I have missed quite a few weeks of the blog. Here are a few entries all in one post.

The single parent family – I found this interesting to learn about because of how common it is in the world today. “Single-parent families have increased over the past decades, from roughly 3.5 million in 1970 to 12.8 million in 2009, representing 15.4 percent of all families.” So many people are choosing to raise children outside of marriage these days. It makes me sad that the value of marriage is so little in the world today. I have a testimony of families and how strong of a unit they can be. 

Gender roles: nature or nurture – Men and woman have different gender roles. Some people think to call it sex roles which would suggest that the differences were innate. There are the roles that were set up by the culture and the roles of their sex. It is interesting to learn about how they differ and what they qualities of the goals are.

Violence in families – Not only can there be physical abuse in families but emotional abuse that accompanies it. Emotional abuse can sometimes be worse than the physical abuse. In the textbook it says, “Next to death, separation, and divorce, family violence is the most difficult experience people have to cope with.” I found it very interesting learning about violence in families. I was surprised to hear how often it occurs in the United States.

Nature of communication – There are two different kinds of communication; nonverbal and verbal communication. Verbal communication is the use of words to convey our ideas to others. Some nonverbal ways to communicate are clothing, facial expressions, eye behaviors, touching and cues we give in oral speech apart from the content of the words themselves like the tone of voice and the emphasis given to words. Learning to communicate properly can help build relationships and trust between people.

Functions of dating – There are many functions of dating and they are: recreation, intimacy and companionship, mate selection, status attainment, and socialization. It is important to learn these so that you can properly date. Depending on where you are in life determines why you are dating at the time.

Challenges of remarriage – Some challenges of remarriage are complex kin relationship and ambiguous roles, unresolved emotional issues related to the first marriage, adjustment of children, financial issues, and legal issues. These can all be really tough issues on a family and can make the functions of a family struggle.

Coping with infertility – Infertility can be really hard on a woman emotionally and physically. It is important for people to be aware of the ways to cope with infertility because you never know if it could happen to you. My mom had infertility issues and when she finally got pregnant it was such a blessing. My mother learned to be extremely grateful for every pregnancy she had.

Abortion – Abortion is such a sensitive subject in the world today. It is important to learn about abortion so that you can be aware of the effects it has son people. In my opinion, when a woman gets a divorce she is taking away the chance of a child to be brought in to this world. That is unfair and I would never vote to allow it.

Homosexuality – This is always a subject that I find interesting to learn about. My whole life I was taught that homosexuality is a sin and now the world is telling everyone otherwise. My older sister came out and told our family that she was going to live the lifestyle of a gay woman three years ago. I have had to develop my own testimony of the truthful of the sinful nature of that lifestyle. As much as I love my sister, this class has helped me learn that it is still a sin. Same sex marriage should not be allowed or tolerated. We same still love everyone but that does not mean we need to agree with their lifestyle.

Shared Facebook Accounts

This week in class we talked about intimacy in marriage. In a PowerPoint called Friends, Facebook, and Fidelity it is discussed that Facebook can be dangerous. Sometimes I’ll see my friends on Facebook who share a Facebook with their husband or wife. I used to think it was weird and that there was no point. Now I see how that might be a good idea in keeping your marriage strong. I have decided that when I get married I want to share a Facebook with my husband.

To me, its sounds crazy that anyone who has been married in the temple would cheat on their spouse, but it happens. It’s a temptation and a trial that many people can go through. Satan wants to destroy marriage and make people unhappy. Temple marriages are one of the most important things someone can do on this Earth. Satan will work really hard to destroy them and tempt them.

When I am married I want my husband and i to have a strong testimony and relationship with our Heavenly Father and for us to be in tune with the spirit so that we can resist temptation.
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Eternity

Something I have been thinking about alot lately since our lecture in class is how having children puts stress on a marriage. I always thought that children would make everything better. But now I realize that I will still need to work on my future marriage even after we have children. Brother Williams explained in class that after a couple has a child, marriage satisfaction lowers. "In average the American marriage, marital satisfactions is high until shortly after the birth of the first child, goes down significantly after birth of each child, then levels out before improving as the children leave home." There are a few steps to keeping a marriage strong:

-Plan dates and special time together as soon as possible.
-Express gratitude for the contributions your partner makes.
-Discuss and plan responses to the likely challenges
-Discuss your concerns and worries without being critical of another

These are all things that i want to remember for when i get married. Eventually my future children will grow up and have their own spouse and be sealed to them. So it is important to me that i one day have a strong relationship with my husband becuase he is who i will be spending eternity with.

We will not reject you

I know that I have missed a few blogs already but i'm going to try really hard to remember to blog every week.

This week in my family relations class we talked about same sex attraction. This is a subject I have a really hard time understanding. There is a person in my life who is very close to me that struggles with this. This is a subject that I have prayered hours about to help me understand. I still do not think that i have an opinion on what i think. I want to so bad be able to say that i am okay with it. That this person in my life deserves to be happy and not be judged for it. But I know that its not okay. And that hurts.

A quote from Elder Boyd K Packer said "We do not reject you, only immoral behavior. We cannot reject you, for you are the sons and daughter of God. We will not reject you, because we love you." This quote helps me because no matter how confused on the subject I may be, all I really need to know is that I love them.

First Post

Hi! My name is Jackie Murphy and I am from Layton, Utah.