitely struggle with it when you get older. Its important to set clear boundaries with people, emotionally, physically, mentally and even spiritually. Do you spend more time with your best friend or your husband? What is and what isn’t ok to do when your dating someone. How much trust do you put into the person you are dating and when do you begin to put more into the relationship. It’s important for us all to determine what is and what isn’t ok relationship wise with the people in our lives or our relationships can get blurred and things can get very messy.

Transition into marriage. I don’t know about you guys, but as a single young woman I often wonder what it’s going to be like when I finally make that transition into marriage with my future husband.  Is it going to be hard? Are we going to be two totally different people when we finally decide to tie the knot? And what if we change during the time that we are married? Well, I have discovered that the root of these concerns is something to be resolved during the time that a couple transitions into the phase of engaged. A transition into marriage is just that, a TRANSITION. We have to work our way into that next phase with your significant other. As you move from each phrase (dating, to courtship to engagement) the stakes go up more and you are still suppose to keep learning about the other person. As you transition you are still creating patterns that you will follow during the time you are married to each other. You face new trials and challenges together, get to see how each other respond to stress (like planning a wedding) see how you handle the other when they are in a bad mood and how well you work with each other. As you continue to spend time together (and also important to spend time AWAY from each other) you continue to discover new aspects about a person that you can see and choose if you can handle that particular thing about them.

So now you have seen them under stressful situations, seen them with your family, kids, how they spend their money, clean the toilet and vice versa. You have decided taking this step with them is something that you really want to do and are willing to make this commitment with them. But this isn’t the end, the problems don’t stop after marriage. Often times a couple really struggles with in their first year of marriage because they are still making many adjustments, that sometimes causes more problems… or problems you didn’t think were going to be a problem. Couples now are sharing the same spaces full time and have to share everything (information, family time, necessities) they have to make decisions together that will really affect how well they correlate together. They have to decide the division of roles they are going to have and responsibilities they will share. They have to adjust in their friend groups to better fit their relationship. They really have to think about taking care of their spouses needs as well as their own. They have to constantly be making adjustments because situations change. They have to consider priorities and what they are going to sacrifice for. Such as time for family home evenings and scripture study. And most importantly, now they have to be creating their own traditions or rituals as a family to create their unique family system.

Something that I have really learned this week is the importance of establishing healthy boundaries between family members, friends, peers and even with each other. As you create a new family system, there are a lot of dynamics that go into the new family. Like the relationship between you and your in laws and your spouse’s relationship with your family.  Then the relationship between you and your spouse as you begin to have children. The decision to have children is a huge blessing and also a huge stretch for a couple. As children are born, this event often takes the attention of the mother and  is now more focused on the children than she is on the relationship with her husband. This often causes a strain in the relationship between husband and wife as they strive to continue building their relationship with the responsibility of children. It’s important for couples to develop the skills they need for marriage before they actually get married so they can handle these struggles together. And this is why we have to be focused on the patterns that we are creating before we get married and are in the other stages.