Last week in class we talked about some of the trends in
families and in relationships. We talked about things that were going upwards
and things that were going downwards and how they were affecting our lives. Some
of the trends that are working their way up are; divorce rates, premarital sex,
cohabitation, living alone, unmarried women having children, and mothers that
work (especially with children under the age of six). Some of the trends that
are on their way down are; people getting married, the number of children
people are having, people socializing, and spending time with extended family.
These trends
start affecting our family with the social lives. If we do not socialize with
people we do not learn the social skills necessary to have good communication
skills which will affect our future relationships with everyone, particularly
our spouses and children, if we do choose to marry and have children. The next
thing that is affected is marriages. People are choosing cohabitation or living
alone over getting married. These lead to several further negative things
within families. The often thought idea with cohabitation is when a couple
lives together before marrying, they will find out if they are truly compatible
or not. In many instances it is more of an opt out of commitment. Also, with
cohabitation come the trends of premarital sex and unmarried women having
children. Statistics show that marriages that precede with cohabitation are
more likely to end with divorce. If people get divorced and they have children,
the mother is more likely to have to go to work. It because of many of these
thoughts and complications, couples think of before they have kids that they
decide to not have them.
The
world has become a much more complicated place than the young man courting a
young lady, them falling in love, getting married, having a family and staying
married happily ever after for time and all eternity. Times have changed and
although it should still be like that, the world, the choices people in the
world make do not allow for that anymore. We have to be aware of these trends
for our current or future families.
