Wednesday, July 10, 2013
COM 325 / Week Three Discussion: Why Is Family Extremely Important to a Culture?
How has the family unit helped a civilization sustain its traditions and weather through challenges? In modern society, family as a cultural institution is undergoing rapid changes. Some changes look very controversial depending on your perspective. Just a reminder--not all traditional family structures have been beautiful. In China, the traditional family unit imposed foot-binding on women for nearly one thousand years until the early 20th century. Also, in ancient China, in rare cases, family members were even allowed to practice cannibalism - sons would cut their bodily flesh to add into an herbal soup that would heal their parents. Nevertheless, despite the unsavory aspects of outdated family structures, we have to be careful how we embrace the change in our family tradition. Family is the cell of the entire cultural body. What's your perspective in regard to change vis-a-vis continuity?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I believe a strong family unit is the key to sustaining traditions and weathering through challenges. My family has always been close, and there are times where I feel like I wouldn't have made it through some things in life. That being said, I have an example of something that I feel like family was the best thing for someone in their life. When I was 18, my parents became foster parents and at the time I was not a happy camper because that meant I had to share a room with my sister (boo!). It really wasn't as bad as I say, but she is a messy person and I am a neat freak, so you can only imagine. Anyways, when they became foster parents we got a 15, 13, and an 11 year old all from the same family. We have had the 15 year old up until last year when he graduated high school and went off to college, and I feel that it was mostly because he had the real structure of a family that he went off to college. We gave him a home with structure and traditions to follow, loving arms, and a roof over his head which he had never had the comfort of until he was with us. Because he so easily became part of our family unit, sustaining our traditions is what I feel helped him through some of the challenges in life he had after he had been with us. I have always felt like being part of a family unit is the most important thing to have in life, and this is just an example of why I feel this way.
ReplyDeleteThe family unit has helped to sustain civilization by giving an individual a strong, emotional connection to the culture through the family. In an ideal family unit, you develop love and trust with your offspring, then you transition, using that love and trust, to the cultural practices that will allow propagation of traditions and success within that culture. In terms of how the families look, does not concern me, the importance of “buy in” to the culture will come from the development of love and trust. And as human beings we are all capable of that, if we are open and true to ourselves.
ReplyDeleteWeek Three Discussion: Why Is Family Extremely Important to a Culture?
ReplyDeleteMy family seemed normal to me as a kid. Yet I don’t think we actually met all of the criteria of a traditional family for the era I grew up in. My mother was pregnant and married at 15 (yes in that order) the year was 1962. I came along in 1965 and she turned 20 a few months after my birth. In 1970 at 25 years old my mother obtained her GED and starting working for the local grocery store. In 1979 at 34 she was offered a job with a Government Contractor providing support services at the local Navy Base. Within 10 years she was in management earning way more then my father a career firefighter in our local home town. Now at 68 in her 34th year working for her company she is afraid of the 50 year old kids that are up and coming and wanting her job with advanced educational degrees and the same desire and ambition that she has had for so many years. She is fearful that she will be “aged out” of a position that she has held for so long to make room for the new generation of highly educated management executives. I do remember she was having the same stress when she was 58 and was afraid the 40 year old executives may take her job. She managed through that.
As kids my sister and I spent a lot of time with our grandparents who were 2nd generation Norwegians. While spending most days after school and all summer with my grandparents while my parents worked they taught us many of the traditional cooking, baking and living off the land like they would have in Norway or as their parents had shown them. My grandfather would sing to us and teach us Norwegian folksongs and teach us the Norwegian language. We fished, gathered seafood and worked a giant vegetable garden and fruit orchards.