Family Class & Culture

We learned so much in class this week and I fear my blog may be all over the place. Bear with me as I talk about so many different things that changed my perspective on class:)

Family culture is the way we live. It’s the things that set us apart from the rest of the world. I never fully understood the different social classes until my mission. That is when it all came into perspective for me. I had two very difficult companions on my mission. The first companion was at the beginning of my mission and I thought the reason we couldn’t get along was because she was a reassigned missionary during covid. Looking back, I have come to see that it truly is because we are from completely different social classes. She grew up in Vegas, I grew up in Texas. Seems pretty obvious that we would be completely different right? It took me forever to figure this out. She was raised where she could and would get everything she ever wanted in life. New shoes, done. New car, done. That was never a possibility for me. I never got the new car for my 16th birthday or any car for that matter. I only got one singular pair of shoes for the entire year. If I wanted another pair I would have to pay for them myself. She cared so much about her appearance that it often made us late to things. I however was happy with lookin good for myself and not for other people. If you thought my first companion was hard for me, imagine all of those situations and multiply them by ten. My second companion was even more hoity toity than the first. Her parents would send her money whenever she asked, she would get packages after packages of new clothes or random things that were not necessary for mission work. The class that we grew up in greatly affects the way that we are as adults. It shifts our perspectives to the things we think really matter. To my two companions, worldly things were more important than being on time or being there for others. They missed the bigger picture at hand.

A household with a single mother or father will always miss out on the bigger picture of life as well. In class we talked about a few things that a household with a single parent would miss out on. The mother or father would miss out on the emotional and physical support that a spouse brings. That support is one of the most important things in a family’s life. The children will most likely miss out on so many things, such as. What a marriage is supposed to look like. When the child only has one parent to look up to they will never see first hand the joys of being married. If those children have younger siblings they will most likely take the role of mother or father. This is called parentification. It is not healthy for anyone involved. It causes the child that is “parenting” to become responsible for the other children. That should never be the case. Children are supposed to live life to the fullest, make mistakes and get into trouble. When they live in a low class and have single parents they have to grow up way too fast. They start acting out as well, which causes contention in the home. Every parent wants what is best for their children. Some however don’t have the resources to let them have the life they want them to have.