How do we define culture in relation to families? How does culture impact families? Culture and social classes do a lot in regards to family.
Culture
If you go to Google and type in the definition for "culture" most people will just look at the first definition which defines cultures as, "The customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group." That is what most people accept as the definition, but have you ever thought about what else it could mean? Have you considered how your family may be its own culture? With families, we should consider culture to be the shared attitudes, common values, goals and practices. Your family culture is yours, being on the inside is different than the outside, what you think is "normal" may be completely different than what someone else considers normal in their family. This can become challenging when bringing significant others into the family and seeing family cultures clash. How do you decide which family culture to be in? This takes communication with your spouse and accepting the change that might come. It's important to stay open about what your new family should be or what aspects of each others culture you should incorporate into your own family. And yes, it is acceptable to change your culture and mesh when you start your own family.
Traditions
So where do traditions fit in? What do traditions have to do with culture? Are traditions always positive or can they be negative? The topic of traditions can bring up many questions that can be hard to answer. Traditions are intergenerational, they're a pattern of beliefs. Traditions are "just what we do" and every family has their own traditions that they hold on to because they have been passed down from generation to generation. Based on our culture is how we come to grow in our traditions. Traditions don't always have to mean what you do on holidays but more so just what your family does that may be different than others but normal for your family. For instance, my family goes to church every Sunday for two hours then we come home eat an early dinner, take a long nap, wake up and watch a movie and have a treat. It's so simple but it's how I raised and grew up just knowing that's how Sunday went. Obviously my family has traditions like everyone else for certain holidays and there are many of them that I am excited to pass on to my family when that happens and I know that my husband will have some that he wants to pass on so that balance is key.
Family experiences change families with understanding the circumstances.
Social Classes
This comes into play when thinking about socioeconomic class and socioeconomic status. What do I mean by those those in our society?
-Material possessions (clothes)
-Education (formal)
-Size and location of home
-Speech and mannerisms
-Daily activities
-Money and income
This meaning the upper class versus the lower class. How much a family has versus how much a family doesn't have. Social classes can impact our family cultures and give us those different experiences. Regardless of the money gap between the classes we can see many similarities of the effect on families. In both classes, we see a toll taken on the family from the money verse availability situation. In the upper class many (not all) will keep working to make more money and are never really satisfied with their income because they want more, this need to want more money leads to having to work more which means less availability to be with family. On the other side with the lower class, we see struggling families who need more money to live so they work and work to make enough money to live off which then requires less availability with family and can eventually hurt the family especially with children.
Balance
This balance become so important with family structures. Culture, traditions, social classes all can have both positive and negative impacts on a family and it is our job to find that balance and keep it while raising our families.
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