Marriage, families, and my complete lack of preparation.

These last few weeks have helped me to realize how unprepared I am to be a mother. It discourages me how ill prepared I feel to know what to teach and instruct my children. I know that most future parents feel this way, but it hurts to imagine my children suffering because I don't know what to do with them. I am not even dating anyone and this upsets me, that's a little crazy to me. I didn't grow up in a highly Mormon populated area, and so it wasn't ingrained in me to constantly think about marriage and families as i have seen it in those who live around many with our same beliefs. Yet, coming to this school where families are promoted more than i have ever experienced I find myself thinking about those things so much more often. It is amazing how a society effects you even when you do not realize it. This realization has also caused me to speculate on the kind of environment I want to raise my family in. It's a lot to think about.

Life is an intertwined net of knowledge.

It is absolutely insane how my classes are connecting with one another. It makes learning in each course so much more enjoyable. I will learn a principle in one class, then hours later I apply that principle. It's invigorating to learn this way. It excites me to come to class and keep building my knowledge and strengthen my life experience. This week especially has been insane in that all of my classes, every one, have correlated in some way. The concepts I have learned in Family Foundations I been able to apply in my group presentation on eternal marriage in Family Foundations. In my Capstone class we have been discovering our opinions on people with homosexual tendencies and how that affects us and other families. Principles I have found in that class have shed a different light on marriage and caused me to see what an incredible blessing it is to have tendencies that coincide with the Lord's plan. It has made marriage much more important and sacred to me. In my Psychology class we recently discussed reinforcement and punishment, and what they really mean. It has given me important knowledge on how to teach my future children, and also how to problem solve with my future husband. I have never enjoyed learning in my classes more than I have this semester, especially these last few weeks. It is just breathtaking to me how life connects sometimes.

Love the Sinner, Not the Sin!

I really enjoyed the discussion we had on Friday. I agree wholeheartedly. Members of the church, or people in general, struggling with same-sex attraction simply need to be loved and accepted. We should not accept those feelings and tendencies as right or something good, but we must accept the individual. They are a child of God and therefore, no matter what, they deserve to be treated as such. For so many, declaring one's sexual orientation to be heterosexual is a way to escape to a place where they can feel accepted or special. If we accept those who are different from our view of what is male and what is female than these individuals would not have the need to seek companionship from their own sex. I love the phrase Brother Williams repeated in class, "Being informed and loving people at the same time is the best way we can help them." or something to that effect. it is completely true. Trying to get those who find themselves attracted to the same sex to fight their feelings, telling them its wrong and evil to feel that way, and treating them as wicked transgressors is the same as pushing them into homosexual lifestyles as much as telling them those feelings are true and good. Love the sinner, not the sin is one of my favorite phrases in the church. Besides, these people who see themselves attracted to their same gender are not sinners at all. They are simply fighting their way through the temptations chosen for them in this life. It is only when they act on those tendencies and emotions that they sin. This subject is particularly sensitive for me because of the views of my father. Wonderful man that he is, he finds it hard to accept those who declare themselves gay or lesbian as children of God. In theory he might understand that yes, they are children of Heavenly Father, but he does not treat them as such. Growing up in San Francisco, with a father who treated all who found themselves homo-attracted as sinners whether they had acted on it or not, i think is the reason for his take on the matter. I also had a dear friend who was a perfect example of someone who did not fit the classic description for "male", yet he did not have any sort of tendencies toward other men. He was very, very "straight". Yet very few accepted him as a man, someone who be attractive to women. Because of this lack of acceptance, he soon found comfort in the idea of being attracted to the same sex, he found this to be more acceptable for the way he acted to his friends. Strong man that he is, he resisted the urge to act upon these feelings. He knew they were contrary to the Lord's plan. He has been such an inspiration for me.

What is a "family"?

I have several different versions of what a family is and what it can be. I consider those I am blood related to my family, automatically. They belong to me and I them in some way. Yet they are only a distant version of the word, for I know my extended family very little except for a few. When I think of family I think of my immediate family instinctively. I picture my mother and father, sisters and my brother. They are my family, they have made me into who I am for the most part. I then think of a few individuals that I have "adopted" into my family. They are as much a part of me as my blood family is. I think of one of my high school friends and her younger sister who i love dearly, and I think of my roommate that I have lived with since my first semester here at BYU Idaho. I call them the sisters God forgot to give me. I was born to four sisters, but I have grown into seven. There is no one definition to the word "family". It has a different connotation with every individual. It can even mean several different things to one person like it does to me. I think the basis for the word lies in a feeling of belonging. Our family is whoever we belong to in one way or another.

Family Dynamics

I am sorry that I haven't been posting anything these last few weeks. As I have mentioned before, I don't blog really, or social network much for that matter, so I forget easily. Anyways, I wanted to talk about our discussion last week on the family dynamics. On thinking about my own family I was amazed at how many connections and varying relationships exist in a family. We talked about how families can have a special connection between a parent and one of the children, or a certain dynamic between siblings. When I analysed my family growing up I found that we have so many different bonds between us. I come from a family with five women and a man-boy. My four older sisters are close in age, followed by my brother who is quite a lot younger than them comparatively, then there is me, closing up as the bookend of the family. You would think that being the youngest, I would be the spoiled baby who received all the parental attention. Not in my family. i admit I am spoiled compared to my older siblings who were raised when my parents were just starting out their family, my father still in dental school, and struggling to provide for his little girls that just kept coming. Yet, it is my sister, the youngest of the four, that is the favored child in our dynamic. I have heard of the middle child being the forgotten, squished in between the oldest siblings who take on a parental-type role toward the younger members, and the youngest who experience the laid back parental control that has weakened as the married couple grow older and too tired to enforce the same strictness they did in the beginning. It is interesting to me that my family is near the opposite. The children fall into a pyramid-like pattern of attention.
I was also intrigued at Brother William's several statements on the importance of a strong marital unit in the home, and how it is vital for a family to succeed. Despite the fact that we don't completely fill this requirement, I would say that my family is a success. Yes, we have our problems, but for the most part we children are quite close and loving toward one another. Our parents however are another story.

Week 1

I am not the Blogger type so please be patient with me as I get used to this. I prefer to discuss and offer my personal insights to those around me rather than a computer. But here goes...

It has been amazing to me this past week just how interconnected my classes are becoming. The principals I learn in my Social Statistics class will be reinforced just an hour later in this class, just as the ideas discussed in my Foundations Capstone course will reappear the next day in the same setting. It is making my educational growth this semester that much more enjoyable, as I can see how certain knowledge is usefull in three different situations within hours of each other.
This is my first semester where I am finally working toward my major. I focused on generals my first two years and dabbled in a few majors before realizing that marriage and Family counceling was my life calling. It's extremely satisfying to be learning about topics I am deeply passionate and curious about. It's a bit of a high seeing my future come closer into focus.