Hello everyone, this is my first-ever official blog post, and I am excited to share some of my viewpoints.
The Ideal Family
There is a document released by the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints called "The Family: A Proclamation to the World". It highlights the roles, purposes, and forms that encompasses an ideal family formation and the way God, our Heavenly Father, desires us to strive for in our own families.
The language of "The Proclamation" is beautiful and inspiring. However, we know, God knows, and the First Presidency knows that not all families can look as picture perfect as it depicts.
I mention the Proclamation because I believe with all my heart and mind that it is how God has intended families to be. However, my intent in this blog is to be focused on the secular aspects and study of the family, not specifically religious. I hope that we can explore topics that will be both controversial and brain-stimulating.
Today I would like to talk about some trends that affect the
family as we know it.
I recently watched a documentary presented by byuTV called "New Economic Reality: Demographic Winter". From the documentary, I learned that many in this world believe that the world is reaching the point of overpopulation, and we should do what we can to solve this problem before we go extinct.
However, it makes the point that although we are still growing in global population, many parts of the world are actually decreasing in population. This may lead to a decrease in our populations that will change our way of life and affect our economy and families. It states that our fear of over population and a greater focus on the self has created different trends in aspects that pertain to family life.
Trends
Here is a list of some of the relatively recent trend changes in our society in the past 50 years.
- Pre-marital sex has increased
- Increasing marriage age
- A decrease in the number of children born to a mother
- Increased reports of cohabitation
- Decrease in household size
- An increase in employed moms when their children are ages 0-6
- Increase in divorce
- Increase in unmarried births
These trends have varying rates of importance, but they are causes and effects of one another and damage the way we view the family.
For example, let's take the increase of pre-marital sex. This trend can and has had an influence on unmarried births, which has had an influence on cohabitation. Contrary to popular belief, research on cohabitation has found that those that get married after cohabitation actually have an increased chance of divorce. Divorce influences household size and potentially the increase in employed mothers when their children are young. Employed mothers can also influence the number of children born to a mother.
From this, we see that these trends have not helped our families to grow and become families that are self-reliant and function on the highest level possible.
Life is Unexpected
This semester I am taking a one credit class dedicated to pregnancy, and my teacher is excellent. People outside the classroom probably sit and giggle because the class is always laughing. One comment that stuck in my mind was when she said: "If you had told me at the beginning of my marriage when I was in nursing school that I would have birthed 7 children and adopted 2 more, I would have thought you insane. Life unfolds unexpectedly, and you will be surprised at where you are when you are at my age."
As I was watching the documentary, I thought about her comment and realized that our lives are so individually different. Although she didn't have any issues with birthing children, I know that others do.
We should never judge the number of children that others have or place a quota for people to fulfill. The number of children that a couple decides to have is between them and the Lord. However, we should remember in our decision of how many children to have, "that God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force.... [and] the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets."
Conclusion
The trends in today's world do not support the growing of the human race, and actually could damage our lifestyles and quality of life. The more we strive for a family with a father and a mother at the head, and children under their care, we will find that we have fulfilled our purpose and helped the world be a bit better.
