Ethnology in the Family

Think about some rules your family had when you were growing up. Some typical ones are, “don’t hit your siblings, be respectful to parents, clean up after yourself, do your chores,” and so on. These family rules are a part of your family’s culture. Culture, when it comes to families, is made up of our behaviors, beliefs, and characteristics. Every family culture is slightly different, and that’s part of what makes up our individuality.

Some family cultures are conducive to a healthier family life. When the culture includes a married mother and father actively raising their children to be loving, hard-working and respectful to all, that family is much more likely to be healthy and bonded to one another. Most of the time, the family culture we grow up in is less than ideal. Because of this, the family unit must work much harder to be healthy and harmonious. There may be more sacrifices made by family members too keep the family unified.

I am a very, very lucky person, as my family of origin has a healthy culture. My parents have been happily married for about 30 years. This is a result of their choices in how they blended their two distinct family cultures. They had to decide what behaviors were acceptable in their family. They had to learn and understand and have similar beliefs to each other. They had similar characteristics that made them more compatible. All of these have facilitated in a healthy marriage, and a healthy family unit.

Some of the aspects of my family culture that I love is the individuality we all have, and spending quality time together. My family members are all extremely different from each other. My brother is very independent, outdoorsy, smart, rational, hard-headed, and a hard working. My sister is friendly, sometimes outspoken, genuine, intelligent, introspective, an amazing writer, and also hard-headed. I’m the perfect, favorite child. Just kidding. I was the quiet one, more into pop culture (but not super into pop culture), bossy, kind, spunky, and outgoing. I love that my siblings and I are so different, and I hope to cultivate that in my own family in the future.

My family also enjoys spending quality time together, but more recently It has been more difficult to do so. When we get together, it’s usually an outdoor setting;  we love to tell stories and remember good times in the past. We tease each other, laugh, and mostly have a good time. Because my family is more spread out these days, I like to make sure everyone is still in connection and in the loop about everyone else. I hope to be able to do these things with my future family someday.

I've also learned how important it is to date and then ultimately marry somebody with a compatible culture. The culture you come from doesn't have to, and most likely won’t be, the same as your partner’s, but it’s imperative to learn and discuss behaviors, beliefs, and characteristics you want your family’s culture to have. Sometimes a behavior in the culture you grew up with wasn't healthy, or you simply didn't like it. I know that I don’t like that my parents didn't give us specific tasks consistently, like chores, and I really want to do that for my children. Another characteristic that I would like to have in my family would be more patience. We have a lot of hot-heads in my family, and we had a hard time being patient with one another.

I invite you to think about the culture you grew up in. Are there things that you will not change in your own family’s culture? What about things you will dispel? Do you feel like it was healthy overall? What can you do to make your family’s culture strong?