To Give Thanks

Writing about the holiday is inevitable. I can't say it's my favorite though. Do we really need a holiday centered around eating until we are sick? Or remembering a holiday where we temporarily celebrated a friendship between people we eventually forced off of their homeland? Yes I guess we do. Now that I'm through with my criticisms of the day, I can say that I do love seeing all the family and having great times with friends I don't see regularly. This is the time where the whole family joins. Everyone covers up the tattoos, takes out the piercings and changes into the family appropriate wardrobe saved for these occasions. And after all of these inconvenient alterations to make everyone feel comfortable, the company we enjoy is worth it.

This Thanksgiving was the first where my entire family did not get together. This one, I spent more with friends who all were too far to go home and needed a makeshift family to be with. It has ended up being one of my favorites. My brother came home for the first time in 14 months and brought three of his friends and thier children and I had my two best friends join us. Each of them added to the experience and together it combined for an unparelled occasion. I hope everyone had a nice break.

Benefitting from Brothers (or sisters)

Recently I was talking to a friend and I began complaining about how my brother talks way too much on the phone. I blamed this for why we don't speak often and really haven't spoken very often for the past year or so. That's not true. My brother is an amazing person who used to be my absolute best friend. He took me under his wing in high school and we did everything together. Since then he has accomplished so much and to be honest it's intimidating. I was reading an article about sibling relationships and it gave advice for all types of sibling problems. I felt like I had to write about it because I would love to not be so selfish in my own relationship with my brother.

The article lists causes of rifts between siblings. The first it discusses is a difference of opinions. My brother and I are like the moon and the sun, nothing alike in appearance, size or function and when one gets in the way the other is pushed completely out of sight. However when we can work together efficiently, we coexist quite nicely as if that's how it was meant to be. In order to reach this equilibrium a few facts must be acknowledged. You can learn a lot from each other. By listening to your sibling's opinion, you may realize something you never knew. Understanding and keeping an open mind will help any relationship, and no one is always right. I know this is much easier said then done.

"There's an old story about two people both wanting the last orange. They
argue long and hard over who gets the orange. Finally, they really listen to
each other. They find that one wants the orange for the juice to drink and the
other wants the rind to flavour an orange cake. They share the orange and both
get what they want in the end."

Miscommunication is a huge problem between siblings. I know for a fact that when my brother says something I am constantly looking for 'what he really means'. It is possible that he is saying it. There are other times when I contradict him just to contradict him, or I object to a request simply because I am too stubborn. I fail to consider that we could each do things for each other and make life a little simpler without surrendering any part of our oh so tough reputations.

Here is what I think everyone has said at least once of a sibling. "You're the favorite, that's why I'm in trouble and you're not!" No. Come on. Of course each child is treated differently, they aren't the same. "Young Adult Health" suggests that if you are feeling this way you should relax first and then tell your parents how your feeling and why. They can probably explain something you're missing or fix a problem they didn't realize existed. It however is not a problem between you and your sibling how they are treated by your parents, it's obviously between you and your parents. Again I totally realize it's easier and way more advantageous in arguments to blame your sibling.

Finally here comes the reasons why you should attempt to do all these things and improve your sibling relationship.
1. They will always be related to you. (not what the psychologist says...my personal input)
2. You will have shared memories that last lifetimes
3. This is someone you can always depend on

It goes on to list things like laughter, fun games and things I feel nauseous writing. Yeah it's all great to have perfect relationships. A lot of what I read on this subject seemed like common sense, but when I thought about how often I applied it to my own relationship with my brother I was shocked. I don't try to understand him or even listen. I don't open the lines of communication because I am too ashamed of what I have not accomplished. To fix this maybe I should actually do something, makes more sense then totally isolating my brother. I figured if I needed these reminders maybe someone else does too. Plus the holiday season is approaching quickly and as corny as it is, what better time to squash some beef (my favorite phrase ever). Unless your brother or sister stole all your money, crashed your car and somehow got you put in jail under false accusations then really nothing is unforgivable. That was just a hypothetical, maybe even that is not so bad to you...who knows?

En Clase Tarea Numero Dos

My topic is the analysis of relationships in the family. In class we looked over great blogs and lucky me one was consistent with my topic and therefore provided a perfect example I could use for this. Dooce is a blog written by a mom where she discusses her relationships with her daughter and husband along with other day-today occurrences. She uses very personal experiences and invites the reader with her during her life. She is comical and real making it easy to read and entertaining. These posts enable literary tools consistently and she emphasizes her excitement in each post. She posts regularly, sometimes everyday and I assume she has a large following, however her comments are closed. This really is a great blog. She is a great writer who displays her family proudly online and in a respectful manner. Not only does she discuss her family, but she incorporates current events and future effects that present day decisions will have. The layout of her blog is very efficient, displaying her posts, archive and pictures in a simple way. She uses links to each entry and has different places for readers to go and purchase paraphernalia, contact her directly and view the blog activity in an organized display. Without focusing any of her posts on this subject, by using her family in her writing, she incorporates her parenting techniques and relationship opinions. I love to use personal experiences from other people so this is completely relevant to my topic. I didn't see a link to another blog from her page...I may just be computer inept.

Perfection Poses Pressures

My favorite quote has always been, "shoot for the moon, and even if you miss, you will land among the stars." Therefore I believe aiming for perfection is a fine goal, as long as it is understood that perfection is unattainable. Not that I have ever had this problem, but I know that some people have experienced real problems when too much perfection is expected of them. Just like aiming for perfection, expecting perfection is completely unfair. People can only do so much. "Positive expectations may be meant to spur us on, but often they can just lead to a chronic sense of not quite making the mark - or not quite ever being good enough. At worst some people are left with a permanent sense of failure" (Relationships).

I would like to focus on one possible effect of these pressures briefly. While I was reading about the effects, one continually showed up. Many children who feel pressured to be perfect feel out of control and try to control whatever aspects of their life they feel possible. This can lead to eating disorders. "A teenager with anorexia nervosa is typically a perfectionist and a high achiever in school. At the same time, she suffers from low self-esteem, irrationally believing she is fat regardless of how thin she becomes. Desperately needing a feeling of mastery over her life, the teenager with anorexia nervosa experiences a sense of control only when she says "no" to the normal food demands of her body. In a relentless pursuit to be thin, the girl starves herself"(Facts for Family). Funny how perfection leads to such mistakes. Its upsetting that people even put this amount of pressure on someone.

I believe people chose how well they want to do all on their own. Other people may inspire them and provide good sources of motivation, inevitable though the choice to succeed is self-determined. Too-high expectations are just as disappointing to not accomplish as someone expecting failure out of you. We all have to consider that no one handles their tasks the same way. Obligations hold different weight for the person responsible for them.

"Relationships." 12 Nov. 2008. http://www.bbc.co.uk/relationships/improving_your_confidence/feature_pressure.shtml

Tejada, Nelson A. Facts For Families. American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Nov 11 2008. www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/facts_for_families

Strict Parenting and the Damages

How nice would it be to be able to show your parents psychological verification that they should be more lenient on you? Well prepare yourself, because evidence has proven that aggressive home environments can cause damage for children. That sounds like common sense, but what determines an aggressive home environment? That gets into the idea of what is considered emotionally abusive treatment. I got information backing the theory of detrimental effects on children from aggression and I looked into some personal blogs people posted on the issue.

In an article published in "Psychology and Sociology", doctors said: "Children who are aggressive in infancy and are from families with harsh parenting styles and insufficient income appear more likely to be consistently victimized. As many as one in 10 youth are the direct target of physical attacks, hostile words and social aggression from peers during school years, according to background information in the article." Who hasn't received the brunt end of 'harsh' parenting? Does that mean we are all victimized? Or perhaps those of us who think we have had it hard with a strict parent are being oversensitive to obvious compassion that may be displayed inaccurately. Personally I see it being determined by the direct effect a parent's actions has on the child. The same actions can be received differently by different children.

Some children, including myself sometimes get angry by what our parents say, but do understand the basis of the statement. In the blogs I read two people had a conversation where initially one was complaining about their impossible to please parents, but realized her mistakes when the respondent told stories of her legitimately overbearing parents.

Bonafidessay says: "My parents are IMPOSSIBLE TO PLEASE. Does anyone else feel this way? I'm done. I just feel like kicking them out of my life. A combination of my mother (judgmental) and father (critical). i try so hard to please them, but its just never good enough."

momofspoiledchihuahua replies with: "...Family is supposed to encourage you and support you not drag you down. I can almost bet your family is emotionally abusive to you. am I right? classic signs. just accept the fact that "you will never be good enough for them no matter what".. they are poison for you. If you need to cut off contact then do that. you have to keep telling yourself that you are special despite how fuck** up your parents are ."

bonafidessay: "i must say that my parents never said things that harsh. For the most part my parents were fairly equal in their criticisms as they were their compliments. that's the f*ed up part about it. They love me. But they cannot hold their tongues b/c they think they know everything and everyone should live life like them. But also, its like you said, i feel like i'm still trying to make up for the mistakes i made as a kid (yes, drugs, lying, and being bratty) in the end, i wasnt so horrible. And you know what? it takes 2 ppl to fight!!!! and argue!!!! so i take some blame, but they should to..."

It was really interesting to read real reactions to this treatment. If parents read things like this, they may change their actions a bit. I hope that if people realized what a large impact they have on others they would alter their actions and that people who do inflict pain are doing so ignorantly.

"Study Examines How and Why Some Children Become Chronically Abused by Peers." Psychology and Sociology. 10/2008 http://esciencenews.com/articles/2008/10/06/study.examines.how.and.why.some.children.become.

chronically.abused.peers Nov.11,2008.

"Overprotective Parents." http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/918303 Nov. 11, 2008.

En clase

My topic is an odd one. I am writing about the generalizations that people make, about their families. This is a little bit situational based on your own family, but I am hoping to hit the most common and incorrect, or misconceived stereotypes. Everyone knows that they exist, and unless you have one of the good ones, it would be nice to establish the inaccuracy that they contain. A good example of what I am thinking is the term "soccer mom." Since when did it become derogatory to haul your kids to their team practices. Another I love is the "older sibling syndrome." Some of these I choose to personally tag as what I believe them to be. The "older sibling syndrome" is the constantly competitive, obnoxiously authoritative, and belittling attitude of an elder sibling. To me the options are infinite; someone always feels ostracized by their family for some reason.

To research for this I plan to use other experiences that people have had in their own lives along with my own to compare and verify the data. The material I am writing on is based a lot on psychological effects that actions by family members inevitably have on their recipients. To determine the actual scientifically verified consequences, I will look into psychology books, and will hopefully find some case studies that are relevant. Psychology is one of the topics that I either find extremely interesting, or extremely superfluous. I have studied psychology at the introductory levels and have a few textbooks that I can go back to and dig up the information I studied about familial relationships. It's amazing to know the impact you have on someones life. A few simple word could mean the absolute most to them. What I would like to learn about is how to maximize relationships. I know that ignorantly I say things to people and unintentionally cause some rifts. For this I would like to research and develop an idea of how people determine the role of another person in their lives. Family relationships automatically hold more weight with most people. That is why I am focusing here. The stories I hear about fathers who have trouble conveying emotion and therefore negatively effect future relationships their children have, interest me to no end. Why does it matter so much what your father thinks? Why can't a child develop separate ways of functioning in relationships?

Not only are parental impacts important. There are the interactions between brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and step siblings or half siblings. All in all my options are endless. There are no definitive boundaries set on this topic. I am completely enthralled in the possibilities so the writing hopefully will convey that.

Recognizing the Effort

On to the mother’s dilemma: to stay at home and raise your family or go to work and sacrifice time with the kids. Either route chosen is an admirable one facing many challenges and undoubtedly just being a mother is absolutely the largest in my opinion. I have however encountered people that lack an understanding of all the obligations of stay at home mothers. None of this is from personal experience, but an exceptional mother who spent some time at home and in the labor force raised me.

"They wash dirty socks, change endless diapers, and feed hungry mouths. Their shift doesn't end at five: duty calls 24/7, 365 days a year, 7 days a week. They don't get to go home at the end of the day and kick back on the couch, but you won't find them complaining. Who are these diaper wrangling divas, the mysterious masterminds of household chaos? Stay at home mothers (Harder)."

I found this great quote in a blog and couldn’t have thought of a better way to state it. I have literally heard my friends say they were looking forward to sleeping in and relaxing when they were parents. I guess this is one of the stereotypes I have never seen the reason behind.

Dealing with my own needs and myself sometimes seems overwhelming, but to add the needs of one or more beings is impossible to grasp. There were 5.6 million stay-at-home moms in 2006 as recorded by the government census. 55%
of mothers in 2004, participated in the labor force, which is down from a record high of 59 percent in 1998. Even more interesting than these statistics, I found some on the child care centers in the U.S. In 2004, there were 729,040 child care centers that parents used to maintain the supervision of their children. This could only be interesting to me, but half of this I had never realized. Parents must have much more energy than they are constantly saying they lack.

“Staying at home is a marathon, not a sprint. Stay-at-home moms need to string together months and years of such days. Their strength lies in their ability to store vast reserves of the energy, patience, resilience, and affection required to raise a child. Marathoners need a healthy heart, and so do stay-at-home moms (Harder).”

I have the utmost respect for every parent who has chosen the hands-on path. It takes a dedication and supreme devotion to forego career advancements for personally more gratifying experiences. Throw this stereotype to the wind; there is nothing lax about stay-at-home-parenting.

Harder, Christopher. "Among the Stay-At-Home Moms, A Dad in Disguise.” 30 October, 2008. http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1030/p19s03-hfes.html

“The Surprising Pricetag of Motherhood.” 13 May, 2008. Make Me a Hot Mama. http://www.makemeahotmama.com/2008/05/suprising-price-tag-of-motherhood.html

“Mother’s Day: May 13, 2007.” 13 May 2007. US Federal Census Bureau. http://www.census.gov/Press Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/009747.html -