Culture in not just about
ethnicity, the language a person speaks, or where a person lives. There are many more things that should be considered when examining culture. Culture simply is the way of living life for a certain group
of people. There are things that are considered acceptable and things that are
considered inappropriate within that group. Some things that are acceptable to
one family might be inappropriate to another family. This means that there can
be different cultures within families.
All the different cultures have
different perspectives and views on the family unit. Although we like to be
accepting of everyone, not all cultures are completely valid. There are good
things and bad things in each culture’s family dynamics. We should be
investigating many different cultures and looking at what we like, and think
would be good to include into our families from other cultures and look at the
things we may want to avoid in bringing into our homes.
Many people base a family’s quality
of life by the socio-economics scale. Family’s places on the scale are usually
based on their housing, cars, employment/income, and education. The wealthy can
have all these things, but still struggle with their family experience. Those who
are at the top of the socio-economic scale, the wealthy, have been proven to
have just as solid of a family dynamic than those at the bottom of the socio-economic
scale, those who are poor. The wealthy may have more material items than the poor,
however, they both have very similar social forms. The parents in both
situations must work longer hours to provide a living for their family which
requires less time with the children and spouse.
Employment plays a huge part in
family dynamic and different cultures have different expectations of employment.
In most families the role of the father is to work and be the provider for the
family. Sometimes the mother in the family also must work to provide for the
family. However, in some cultures the only role of the mother is to stay home with
the children, to be the nurturer, caregiver, and keep the house clean and do
the cooking. Sometimes it is not accepted in a culture when the mother in a
house has a job.
Many times, families who are at the
top or bottom of the socio-economic scale have fathers who work a lot of hours.
Therefore, they are not spending as much time with their family as they should
to create a healthy family bond. When this happens, the rest of the family grows
closer as they spend more time together and the father gets pushed out a little
bit from the family circle. This creates family problems as everyone in the
family so be involved. The marital relationship should be the strongest in the
family, but when one of the spouses is working long hours everyday the marital
relationship grows further apart and as a result, the children’s roles are
being switched to fill the father’s role in the family.
Those families who are in the
middle of the socio-economic scale tend to have a better family life. They seem
to have a better balance between having a good quality life, making money, and
providing for their family and spending quality time as a family. They have
more of the ideal family life where the marital relationship fulfills their
roles as father and mother, but also work together in making the family work
like discipline for their children and having equal and healthy relationships between
each of their children.
Just because a family has every
material possession they could ever want does not mean that they have a healthy
family life and a good relationship with each of their family members. Material
possessions aren’t everything, good and healthy relationships with all family
relationships is.
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