Fathers in Families

You know, I don’t think fathers get enough credit for their job in the homes and for all of the things that they can contribute to their families. I know it today’s world, there is such a strong push for “woman power” and “I am a strong independent woman who doesn’t need a man to be happy” kind of lifestyle. Well, even if you don’t need a husband to be happy, I think that you should know the important role that husbands and, more specifically, fathers play in the lives of their children. Because all of the things they can do, will truly shock you.

“Fathers who are actively involved in their childrens’ lives contribute to their emotional health, overall wellness, social development, and self respect”. (The Father and His Role in Child Development, Lynn pg. 1) Yes, you did read that right. WHAT?! How amazing is that? Why don’t you read that one more time to let that sink in. Now do you think that fathers may not be that important in the lives of their children? Let’s talk about how dad helps in the development of a child with these 4 points that I brought out at the beginning of this paragraph.

Emotional Health: It’s fun to go out in public and see a dad throwing their kid into the air, or see home videos where the dad is wrestling with the kids. A lot of times moms will sit back and smile and roll their eyes as they watch this. But, the fathers are doing so much more. Rough and tumble play helps in the development of the prefrontal cortex in the brain. This part of your brain helps with emotional regulation. While the dad is playing with the children, he is helping develop that part of their brain so that when they get older, they will know how to control their emotions better. This is especially seen in young men. The chances of an adolescent male getting depression are much higher without a dad in the home.

Social Development: If you want to destroy a person’s life, deprive them of their social interaction and showing them love. Our brains are wired to connect. We want to be with people and have that social connection. How do dad’s help with this? Fathers are largely responsible for the child’s verbal development. HOW NEAT IS THAT? Fathers are also responsible for getting a child involved in sports and clubs and other social activities that are crucial to the child’s development 🙂

Self Respect: Studies have shown that teenage girls are more likely to become pregnant and become involved in prostitution without a father in the home. That breaks my heart. How could a daughter ever learn what it feels like to be truly loved by a man without having a father there to teach it to her when she is young and to show her how a boy is supposed to treat her when he isn’t there to treat her mother right? Fathers, please stay for your daughter’s sake.

Overall Wellness: Go back and read all of the points that I have briefly discussed. Does this not sound like fathers contribute to the overall wellness of their children? It sounds pretty important to me.

I want to add one more important role that fathers have to this list. Loving Their Child’s Mother: How could a child ever learn the importance of love and of relationships without experiencing first hand how relationships are supposed to be? I think it is truly important that children see the father love and respect his wife and fight for his family. That will give them hope for a better future.

Yes, this is my dad and I on the day of my wedding! *Tears*

My father was the most amazing dad I could have ever asked for. He made sure to do all of these things listed above. He did this for every single one of his children. He made sure to come to our sporting events, he made sure to tell us how much he loved us. He wrestled with us and threw us in the air. He taught us how to love ourselves because of how he loved us. He taught us about what we deserved in life because of how he treated us. I am so grateful for my relationship with my dad and I know that I would not live the life I do right now without having had him in my home.

My husband and I have set goals for how we want to be involved in our childrens’ lives and how we always want to make sure we are there for them, but we have specifically talked about how important his relationship is going to be with those children. These are very personal goals that we have set and so I don’t want to share them on here, but I know that if we work to fulfill those goals, the lives of our children will change and they will be blessed. So will we.

Making Decisions

Hey y’all! Welcome back to this week’s blog post! Today, I am going to be talking about making big decisions and even little decisions within your family unit.

When you get married, it can be really difficult to agree on big decisions and even small decisions just because it is hard to have two separate individuals and put them together to make decisions for their family as one entity. My husband and I found this to be something very difficult when we first got married, especially because we were raised very differently. To give you a few ideas on just how different we are, I was raised in a small farming town in Idaho and my husband grew up in Vermont. So, needless to say, when you take an East Coast boy and mesh him together with a farm-town girl from the West, there are going to be things that you two don’t agree on.

My husband and I actually had a really good talk with each other the other night when we were getting ready for bed, about how we should be going about making decisions for our family. I thought I would just share a couple of these with all of you today, because we have found that the more we practice these habits and these ways of communicating with each other, there is a lot of peace in our home.

How many of you have seen this picture before? This is one of my favorite examples of how your marriage should be. If you look at the triangle, when you and your spouse begin to move closer to God, you also move closer to each other. I am a firm believer in this. When you both make decisions that will bring you closer to God, whether that’s reading something that is spiritually uplifting, praying and asking for guidance, or serving somebody else in need, you both will grow closer as a couple, united in your marriage.

I really love this example because this is the best way that we could ever make decisions as a family, is making sure that you have your spiritual bases covered first. When it is time for my husband and I to come together and make a decision, we come together and say a prayer first and ask for direction and for the spirit to be with us. We then will talk and discuss all of the things that we need to. When we have come together and made a decision, we kneel in prayer again and ask if the decision that we have just made is right and if it is, if we can feel the spirit to know that the choice we made is right.

I know that the way that we have chosen to make decisions together in our marriage has blessed our lives so greatly already. I know that as we continue to practice this way of living, we will be given help for when we have our children and when we really have important decisions to make.

The last thing I want to talk about, is having our hearts at peace. If you haven’t read the book, “The Anatomy of Peace” yet, I would strongly suggest that book to anyone. It talks a lot about how to solve conflict and disagreements with literally, ANYONE. They talk a lot about making sure to have your heart at peace. If you have a heart of conflict, or if your heart is at war, you will never get anywhere or solve anything in your conflict because you are just angry.

My husband and I make sure to check our hearts before we have a big disagreement and before we try to come together to solve whatever our disagreement may be about. This has been crucial to our way of communication as a couple and it has truly changed our relationship in ways that I didn’t think were possible. I didn’t know that it was possible to still feel at peace during a disagreement and it totally is. This has improved the way we communicate and it has changed the way we treat each other during a disagreement.

Why We Date and Why We Recreate

Hey everyone! Welcome back to this week’s blog! Hopefully you are all enjoying these posts and I hope that you are learning something new from them every week. Today, I want to take a different turn and talk about something a little less “heavy” than what I’ve been writing about for the last couple of weeks.

Today, I want to talk about why it is important to DATE and the importance of doing fun dates with those who you are spending time with! I don’t know if anyone else agrees with me, or maybe I am just crazy, but today, media and movies are filled with the “goals” couples. They are the ones that get dressed up together and take selfies and post them on instagram or facebook. They are the ones that lay in bed scrolling on their phones and have little interaction. Now, I’m not saying that this happens all of the time, but I do think that it is starting to happen a lot more often.

Also, if you are like me, everywhere we look, there are movies, TV shows, billboards and many other things that show us what “real” couples are like and so when we are getting ready to date, we have these ideas in our minds of what dating should be like. This is why, I am an advocate for recreational dates!

The famous philosopher, Plato said, ” You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” IS THIS NOT TRUE?! Going on fun dates is so important when you are trying to see if the person you are with is the right one for you. During recreational activities, it helps ease the awkwardness that can come from the “first date jitters”. It can also help you show who you really are. When I first met my husband, I was really quiet around him and I was usually pretty serious. One time when my husband and I, then just friends, were hanging out, I told him that my roommate and I were going to go play racquetball later that night. He told me that he had never played before and so I invited him and his roommate to come and play with us.

We had SO MUCH FUN that night because we both got to see a side to each other that we had never seen before and we realized just how similar we were and it was then that we both knew that we wanted to date. Now look at where we are! 🙂 We have been happily married for almost a year!

Recreation is also a great idea for dates because they are super fun, you get to talk quite a bit, and they can be suuuuuuuper cheap! Who isn’t down for that? There are so many things you can do! Go for a hike, go play some frisbee, go rock climbing, go dancing, etc. There are so many fun and cheap options for dating that people don’t even think about anymore.

There is also a reason why there is the saying “couples that play together, stay together.” There is a lot to be learned about a person in observing how they recreate. You can see how they respond to different situations, you can see how they handle stress, you can observe how they react when things don’t go their way, and you can also find out a lot about yourself. When you discover these things about a person, it is a lot easier to work through other tough situations that may come in life, because you will know how to work through things together and how to problem solve. Those are real “couple goals”!

These are just a few of the reasons and examples of recreation while dating. I hope that you can see the importance of it too. So, next time you are asked on a date and he suggests “Netflix and chill”, get yo butt of the couch and go find something fun to do together that lets you get to know each other and not just have a mack session 😉

…But Words Will Never Hurt Me

Hey y’all! Welcome back! So, if you read my blog post last week, we talked about the “baby daddy” and the importance of having a dad around! There are so many critical reasons for having a dad in the home. However, a lot of children around the world don’t get that chance. That is a big reason why studies have shown how having a dad in the home is important. Through “rough-and-tough” play with the father, this teaches a child, especially little boys, how to control their emotions, to trust others, and to know how far is too far when playing.

But, did you also know that for a boy, having a strong relationship with his dad can have a huge influence on what their sexuality will be? I know this can be a really tough topic to discuss, but I wanted to share some really cool things that I learned from a class called “Family Relations” at BYU-Idaho, so here we go.

I want you to think back to your elementary school days. Girls play with girls and boys play with boys. However, there are those girls that like to play football, run around with the boys, and enjoy doing “boy” things. We call these girls “tomboys”. Most of the time, these girls are accepted in their group of peers and the boys think that they are really cool and so they hang out with them. But what happens when a little boy cries in school? Do his friends call him girly? Maybe he’s a wimp? So, this could automatically exclude him from his friend-group, who happens to be all boys. Well, if this happens to a young boy and you are no longer “one of them”, where do you turn? Go hang out with the girls! Maybe this young boy will start to discover that some of the activities the girls participate in, he really likes to do them too. So at recess, you may find this boy sitting down and drawing with the girls, or playing “house” with them. But then, how will the other boys react when they see them? Perhaps with rude names, calling this boy “gay” or “girly”.

If this young boy is being treated like this by the boys in school, how is he going to feel when he gets home to see his father? Is he going to feel accepted by him and by other male figures in his life? What happens to the boys that are different? They get belittled, bullied, and labeled? Sometimes when we get labeled, if we hear others talking about it often enough, we start to believe that we are what others see us as. So to this little boy, he might start to believe that he is “gay” like the boys in school say.

I truly believe that if someone has been given the label of “gay” and that they are constantly put down by members of their same gender, wouldn’t there be some longing for acceptance by your peers? I understand that this is not the case for everyone who may struggle with same-sex attraction, but I believe that this is the case for many. I also do not think that those who have been labeled as “gay” are bad people. Not for one second. After all, if they have been called “girly” all their life, what are some characteristics that have made them that way? Being caring, kind, gentle, and empathetic? After all, are these not characteristics of our Savior, Jesus Christ?

Fathers, love your children. Accept them for who they are and you can change them! Talk with them about school. Ask them what activities they like to do. Do those activities with them! If they are not being accepted by males in school, make them feel accepted by males at home. Especially their “hero” male. We grow up learning the phrase “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” but it isn’t true. Words hurt and break and destroy. Build your children up! And be that strong father they need!

Bye-Bye Baby Daddy

How many of you, in the last couple of years have heard of, or seen the TV show, “Baby Daddy”? Well, for those of you who haven’t, I’ll tell you a little bit about it. “Baby Daddy” is an ABC show which is about a young bachelor who comes home one day and discovers that an ex-girlfriend of his has left a baby on his doorstep and that baby just happened to be his. This new addition to his used-to-be family of one, turns his life upside down when he decides that, with the help of his friends, he is going to help raise this child. If you haven’t figured it out already, simply put, a “baby daddy” is the father of your child, whom you did not marry, and with whom you are not currently involved. This comedy show quickly became a hit in 2012 and continued producing more seasons until the year 2017. That’s a lot of episodes.

One reason why I think this show became so popular is because this lifestyle is becoming more popular. Parenthood is coming before marriage. Because we see this so often and there are so many children that come from homes that are this way, we may be lured into thinking that this doesn’t have any effect on the family and that children who come from these homes have just as good of a chance at succeeding in life, as do those that come from homes where there is a mother and a father, married, united in their efforts, and devoted to one another. But as long as children have a roof over their head and someone providing for them, won’t they be just fine? What does it matter if their mom and dad are married or not?

In 2008, a man named William Doherty went to New York and gave a panel discussion about Class and Family structure in the United Sates. In this discussion, he talks a lot about why it is harder for couples who are not married, to raise children today, and I wanted to just address a couple of them.

Stability and Commitment: Something that is happening in our society is that couples are having children in unstable relationships. They are having children without projections of a long-term future. When these couples have children, there is a lack of information on how to sustain a family, because more often than not, these children are not planned. This challenge can bring about a lot of stress and economic instability for this couple and where there is no marital commitment, one of them chooses to leave. This increases the amount of partners that this single mother or father has which can lead to more children, which can lead to mixed families with no structure or stability, making everything one jumbled and big mess. This brings challenges to the mother, father, and children.

Because of how often we see this today, living together and having children before marriage has almost become a cultural norm. So, in order for this to change, we need a culture shift. In this video, Doherty states, “This isn’t just about promoting marriage”. This is about teaching people what it takes to form and sustain lasting unions when raising our children.

I truly believe that when a child is brought in to this world, the parents of that child love him/her more than anything and want to do the best that they can to help their child succeed. How can we do this? Fathers, MAKE SURE YOUR CHILDREN KNOW HOW MUCH YOU LOVE THEIR MOTHER. The power of commitment is taken for granted. When you love your child’s mother and when you are both committed to each other, that will teach your children to work hard in every aspect of their life. It will teach them to search for that love of their own someday. If you can work through problems with your spouse and as a family, you are teaching your children to put effort in when they see a road block and take that challenge head on.

The power of being an example is underrated. Your children will learn from you. They will do what you do and they will do as you do. Be that foundation that they can stand firm on when their life begins to get bumpy. Don’t teach them to not be committed and walk away. Teach them to be determined and stay.

Why is Family Important?

I just wanted to start off this week’s blog by first saying that despite what the Hallmark Channel will show you, not everyone has the “ideal family situation”. There may be some of you who have come from a family where there have been illnesses, injuries, addictions, financial struggles, and many other challenges that may have been hard to get through. There are many whose families don’t pull through and it leaves children, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and everyone else broken hearted…feeling alone and as if they don’t have anywhere to turn to. If you are one of those people today, who has felt the pain that these challenges can place on you, take heart! You are one of many who understand how you feel and who know what you are going through. You are not alone!

If you are one of those individuals that I mentioned above, I hope that you can find peace in knowing that this doesn’t have to be your family’s situation forever. We have the opportunity in this life, to choose and how wonderful is that? I don’t know about you, but that certainly gives me hope! We have the ability to make a difference and be different. We can change and we can grow.

I have always found that in the situations where I have grown the most, it hasn’t been because of something I have done on my own. It has been through the help and support of others around me–specifically, my family! When you have a large group of people who love and who support one another, you will be able to grow together! Let’s think of an example where this might be the case!

Let’s say there was a plane crash and your family got stranded together on an island. Don’t you think your chances of survival will be greater than if you were stuck there all by yourself? A lot of us might say, “Wait, but if there are more of us, there is no way we will survive for a long time! We are going to run out of resources!” However, when you are together, you will be able to create more resources than you ever could have if you were alone. As you counsel together and work together, before long, you and your family will be able to get off of that island.

However, something that is going to be pertinent to your survival is knowing your way around the island and knowing what resources are going to be available to you. You are going to want to know what you have to protect yourselves from dangers that may come. You are going to want to know where your family can find shelter and safety. You are going to want to know how they are going to be fed and nourished. Knowing all of these things will be able to help your family survive.

I know that was an extreme example, but maybe we can draw a few connections with this story and see how it can help us and our families today. If we can counsel together and work with our families, we are going to be able to know how we can strengthen our family unit. We are going to want to be aware of dangers that may come and we will need to figure out how we can protect each other from these dangers ahead. We will need to be aware of what our children are learning and we need to make sure that things they are consuming are going to be good for them and will help them grow and be nourished.

Family is so important. You can learn so many valuable lessons in life just by being in a strong family who loves one another and who supports one another. Family is critical to our survival today! We can make our homes and our family relationships a sanctuary where everyone can come to feel loved, healed, and whole. As we do this, we can truly change lives.

Divorce

Hey everyone. This is my last week of blogs and I’m sure that you are just as excited and ready for that to be the last one as I am. In my class this week, we talked about a subject that I hate talking about because it absolutely breaks my heart and it is something that I am very passionate about.

I don’t know if any of you have read this before, but there is an article by Jeffrey Hill entitled “Family Crucibles” and it is such an amazing article and I would suggest all of you reading it. In this article, he gives lots of ways to deal with a family crucible. What is a family crucible? Well, as defined by google, a crucible is, “a situation of severe trial, or in which different elements interact, leading to the creation of something new”.

I don’t know about you, but for me, this sounds like a pretty big deal. I really like to have consistency and stableness in my life, so when something all of a sudden changes, I get stressed and it takes me a while to adjust. There can be many situations like this when you start a family and there can be many crucibles that will come your way. However, when situations arise and your crucible comes, you can react one of two ways: You can take this challenge to build your family up and become stronger, or you can fall apart and lose everything. The choice is yours.

I know this makes it sound like a really easy choice to make, but we all know that in the moment, it is a lot more difficult to see how this will help you in your life. Jeffrey gives 3 things that can help us when a crucible comes.

1. Life is hard, but you can do hard things: We are so strong and we are capable of overcoming any challenge that may come our way. I love the quote that says, “God won’t give you any challenge you can’t handle.” I think that is so true. If we can know in our hearts that all things are possible with the help of God and others, then we can make it through hard times, because we can do hard things.
2. Make the best of it: Family life will never be how you expected it to be in your mind. So instead of wallowing in self-pity and being sad because your life didn’t turn out how you imagined it, take heart. You are one of many in this category. Make the most of the moments that you are in right now.
3. T.T.T.= Things Take Time: Being in a family is all about taking a journey and seeing where you end up. Understand that in order to get where you are wanting to be, things take time. I would also like to add the word effort. Things take time and effort.

It’s amazing to think of all of the relationships that have ended in divorce, that could have been something beautiful, if only they would have applied some of these principles. YOU CAN DO HARD THINGS. Nobody says that their marriage is perfect and if they did, they are lying. EVERYONE has problems in their marriage, but it is how you choose to overcome them and grow from them.

I understand that there are situations where divorce is necessary. If you are one of those who it was a bad situation and you needed out, don’t worry, you are excused from this conversation. 😉 E. Jeffrey Hill gives 10 ways to improve your family resiliency when times of trouble occur and I would like to list them here. Do with them what you will!

1. Be Prepared
2. Involve Family Members (when appropriate)
3. Seek Outside Sources and Support
4. Develop a Long -Term, Growth-Oriented Perspective
5. Take Positive Action, Do What You Can
6. Find Comfort in Every Day Family Life
7. Seek Out Soul-Soothing Environments
8. Take Care of Yourself and Your Family
9. Trust in a Higher Power
10. Endure to the End

Take heart everyone. I know that divorce sometimes may seem like the easy and even popular option, but I would encourage you to look at these options of how you can build resiliency in your family first, before you turn to anything else. Have a great week!

Parenting: The Anatomy of Peace

Hey y’all! Welcome back for this weeks blog post! I am PUMPED to write this week! Last semester, I took a parenting class and it was one of the best classes I could have possibly taken! It was such a special experience and it really helps you to prepare to be a good parent if you aren’t one already and it will help you in every relationship you have with anyone around you that you love. This last week my Family Relations class talked about parenting and so I thought it would be fitting to mix the two lessons and tell y’all what I learned. So, buckle up! It’s going to be a fun one!

For any of you who haven’t read the book “The Anatomy of Peace” I would strongly suggest it. This was one of the books one our reading list for this class and I could’t put it down every time I started to read it. This book tells the story of a father and mother who have a son who have a delinquent child and so they take him to a summer camp that works with these kinds of teenagers. But, while they are there to drop him off, the parents also attend a class on how they can help their children after they return home from this summer program. The things that I will talk about are lessons that were taught to the parents in that class.

There are many things that were discussed in depth, but the main thing that I want to focus on today is the power of having your heart at peace–hence the title of the book! The author shows us how our default way of thinking can actually cause and carry on conflicts and how every relationship can be approached with either a heart of peace or a heart of war.

I have seen this work in all of my relationships. I am so far from perfect, but after I pointed this out to my husband, the way that we decided to treat conflicts changed completely, because we changed our hearts before we even addressed the problem. How could this assist us in parenting? Well, can you ever think back on a time in your life where you made a mistake and your parents made you feel better by lecturing you or by telling you how big of a mistake it was, even though you already knew? No. This doesn’t work. BUT, if your parent was to approach you with a heart of peace and you could feel of their love for you, would that change the way you decided to fix your mistake? Absolutely.

Having a heart of peace towards your children and changing your way of being towards them will change the dynamic of your home. How could you include your children in making decisions if your heart is at war? You couldn’t. But, if your heart was at peace, you could sit down together as a family and discuss what things would be beneficial for everyone in the family.

These are just a few examples of things you can do as parents and how important having a heart of peace is when you are parenting and when you are in any relationship. I am so grateful for my parents and for the way that they raised me and my siblings because I feel like they personified the lessons I have talked a little bit about today. I know that parenting is a lot harder than what I just made it sound like, but I promise that if you strive to have a heart of peace towards your children, spouse, siblings, parents, etc. that you relationships will change for the better!

Family Stresses

Hey y’all! Welcome back to this week’s blog! I hope that you guys aren’t getting sick of me quite yet. Today, I am really excited to write this blog, because it is going to be more like a journal entry than anything. In my class this week at Brigham Young University-Idaho, we talked about stresses that come to the family. Today, I thought I would share a lot of the stresses that have come to my husband and I, being newly weds, and how we have decided to handle them together to make sure that we are always making decisions that are best for us as a family.

Getting married is the most wonderful and beautiful decision I think anyone in this world could ever make. But, just because of the nature of marriage, there are going to be a couple of things that are going to change and may be stressful. Okay–there are going to be a lot of things that change. For instance: When my husband and I got married, I used to always sleep on the left side of the bed and I am not the funnest person to share a bed with. I like to move around a lot and toss and turn. It usually takes me a while to fall asleep. So, when we got married, my husband slept on the left side of the bed and so that was a little bit of a change for us and now when it takes me TWICE as long to fall asleep, that made me a little bit crabby in the mornings. But it’s fine and now we got it figured out! 😉

MONEY: Money is a really big stressor for me, because I have a tendency to get freaked out when I see our bank account start dropping. When this happens, I usually pretend that I am a pioneer and I try and make all of our meals from things we have in the cupboard and I try not to go grocery shopping for like a month. Well, as you have probably guessed, this doesn’t really work. In fact, my efforts usually last for about an hour! THEN we have to go to the grocery store and end up spending even MORE money because I waited for so long and it stresses me out even more–which in turn, stresses my husband out.

These are just a few of the stresses that we have encountered in our year of marriage. So, how do we deal with them as a couple? Communication. Communication is a really big thing for all couples, but especially for us. I am not a confrontational person and so it has taken a lot of practice (and a lot of patience from my sweet husband) to make sure that we talk about issues as they come up. We also both really try to make sure that our hearts are at peace before we talk about subjects that may be a bit sensitive.

Decisions: As we’ve been married, we made the decision that divorce is never going to be an option for us. We don’t talk about divorce, no one brings it up, and we don’t think about it. This helps us to know that whatever decisions we have to make, we do it together because we are always going to be together. This also helps us make decisions that are going to benefit us personally and together as we have begun our family.

Faith and prayer: My husband and I are both very religious people and so we make sure to read our scriptures and pray together every day. We make sure that we thank God everyday for our relationship and for the blessing that it is to be married to one another. We pray for faith to trust that if we are doing what is right that God will bless us and help us when we need it.

I know that marriage is a very stressful thing, but it doesn’t have to be so stressful that it causes problems in a marriage. In your family, the most important thing is your relationship. Success in your family stems from the relationship that you and your spouse have with each other. Make sure it is strong enough to withstand the challenges and stresses that come from living in today’s world and you will be just fine. Happy even!

Staying Faithful

Hey everyone! welcome back this week! I hope you all are enjoying these blog posts each week, because I am enjoying writing them. I like to look at blogs as a journal sometimes because I think that when we focus on writing and giving our opinion to someone else, a lot of our true thoughts and feelings come out in the words that we write and in the feelings that are shared.

Today, I just want to share a couple of personal things about my husband and I. As I have mentioned in some of my prior blog posts, my husband and I got married in April last year and it was the best decision I have ever made! I feel truly fortunate to have found someone who knows and loves me as well as my husband does and I could not imagine living life without him.

My husband and I met while we were going to college. We were pretty good friends for a while and then at the end of our first semester we started dating and were married about 4 months later!

Earlier this week, I had a friend of mine ask me when my husband and I started to have pretty serious discussions about what our plans for marriage looked like and how we wanted our future family to be.

When Rob (my husband) and I were really getting serious about wanting to be married forever, that was when we started talking more about things that were going to make us successful as a family and as an eternal couple. I remember us both agreeing that we needed a plan for how we were going to handle situations that would come up in our marriage that may be a challenge. I truly believe that it is important to have a plan of action that is going to be successful to make sure you both stay faithful to each other.

There are so many things in today’s world that can be hard for couples to work through and to overcome. That’s why it’s important to make sure you are talking about how things will work in your family before you get married. My husband and I talked about when we wanted to start having children. We talked about how we wanted to raise them. We talked about how we wanted to do scripture study and say our prayers everyday together. We made sure to talk about all of the things that were going to influence our marriage and I am so glad we did.

Something else that I think is really important to know when you are dating, is just to have an open and honest relationship with who you are dating. Make sure that the connection isn’t just physical. While that is something that is also really important, make sure you both can connect on an emotional and spiritual level as well. Do you like dating the person just because you don’t want to be alone and it’s fun to have someone to make out with when you’re bored? Or are you dating this significant other because because they are someone who completes and who you want to be with every second of everyday. Someone who is going to help you become better each and every day. Someone who will celebrate with you on even the smallest of successes and who will help you reach those successes?

Today, the world has it kind of backwards where they decide to be intimate first and see if there is a connection after they have lived together for a while to see if they could be married eventually. I am so grateful for the gospel that has provided a way for us to be an eternal family and that has given us a plan of action to stay faithful to each other and truly be together forever!

The Wedding or the Marriage?

What came first, the wedding or the marriage? It’s your classic “chicken or the egg” scenario. But wait…take a look at that again? Aren’t those the same thing? Today, I want to talk about why it is important to focus on your marriage instead of on your wedding.

Did you know that the average American wedding costs over $35,000? Yes, you read that right. Three zeros. $35,000 dollars for a wedding. But why wouldn’t you need that much for your wedding? After all, it is the biggest day of your life! First, you need to make sure that you have the most beautiful ring you have ever seen! Then, you begin on the dress shopping, making sure that you find the perfect dress that makes you feel like a princess! Then, let’s talk hair and makeup. You have to make sure you find the best hair salon so that you can have the up-do of your dreams!

What about those people who aren’t going to make it to the wedding? Well, you need to make sure you get your pictures taken so that they can all celebrate with you. You need to make sure that you have the perfect view, right next to the mountains or the ocean. Oh, not to mention the food! Then, you need to make sure that there is room for everyone to sit and that there will be a table big enough for the presents–You can’t forget about the presents.

Does this sound about right for what we think of when we are getting ready to plan our wedding? Now, I’m not saying that this stuff isn’t important because this is, after all, the most wonderful day of your life. This is going to be the day you cherish forever and ever. But let’s look at that list…isn’t there something missing?

Among all of these beautiful things to look forward to on your wedding day, when it comes time for the marriage ceremony to take place, I hope you don’t forget to look forward to the most amazing part EVER! You are becoming married to your best friend in the entire world. You are starting your new life with the person that you have just promised your entire heart to. Together, you are promising to love one another and support one another for the rest of your lives. For the rest of eternity. You are promising to take care of the beautiful lives that the both of you will create together and you are promising to love them.

If you could describe “love” in one word, what would it be? I asked a couple of my friends this same question and here are some of the responses I received: Sacrifice, dedication, selflessness, trust, humility, and gentle.

Now I don’t know about you, but the word “money”, or “wallet”, wasn’t in that list. I know that it is so easy to get caught up in the glamour and Pinterest boards of weddings, but I hope that we never truly forget WHY we are deciding to get married.

I can honestly say that marriage is one of the hardest things that I have experienced and I have only been married for one year. But, because it is really hard, both me and my husband have to work for it everyday. That makes our marriage even more special. Being married is the best decision I have ever made. I have never experienced as much joy as I have in this past year and I wouldn’t change it for the world. I hope that when it comes time for you to plan your wedding, that you will not forget to recognize what is truly happening and that you will focus on the beauty of the new life that you are about to have.

Family Systems

Hey Everyone! Welcome back to this week’s blog! Today, we are going to be talking a little bit about a couple of theories that I learned about today in one of my classes at college. I am currently taking a “Family Relations” class at Brigham Young University-Idaho. I have been learning so many great things, and I hope that as I share some of them that you will enjoy them and learn new things too.

Today, the first theory that I want to talk a little bit about is the “Family Systems” theory. Essentially, what this means is that when we look at the family, we need to see it as a whole. Not just as a sum of all of its parts. what this means is that when we see the family as a whole, we are recognizing that everyone contributes to our family and that everyone is their own unique individual who has something amazing to add to the family as a whole.

Well, when we all know our place in our family, we start to recognize that there are also certain “roles” that we may fall into. For example, you may be the “clown” of your family, or maybe you are the “responsible” child. These are just a couple of examples of some of the roles that people may play in your family. These roles may be either spoken or unspoken.

Next, every family has rules that they follow. Whether all of these are spoken or unspoken. Do any of you have any of these unspoken rules? For instance, maybe no one has ever said it, but there are no electronics at the dinner table. Or perhaps, everyone takes off their shoes before they walk into your home. These are an example of some “unspoken” rules. These are just rules that no one has come out and said is a rule, but everyone does it anyway.

Why would these rules and roles be important in making a family work? Are these a good thing or a bad thing? Well, what happens when one of these rules, or roles changes? Will it change everything? Will it change how your family will treat you? Will it change how everything runs in your home? Maybe it will change how everyone in your family will look at you and talk to you and you won’t even know how to handle the changes. Maybe it will be such a drastic change that everyone in your family will fight to get it back to reach that homeostasis again.

Why could this be a good thing? Maybe this is how your family works and everything runs as smooth as silk. You know how your family works and you know the things that you need to do in order to make sure things in your home run smoothly! Whenever you go home next, or are visiting a family in their home, observe them! Observe your family and see if you can decide what rules, or roles your family has and see if any of them are “unspoken”. You will be surprised at how many of these things you will notice!

The last theory that I want to talk just a little bit about, that every family has in their home, is the exchange theory. What this means is that if the costs outweigh the benefits, I will not be as likely to complete the task that has been given me and vice versa. We see this in children when they do chores, or when they are asked to do something and the next thing out of their mouth may be, “Well what do I get if I do this?” Why is this a dangerous thing to have in your home?

Well, if this pattern continues, what happens when something happens in a relationship that doesn’t benefit both parties? What is going to happen? This is a dangerous mindset to have, because if we recognize that this doesn’t benefit us, personally, we may not want to continue to work through our problems because we don’t see the personal benefit in it for us. When we are beginning a relationship and beginning a family, we need to make sure that we are prepared to give all of ourselves to the person whom we are ready to start a family with and give everything to, in order to make our family a place of safety and love.