mothers

This week in class, we were talking about genograms, which are a way to branch your family tree and to help see patterns.

I've always known I was a carbon copy of my mom, and very similar to my grandma. Here were the similarities that popped into my head between the three of us that I jotted down in class:

Mom and Grandma

The way they say the word "him"

Me, Mom, and Grandma

not being able to do dishes/clean the kitchen without a towel over our shoulder

*Grandma used to tell me the story of how, when I was about two or three, she asked me to help do dishes or cook or something and I said, "Just a minute Grandma," and grabbed a towel, threw it over my shoulder, and said, "Okay Grandma, I'm ready!"

Me and Mom

Look exactly the same. Always have. (see the very first picture on this post or subsequent pictures if you have doubts)
Worlds biggest worriers

So I was thinking about the unconscious attributes, the parts of my character and personality, that I learned from my mom. And then I started thinking about an excerpt from Elder Maxwell's book "Things as They Really Are," where he tells us that our entity/intelligence/essence has been the same since the premortal existence and how part of our mortal character is derived from what we learned before we came to this world.

As I thought about the things I have learned from my mother in my 20 (relatively) short years with her, I kind of got a little choked up as I wondered to myself what attributes I have that I inherited from my Heavenly Mother. I thought to some of the things from my patriarchal blessing, "a great capacity to love," "desire to serve others"...things like that. I choose to believe those are the things I got from Her. The best parts about me.

family boundaries

This week in class we talked a lot about family boundaries--what they are and how they differ. Boundaries in this case refers to a kind of relationship. We learned that there are three different kinds:

Permeable: ones that are more connected, have more communication than may be appropriate. Think overprotective mother. {Represented by a dotted line}

Clear: Appropriate amounts of communication. {Represented by a dashed line}

Rigid: Not enough communication. {Represented by a solid line}

For one of our assignments we had to map our family boundaries with each member of our family. To do this I had to think in depth about the kind of communication I have with everyone in my family and it was really interesting. I'm not going to share on here what those boundaries were, because some of them made me kind of sad. But looking at it made me resolve to be better, to try and get closer to my family members and communicate, stay in touch with them better. 

It might be interesting to try and map YOUR family boundaries and see if there are places where you can improve?

an interesting statistic

As I was reading this week from our textbook, the chapter was called "The Context of Intimacy." It was talking about cohabitation, delayed marriage and the reasons for it, birth rates, household size...things like that. 

The paragraph about birth rates I thought was really interesting. I'm going to post the whole thing, it's pretty short. It says:

As a result of later marriages, delayed first births, and an increasing number of childless marriages, the birth rate declined considerably from the 1950's, though it leveled off after 1995.  In 2005, the rate was 14.0 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 years, a little more than half of what is was in 1954 and less than half of what is was in 1910. In fact, the rate is now lower that what is necessary for the natural replacement of the population. Without immigration, the U.S. population will eventually decline if birth rates remain at the present low level.

Yes, I bolded, underlined, and italicized that last part because it is INSANE! I remember having a teacher in high school who would tell us that the world is overpopulated and that people need to stop having children.

(to which I would reply, under my breath, "i'm going to have babies. Lots and lots of babies." Yeah, he loved me)

But then it also reminded me of last year when elder Russel M. Nelson gave a talk here in Rexburg and told us something along the lines of (I searched for it in my journal, I KNOW I took notes, but i couldn't find the entry so I'll paraphrase): 

"If you took every person in the entire world, and gave them each an acre (it might have been a square mile or some other unit of measurement) to live on, they would fill up 80% of Chile (or it may or may not have been Brazil)."

And that's it! 

It's times like these when I realize how much Satan wants to attack the family as a unit. He knows that we will be unhappy and more susceptible to follow him when we are alone, so that's what he convinces the world that it is the "right" thing to do. 

Welcome!

Welcome to my family relations blog! Throughout the semester I will be posting things I learn in my family relations class that I think are interesting and have an impact on me. I invite anyone feels so inclined to comment to do so! Thanks, you'll hear from me again soon!

Hailee