Family Values and Trends

Welcome to another wonderful week!

     I wanted to share a photo of my family. As you can tell my family is very unique. It is just my mom, my sister and I. We are the bestest of friends. We do everything together. My sister is 5 1/2 years younger than me, so as you can tell there is bit of an age gap.

    This week I want to talk about family values and trends that I have noticed through studying this week. Family values and trends in your own family is super important. Have you ever noticed trends and values in other people's families? When I was growing up my best friend, she was not a member of my church. This was super easy for me to notice things she did that I would never of thought of doing. An example would be going out to dinner on Sunday with her whole family, or she would ask me to play, and I would always have to tell her no. She never knew why, and I didn't frankly know why either. Until one day I asked my mom, " why cant I play on Sundays, my friends are allowed too." She continued to tell me that on Sunday's is a day of rest and to go to church and to just be with family. If my mom did not enforce this rule at a young age then this would not be a family trend we have. There are so many trends my family has set in my short 20 years on this life. I challenge you to think of your own families tends and values they have and what they mean to you. 

     One family trend that is a super hot topic right now is marriage. Everyone has a their own view on marriage, and everyone is entitled to their own opinions of marriage. I want to go over some of the big trends I have noticed.
    When talking to different groups you are going to get may different results when you ask them this question, "What is marriage and what does it mean to you?" If you are talking to a couple that has been married for 50 years vs someone who is 40 years old and has never been married then you are going to get two opposite ideas and views on marriage. For the longest time I thought everyone had the same view on marriage. As the world has changed I think that the base meaning of marriage kind of got diminished. When you look in the dictionary of the word marriage it says, "the legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners in a personal relationship (historically and in some jurisdictions specifically a union between a man and a woman). This last part is super important because now same sex marriage is legal. This fact alone really changed the view on marriage.
    Cohabiting is another big one. There are a lot of people right now that have kids together and live together but they are not married. I have so many questions about this and would love to talk to someone in this certain situation. I have heard people talk about it and they say that they don't need a piece of paper to "define" there love. They are perfectly happy just living together and not being married. They don't see a need.
    So, my question is how do you get someone to see the need for marriage? Or is it okay for them to just do that? Is there really any harm in this? These are just some of the multiple questions I have.