Lets Talk about Culture...

 There are so many aspects about culture that we can get into and that I want to talk about. One is how families create culture? A lot can go into a families culture and how cultures come into play and how they become. Another thing is crossing cultures and meshing them together and how families adapt from moving from one culture to another. 

        First, what is culture? Culture is the customs, traditions, and beliefs of a specific group of people. I like to think that each family has their own mini culture inside the home. Traditions they participate in, religious beliefs they have and follow, as well as ways they act or interact with each other. A lot of aspects about families are passed down from generations and generations of families. This is what traditions are. Things that families do because their families growing up did that and so on. One example could be a family of farmers. One member in the 1800's could have bought some land and started to farm. When he got too old one of his sons took over farming the land and then his son took over and so on. Others could be a lot more simple like having tamales for Christmas. My mom grew up with all Mexican friends and so they all had tamales for Christmas, so now my family does that and when I have kids thats something that I want to pass on. 

        Another aspect of traditions is sometimes we stop them because they should and need to be stopped. Or because we simply don't like it. For example, as another occupational one. You may have a generational family of dentists and when it gets your turn to choose an occupation you may go "you know what, I'm not a fan of dentistry. I want to be an engineer." Which is okay and great! What I see a lot more now is families who kind of transition from a very traditional mindset of how things should work and be done to newer generations of the family have a more open "woke" mind about things. 

        Another thing is what happens when a family moves from one place with a specific culture to another place with a very different culture? This week in class we read about a study done on families that moved from Mexico to the U.S. and how their lives were affected. I actually really enjoyed reading this and learning about it. I thought it was interesting that in a lot of the families, the kids and teenagers helped out a ton. They learned English in school and so then they were able to help the parents and translate for them when needed which I thought was really neat and something that I have witnessed in my life working in customer service for a long time and what not. 

        One thing about this study that kind of made me sad was that the kids didn't see their dads a lot anymore. Interviewers Interviewed adolecents in the families and some of them said they were sad because in Mexico they did everything together as a family and they saw each other all the time. When they move to the U.S. this all changes. Everyone works so provide for the family so we really only see their dad every 3 days with all the work and school schedules. They never really ate together anymore. This made me sad for them because they stated how important family was in Mexico. 

        Culture is a huge part of families and what makes a family a family. All families are different and so many things are more important to some families than other families.