Boundaries people boundaries!

Family boundaries are important but more important still are the type of boundaries put in place in a family. This week we learned about the different types of boundaries; Rigid, Permeable, and Diffuse. Can you guess which one is ideal? I'll give you hint, it's not rigid or diffuse. I'll give you another hint; the boundaries shown in the picture are not healthy at all. As you can see the boundaries between the mother and daughter are fine and permeable or clear; however the boundaries between the mother and her husband as well as the ones between the father and his daughter are not healthy. There are too many rules that separate the father from his family. The ideal family looks more like this; with the mother and father separate but reachable to the children.

 Personally this is what my families boundaries look like. My parents are committed and unified in their marriage, and they are open to all six of us and love us equally. Yeah I know there are only five kids in the picture and no I wasn't purposefully cutting anyone out. When I quickly drew this I didn't have my family in mind, just an ideal family. By ideal I don't mean perfect...such a family doesn't exist; but I'm not going to deny I have a pretty freaking awesome family!
Another important aspect of boundaries is understanding them. We have heard a few stories this week from our teachers about clients of his (strictly anonymous) that didn't understand their family boundaries and it almost destroyed their marriage. You have to understand that although your family is important, and it should be, once you get married you are starting a new family and your boundaries with your spouse should not be penetrated by your boundaries with your siblings or your parents. One particular story I remember is a family of sisters that all had failed marriages because they believed they married selfish pigs. Little back story for you; each sister talked to her parents for seven hours a day (or it might have been a week but either way that is excessive)! When their husbands tried to talk to them about it they got upset, so each marriage failed. Is that ridiculous or what?!? Moral of the story; your family is important and they always should be, but every relationship needs very clear boundaries.

This week in class we have been discussing Family Trends in the U.S. Some of them didn't surprise me as much like fact that more couples in the world are cohabiting instead of getting married and that people are getting married later in life. However some trends did surprise me such as; less children are being born and more mothers are going to work, especially mothers with young children. As we looked at trends we noticed patterns or connections between the different trends. The one most prevalent to me was that social activity is going down which in and of itself is not that big of a deal but less social activity leads to adults living on their own longer which leads to less marriages or getting married at a later age which leads to less children being born especially if the couple is older when they get married they have less opportunity to have more children. This trend is worry some as a Mormon since we have been commanded to multiply and replenish the Earth; this cannot be done if people are getting married later and not having as many children. In a documentary we watched "New Economic Reality: Demographic Winter" scientists discussed the problem that comes from people having less children. Big traditional families are no longer important in our society which means that couples are only having one or two children and believe that is enough. Our population is estimated to start decreasing by 2065 which may not affect our parents or us necessarily since most of today's young adults with be retired or nearly retired at that point but it will affect our children and their children.
When I told my roommate about this problem she said it's a good thing Mormon's still believe in big families. It all makes sense now, the reason we have missionaries is to convert the world so we can take over the world and have bigger families and solve the world's population problem. )

All About Me.

My name is Kylie Simpson. I am a transfer student from Utah Valley University. I received my Associate's degree in April and am now working on getting my Bachelor's degree. My major is Marriage and Family, Professional Clinical Emphasis. I am originally from Orem, UT but I have been living in Livermore, CA for the last 5 months prior to coming to Rexburg to school. The purpose of this blog is basically to take notes for my Family Relations class. Every week I will post about the interesting things I am learning in that class. This is something new for me so we'll see how it goes. At the request of my teacher Professor Williams I have an open blog which means anyone can comment about anything. Feel free to leave comments, suggestions, funny stories, etc, whatever you feel like. I hope you enjoy reading. :)