Time...Time is what we call years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds. However, time is not only a measurement of our days, but what impacts the change in our lives. Throughout time so much has changed in the American culture. Such changes would include music, way of dressing, food, media, all the way to standards and how we view families. Today, we see cohabitation, single parenting, same-sex couples, divorce, premarital sex, and living alone becoming the new "typical American family". So what's the big deal you ask? Well the big deal is that these "trends"are not only affecting certain families, but children and this country as well. As you know, I'm taking a Family Relations class, and we studied these trends, and I'll summarize some things I think are really important to consider in order to have a positive change throughout our future time in this world.
So as I sat in class and we discussed this topic we brought up all the different trends that are going on at the moment. Don't forget that by trends, I don't mean fashion, but family. These are the trends going on today:
- Birthrates
- Age at marriage
- Unmarried births
- Cohabitation
- Employed mother (6 years old)
- Living alone
- Divorce
- Household size
- Premarital sex
It was interesting to realize that at the end they all affect or lead to one another. For example: Cohabitation and living alone lead to premarital sex and age at marriage, then that leads to unmarried births and birthrates decreasing, and if they do marry it leads to divorce, which leads to employed mothers, and finally to household size. Now, what might be confusing to some of you is how household size, and living alone affect families today, or how they are even considered a trend. Well let's start with living alone shall we? An increasingly number of people are living alone today, from being separated, widowed, or just never married. This is a trend because it pushes people to wait to remarry (not that they have to); which affects the age of when people marry. While people live alone, it encourages them to have non-committed relationships and premarital sex which again could lead to unmarried births and so on. Now, household size due to unmarried births, cohabitation and living alone, the average household size is decreasing. A family consist of more than 2.5 people; and at this rate soon it'll be 1. As you can see all these "trends" are affecting families all over this country, and the more we inform ourselves about these subjects, the more we can avoid this from happening in our lives and our families. We need to go back in time and remind ourselves how the value of family was once one of the main priorities in people's lives. Time will only tell how soon our priorities will affect our families...
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