Communication is Key

One of our assignments for class this week was to write down 8-10 "unspoken rules" we've grown up with in our families. That's really hard to do! When you grown up with an unspoken rule, I think it becomes so engrained in you, it's not a rule, but a way of life, and you think surely that's how EVERYONE lives. There was only one rule that I was able to come up with easily, and I was only able to come up with it so easily, because it's broken by my roommates constantly!
Realizing why it was so easy to come up, I think I discovered the point of this assignment. When two people marry, they come from two different families (we're going to assume that, anyway...). Regardless of the culture, religion, socioeceonomic status, race, etc. of these two families, they have different unspoken rules. The couple coming together might never think to discuss these rules, because they just seem like the way life is. This can cause trouble, because as I know from my roommates, when you grow up with the unspoken rule that anyone awake stays quiet until everyone is awake, and your roommates didn't grow up with that same rule, you wonder what in the world is wrong with them, and want to throw your pillow at their heads.
It's important to discuss things like this with someone you're coming into such a relationship with. As that's difficult to do, it would be good of each of us to be aware that when someone doesn't meet the expectations that we never think to express, it is not out of disrespect, or inconsideration, but the simple fact that they do not know the same things we know. And we need to have enough humility to realize that we may very well be breaking one of THEIR rules.

Knowing Where You Stand

We talked about some interesting stuff in class yesterday.  I mean, we always talk about interesting stuff, but yesterday's stuck out to me, because it had to do with a topic that I think any family advocate is familiar with; population.
An argument that I think many are familiar with is that couples should limit how many children they have.  That the world is over-populated as it is, and parents that have several children are just adding to the problem. 
Apparently, as we discussed in class, if you took every nuclear family in the world, gave them each one acre to live in, we could all fit in Texas.  Hmm.  Sort of makes the whole idea of not enough space for all the people a little less powerful, doesn't it?

Making a Change

On Friday in my Family Relations class, we were talking about research, and how to discern good research from bad research.  Towards the end of the class, our teacher asked us to decide on a topic regarding families that we could research if we could. 
At first, my mind was blank.  It was the end of a long day, my last class of the week, and my brain was just done with all things scholastic.  After rolling a few mediocre ideas around in my head for a bit, my pen was on the paper ready to write one of them down, and my idea struck me: What are the long-term affects on children who have a parent who regularly views pornography?
This is definitely a question born of personal experience.  It's not experience I'm going to get into much right now (though I guess I'm not quite leaving much up to the imagination).
My teacher asked us later why a person chooses to research something, so I thought about my reasons.  To spark a change... to bring an awareness to others... to help.  Because of my own experience with this sort of thing, it's something I feel passionate about. 
I realized after the class that I felt inspired.  I want to actually do research on this.  I want to bring it to people's attention.  I want people to know what an issue this is.  I want to make people aware of the problems that this sort of thing does cause.  I need to look into what to do to make this possible.