Diversity in Family Life

We have so much diversity in today's family life, before, it was just a man and a wife with kids but nowadays we have gay couples being married and they're having kids too. They either adopt or have someone be a surrogate mother to have their child. We also have single parent families and interracial families. The way the families lives their lives are different too, we are seeing a bigger increase in women working outside the home, not just in being a house wife taking care of the children and house. In some cases, we see the women working and the man working at home or not even working at all. Family life in today's society has changed completely from what it use to be back then. The views of the people have expanded from what we never would have thought before. People rush sometimes to get married and/ or have marital problems that they can't solve. The divorce rate is a lot higher in today's society than it was before. We are seeing more and more new views on marriage and family life, who knows what it'll be like in the future.

Marriage

The way we see marriage now is different from how it use to be before. Our views of marriage has changed throughout the years and it will continue to change. When most of us thinks of marriage, we think of two people being happily married, but nowadays, people make mistakes and think that they are happy with one another and ends up getting divorces. The divorce rate is much higher in today's society than it was before. Also, when people thinks of marriage back then, the man goes out and hunt while the women did house chores and took care of the kids, then it became the man went to work, working the factories while the women stayed home and cleaned and took care of the kids, it wasn't til recently that men and women had more equal roles in the work force. We are seeing women having careers outside of just taking care of the house and family. The women before, always tended to the men and the rest of the family but it is changing where men and women are having equal roles in the chores. Also, marriages today, we are seeing Gay couples in some states coming together and celebrating their lives together. The diversity of marriage has seen new light. There are also marriages of different races which we haven't seen before. It's hard to say what will happen with marriage next. We have seen so many different things in marriage. Maybe one day gay marriage will be accepted everywhere. Who knows, maybe sooner or later, aliens will come down from space and we'll start marrying them too. Marriage will continue to change with our times. We might not even eventually celebrate marriages anymore. We'll just wait to see in the future what will happen.

family

My definition of family is someone who is always there for you no matter what. My family consists of my parents and my sisters, not to mention the aunts and uncles too. But, my immediate family are the ones I can always count on. They have always loved me and accepted me unconditionally no matter how many times I have messed up. Family members always helps each other out whenever they need one another. Whether it's to talk to, or to pick them up, whatever they need, they can always count on. One form of relationship from the book that doesn't fit my definition is my relationship with my friends. Some of my friends have always been there for me and always helped me out in whatever time of need as I am for them. They are way more than my best friends, they are considered my brothers and sisters. I have so much love for them and always will be there for them if they ever need me.

Committed Romantic Relationships

When a couple becomes in a relationship, they feel a strong connection with each other that they don't feel with others. There's a passion that you get from the other person that you usually don't get from other people. You feel like you can and want to connect with the person. It's not a just a I-You relationship, it's a I-Thou relationship which is the strongest and best connection you can make. You have a romantic and sexual feeling for that person that you can't get with other people. In a healthy committed relationship, a couple shares everything with each other. They feel comfortable enough to share everything with each other. The couple shows the other the love and support one needs and are looking for. We are there for them no matter what. You invest a lot of time and effort in these relationships and they are the ones that pays off the best.

love/ commitment

There are times during friendships where people are have commitment or love, or maybe even both. An example of this would be some friendships that I've experienced. Some relationships with people I know, the people are just mainly acquaintances, we're mutual friends, but we have no commitment to each other whatsoever. I had a friend in the past, we were best friends but in the relationship, I was putting my all into it, but the other person wasn't. We use to hang out a lot, but that's really it. I tried to give it my all, but she didn't. Eventually I just gave up and just stopped talking to her. She tried talking to me about a year ago and tried to make amends, but to me, our friendship is more whatever. She is more of an acquaintance to me than a friend. We all go through stages like this with people. Your true friends will always stick by you no matter what. Even if they don't hang out with us as much as we use to, as long as they make an effort to talk to us once in a while and try to hang out, then you keep the relationship alive. In my older post, I mentioned my friend who became busy with work, school, her boyfriend, but she still makes an effort to hang out with me and try to catch up with me here and there. Not just her, but a lot of my other friends are also like that. We use to hang out but we have our own lives to live and we eventually grow apart but as long as the commitment is there, then the relationship will stay alive. If there isn't love in a relationship, whether it's love as in they mean a lot to you, or you love them (boyfriend/ girlfriend) there's no need to keep a relationship going. You need both love and commitment in order to have a strong healthy relationship. The example in the beginning I gave, I really liked the girl, but she didn't like me back. I eventually just said forget it because I knew that she didn't feel the same and that I was tired of her not even being fully committed to our friendship. If she was making an effort to be my friend then I wouldn't of just stopped talking to her.

online vs one on one relationships

It is very hard to try and grasp what a person is truly like from online vs in person. The way people communicate online is also different from in person. Sometimes when I'm online, I just leave my instant messenger on and not talk as much, but in person I communicate a lot more also. There are also perks of communication online, sometimes it is easier for people to communicate to people and get comfortable with them before they communicate face to face. Some people deceit people for whatever reasons. Some might be on how they look and goes all the way to extremes as pretending to be someone else. An example of this would be how some people take pictures of themselves online in certain angles, and posting them up. Not to sound shallow, but some people try to make themselves look skinnier, hide some features of their bodies, basically find the best angle for them so they look their "best". Another example of this would be people pretending to be someone else in order to talk to people. On Dateline NBC, Chris Hansen and his team pretended to be little boys/ girls to try and catch pedophiles. There are many people who lies online and in face to face also. It is easier to inaccurately perceive yourself online with fake pictures or photoshop. It is also very easy to lie to people in face to face communication also. People lie, but it's harder to lie about their looks or what they look like as much. Even when you think you might know someone, you might not truly know what they are all about. It is hard to say which is more likely to happen whether people deceit to people online more or face to face more. The scary part of online communication is that you might really don't know who they are, unless you met the person through a mutual friend, other than that, you have to be very careful with the people you communicate with online.

Waning Friendship

Waning friendship stood out to me because it has happened to me with one of my best friends. My friend Kristin and I have been best friends since high school. She has always been there for me and still is today. She being a little younger than I am, after I graduated high school, we didn't hang out as much. She has always been busy with work and school and when she finished high school, I saw her maybe every other month. But when she got a boyfriend, we started talking less and less. It's okay though because I understand how hectic her life is trying to manage working so hard to pay for her own expenses, going to school to get a better opportunity in life, and having a boyfriend at the same time. I'm not mad at her or despise her at all for not being there as much as before. We all have to realize that we all have our own lives and that we're growing up. Some people don't understand it like they say in the book and the relationship deteriorates, but if you have a good strong communication with somebody, then you will still be friends with that person no matter what. I still hang out with Kristin every now and then, we still invite each other to events or to go get some lunch to catch up. I actually just had a chance to hang out with her the other night when she asked me for a favor to pick her and her boyfriend up from the airport. I was more than happy to do it, even though she's not there as much and we don't talk like we use to, I know that she's always still there for me like I will always be there for her. Knowing that someone always will be there for you keeps your strong bond with the person and keeps the friendship alive.

friendship

One of my closest friend Harvey and I have been getting even closer lately. Our friendship has always been close, but after about a year and a half ago, we got even closer. We started hanging out more and more. We started out as just having a good time messing around, but then we started communicating more on a deeper level, we started sharing our feelings, etc. We are now very close especially lately that we've been hanging out even more, almost every day and he hangs out with my friends too now. Fortunate enough that we haven't hit some of the bad parts the book talks about like waning relationship. It's nice to look back and see how our friendship grew and is still continue growing. He has always been there for me and I have always been there for him. He is basically like my brother. I'm excited to see where our friendship will take us and how much more fun we will encounter throughout our lives.

forums

This site is very interesting, I didn't know that there was a site like this. It is a good site for people to talk to other people about their problems or to get advice. Sometimes, there are certain people you can talk to in your group of friends about some things, but not everyone can give you advise for every situation. It is nice to get a wider range of advise and have more of an open minded views from others. The book talks more of, general issues, while the forum talks about more personal situations for people to understand more. The book can teach you only so much, but you need people who can relate to a certain situation in order to figure out/ solve the problem or get better advice. We can learn a lot from other people and the trials and tribulations they've experienced before which we can use for our present or future problems. You can just go online and talk to everyone and not feel judged or not as much as you would if you were talking to your friends or family.