Finances with the Family

Why is it important to bring all members into the circle of doing finances? What are those benefits? I is always wise to keep both parents in full knowledge of the family money. Finance is not just income, it is also what you are spending, and the activities you want to get, and investments. In class we used the booklet ‘One for the Money Guide to Family Finance,’ by Elder Marvin J. Ashton. Elder Ashton offers a 12 step guide on the most important factors that will help keep the family together while working on goals with finances.

     1.      Pay an honest tithe

     2.      Learn to manage money before it manages you

     3.      Learn self-discipline and self-resistant in money matters

     4.      Use a budget

     5.      Teach family members early the importance of working and earning

     6.      Teach children to make money decisions in keeping with their capacities to comprehend

     7.      Teach each family member to contribute to the total family welfare

     8.      Make education a continuing process

     9.      Work toward home ownership

   10.  Appropriately involve yourself in an insurance program

   11.  Understand the influence of eternal forces on family finances and investments

   12.  Appropriately involve yourself in a food storage and emergency preparedness program

# 1 of paying an honest tithe is extremely important to me because I personally believe that we would not have the money in the first place without the help and mercy from God. So, for us to offer 10% back to the Lord and His Church is nothing compared to the portion that we still receive.

#3 is also important because we need to understand the differences between wants and needs. While it is good to fill our wants every once in a while, it is more important to deal with the needs and necessities in life first.

#4 knowing when and where the money is coming and going is vital. People today struggle with not even knowing close to the numbers in there bank accounts. They over spend and get themselves into debt, which is harder and harder to decrease as the years roll on.

#5 understanding working and earning is also important. There are many people today who think of themselves entitled to things in this life. They do not understand the simple principles of working for items and earning them.

I think as these steps develop then the rest may also slowly develop. It is vital to teach children that working together for things they need and the things they want can be extremely rewarding in this lifetime. 

A Savior

One who willingly saves another from some kind of danger is a savior. Even though we could pin point people in our lives who acted as our saviors, we have one who is the ultimate Savior Jesus Christ. Today, I not only have the Savior on my mind, but also another savior of mine, Grace Jackson. Other words to describe a savior is one who redeems and delivers. Every attribute that we identifies Jesus Christ also shows through Grace Jackson's countenance. No, she is not perfect and she is completely human, yet she is on her way to becoming the next Mother Theresa. When I fall and I go to her she every time she has never once turned me away. She without a doubt let me talk as she listened for hours. I know she did not agree with my choices in life, but she would sit with me, and most importantly extended that hand of love just as Christ. She saved me, from me. I was sheltered by the danger that I was causing myself with the help from Grace. She was/is the one who over the many years has shown me Christ, and his infinite Atonement. Christ and Grace were not only there for the bad days and days that I thought were the worst of all, but also for my best days, my happiest days.
I hope that I can continue to strive to be the woman she is continuing to work on. I want to be that place of refuge for my future friends and most importantly, my family. I want to work on having the ability to know when to listen to someone and know when to give them comfort. To be able to communicate love without even saying a word, I believe is one of the greatest forms of love. Grace has taught me to be patient with myself and not to be harsh when I stumble over my past faults. She has taught me to never, ever forget to pray about all things, go, run to the Lord, he is always waiting on us.

Culture, Gender, and Family Life

1. Culture is what makes up a group of people, like a community. Many people look at their backgrounds and where they grew up as a sort of culture. Cultures are full of traditions and patterns that many can share, too. I think here in America the culture is changing and forming into one that is more and more liberal. Policies and laws are changing the way America is being run. Even though America was to be founded on freedom and getting rid of the forms of class systems, although they are always naturally apart of any culture. In the U.S. there is still forms of lower(poor), middle(makes decent living), and high(rich). People still want the highest class that they can possibly achieve, yet I think that for the lower classes education and the offering of education is extremely lacking.  

2. When asked in class to finish this sentence "Gender is...?" I actually had a many different answers that I didn't even end up picking one. I loved our discussion on distinguishing definitions of gay, same-sex attractions, and homosexual desires. Today, we use these terms too loosely. It was shocking that laws and policies are being created to stop/taking license of therapists who work to help those who do not want to have(or help them learn to control) their same-sex attractions and homosexual desires. I was intrigued by our discussion on what society and the world have distinguished as masculine qualities and feminine qualities. I thought of my siblings and their growing families and how different they take on roles and how we talk about their children. My eldest brother and his wife have kind of switched roles, Chris is acting as Mr. Mom and Taylor is being a working mom. I see that some of the differences that are affecting Lennon, their son. Lennon is missing out on natural mommy time, while Chris tries to be that figure, Chris is not of a gentle type of Mr. Mom. Chris is a rough sort of man, who would be looked at as very masculine. I think that Lennon lacks in this learning of how and when it is appropriate to be gentle and when to be rough. My other brother Cameron, is completely opposite of Chris, and was constantly(and to this day) was made fun of by Chris for being gay, a sissy, and total wuss. Cameron is happily married to a women and has a little baby boy, and I think he is one of the best, most gentleman, and father on this earth. I think open communication about how families and roles is important, that all can share in the same qualities whether considered more masculine or feminine.

The Theories of Family

A theory is completely different than a hypothesis. A theory is an attempt to explain an specific phenomenon. A hypothesis is an educated guess on what you think an outcome will be. Within a families there are four specific types of family theories.

1. Conflict Theory

• power struggles between parents, parents and child, and children
• competition
• over limited resources

2. Symbolic Interaction Theory

• partially situation
• objects, gestures, words, actions
• constantly communicating - but has a great potential for misunderstanding

3. Exchange Theory

• balance - give and take mentalities
• knowing who is benefiting

4. System Theory

• whole > sum of parts
• roles and rules/laws
• homeostatic mechanism
• sub system - parents/siblings 

Families can fall under one or more of these theories. In my family I feel that we struggle within the Conflict theory and symbolic interaction theory. We can sometimes compete with one another for power in certain situations. As well, we try to communicate through gestures and words but most of the time it comes out misunderstood and taken very wrong. 

Week One!

I believe it most certainly does matter how many children one plans on having. For me, I am most concerned about the child’s well-being; having the proper nurturing from a mother and a father, the environment that the child is brought up in, the parents ability to provide for the child, etc. I do believe that sacrifices will be a necessity on the parent’s behalf for the good of the child. I also think that it is important for them to experience what it is like to have siblings, therefore parents should plan on having more than just one child. This child would have a better time understanding small natural skills like sharing, love for others, different responsibilities around the home, etc. On a religious level, and as we heard from the prophets, it is a duty/commandment to bring those waiting spirits into this world. Yes, it will be expensive but those who go through hardships have better experiences and abilities later in life. There are many effects on the number of children one has, it does not only affect the immediate family. Every person in this world affects another, it is like the butterfly effect: one small change (having a child) in “one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.”

First Post!

I am a current student at Brigham Young University of Idaho. I am creating this blog to not only fulfill a class assignment in a Family 160 class, but also creating this to share and keep for myself to have a knowledge of how I want to build my family. I am deeply excited to learn about family relations and share what I find important from my class and posting it on this blog.