How Culture Affects Family

Right now I am taking a course about the country of Pakistan, and the first thing that my teacher taught us was that culture is difficult to define. There are many definitions out there that explain one part of culture, but not another. We use culture so much in our everyday language, yet we don't know exactly what it is. I have looked up many definitions of culture, and found that my favorite is Merriam-Webster's definition of culture. It states that culture is "the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group." This is a great definition because it includes racial, religious, and social groups.

So how does culture relate to families? Doesn't it just relate to the country and environment that the family lives in? I have noticed that each family has their own culture. In fact, their culture, or way of doing things affects their view of the world. In this way, families are the carriers of the culture that they live in, and they can perpetuate it throughout the generations.

So are cultures set in stone? If I look back at my family 12 years ago compared to my family now, I see a drastic change is culture. This, and the observation of other families around me, help me know that culture can be fluid, and we can change our cultures and traditions.

Here's an example. Have you ever gone to another person's home and tried to load their dishwasher? You start by loading it how you always have loaded it... with the Tupperware on top and the plates on bottom. Then they either change it after you have loaded and walked away or directly told you how barbaric you were for the way you loaded their dishwasher. Then later, they announce family prayer and you quietly fold your arms, but instead they want to hold hands?

These aspects of families are different from family to family, and are a strong part of their family culture. It is important to understand that each family has their own culture, or else we end up getting married and visiting the in-laws and wondering how such a wonderful spouse could come from such an odd family. (I am VERY grateful for my in-laws :))

Another reason it is important to understand is the knowledge that you can create and control aspects of your family culture. The following is an example that my husband and I have gone through recently.

My husband and I have had an ongoing conversation since we got married about how I am slow to forgive and he forgives and moves on too easily. I couldn't work out how I could be such a monster and how he just let things go without talking about them. Finally, a couple weeks ago, he got frustrated with something I had said and done and burst out with anger. When he cooled down and we found that it had been a misunderstanding and I had not done anything wrong, I sat there waiting for an apology, only to be disappointed because he had already moved on and thought nothing of his outburst. I, of course, cried because of how rude he had been and he was surprised because he didn't think he had done anything wrong. It turned out to be a matter of culture.

In my family, from the time we were young, we were taught to apologize whenever we did anything wrong that wasn't called for in the situation. That was a big part of our childhood -- doing something rude and then being told to go say sorry and not being allowed to do anything until that had been done (We were sent to our rooms to think about it if we weren't ready to give an honest apology). However, my husband said that in his family, if outbursts occurred that weren't called for, they just moved on and there was nothing to be done about it. I looked back to when we spent time with his family, and I remembered a sibling of his had gotten overly invested in a game that we were playing and spouted a number of rude comments. I felt awkward because they hadn't apologized, but I didn't understand that it was their culture at the time. We had a long discussion about the need for apologies, and it was fruitful. We decided to adopt both cultures by making an honest effort to forgive more easily and apologize more readily.

So that begs the question: Do all cultures meet the same purposes and have the same effectiveness? Are all cultures valid?

I would say no. In our society, we have been told that if we are not accepting of all cultures and ways of life, WE are not valid and WE are incorrect. "The only thing that is wrong is to say that something is wrong." I think that this way of thinking does not allow us to critically think and use the agency, or ability to choose, that our Heavenly Father gave us.

Research has shown that not all family structures and decisions have the same effectiveness on children. Follow this link for more information. While it's true that all cultures are different, it is our job to decide which aspects of which cultures we want to adopt into our families. For me, I would love to adopt the Polynesian way of looking at family, and drop the cultural view that children are sometimes a necessary inconvenience.

Bottom line: Not all cultures are equally valid, and we have the ability to decide what our family culture is going to be. Even if we have already started our family and are well into the years, we can change our culture slowly, but surely.