Cultures


              In class this week, we talked a lot about culture. We talked about what exactly the word culture means, as well as different cultures we see today in our society. Until this week, I never realized the power that cultures can have on a family, as well as different forms of culture that we develop within our own families. It is important that we can identify these different cultures within our families. If there are any we don’t want to continue, we need to figure out a way to end them, as well as identify cultures that are good for our families that we want to continue.
              In our class someone googled the definition for the word culture, and came up with, “The customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group.” I find the term “social norms” to be interesting in this situation. There are so many “social norms” that we see in our everyday lives that we have completely grown accustomed to and do not even realize they are there. The same happens in our families. I have a friend that in his family a “norm” they have is that if anyone is in the hospital someone is with them 24/7. They even take turns and assign shifts to make sure that person is never alone. No one in his family really remembers when this started or why, but it is second nature to them all by this point. No one questions it, they all just know it is going to happen and are ready to help. Sadly, there are negative social norms that can form within a family as well. When this happens, it has a negative effect on the entire family, not just the person (or persons) being affected. These negative norms need to be identified, and as a family you need to make a decision on how to end and get rid of them.
              Another thing we talked about in class was different factors that affect cultures within a family. Some of these included: Location, condition of the house/surrounding area, possessions that the family owns, employment of members of the family, what kind of quality of life they have, and are they healthy overall or not. Some of these seem like obvious things that should have quick fixes. One that we discussed a lot was the employment of family members. We watched a video of a single mom that walked two hours to work every day, and there wasn’t anyone home to take care of the kids while she was gone. Since she wasn’t there, the kids really did whatever they pleased, and didn’t have too much respect for their mom’s authority. We talked about how the culture of that family might be different, if she had a car and didn’t spend so much time away from her kids every day.
              Having studied cultures this week really opened my eyes to the fact that they are everywhere, and in everything we do. They influence every decision we make, the people we interact with, and how we raise our children. We all as a society need to try to identify the cultures we like and do things to encourage these more. We also need to work together to get rid of the negative stigmas, and other things that can come with some of the cultures we see today. Most importantly, we need to decide what kind of a culture we are going to form and have in our homes, and with our families. Doing this will have an effect on generations to come, as our children will pass on the traits and different things they learn to their own children.

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