The Value and Challenges Families Face Today

Recently, I have been reflecting upon stories I've heard in the past of "massive families." My mind cannot fathom parents in the past having four, five, or even TEN KIDS. In our modern day, this is unheard of. We rarely see families having more than three kids anymore. Throughout history, it has become more and more unheard of to have larger families. Why is this? Why have our views of families changed so much through the course of history? While attending college I have learned so much about the different views on family and how as a society, we have come to view families. Today we typically hear and see our peers and friends talking about waiting to marry, having children before marriage, and having smaller families. Families are in danger. The norm of "not getting married or delaying marriage" is hurting families across the world. We now see families suffering from divorces, children growing up without two parent figures, loneliness, and so much more. This "norm" plays a large part in these problems. Along with diminishing families, we also see LGBT families coming into play. When we address the issues of LGBT families, we need to focus on the children that come into play. Since LGBT families are more common now than ever before, we see more research coming out to support how it affects the children in the picture. Children in LGBT families grow up with either two father figures or two mother figures in their life. If a child is to grow without a mother figure in their life they are missing out on important lessons and values that are learned only from them. We see the exact same thing with a child that grows up only having two mother figures- they miss out on having a father. This brings up issues on development and interaction. Children are missing out on essential coping and communication skills that are taught by the different parents. While studying information and research done on these kinds of relationships we need to make sure the information is accurate. Here is some tips on how to evaluate information to make sure it's credible....

1. Be cautious. Doubt everything until the publisher has data to back up their work.

2. Check the samples. (See if the publisher expanded out farther than their close friend group.)

3. Check their control group. (Do they have a comparison group?)

4. Check the terminology used. (Be careful with the terms they use.)

5. See if the researcher has a bias. (Do they go in with an opinion?)

6. Consistent results. (When conducted more than once- do you get the same outcome?)

7. How often has the experiment been tested? Has it been tested by other researchers?

The most important thing to keep in mind is who is publishing the article, why they are publishing the article, and when the article was published. Knowing how to find reliable information is key to finding correct facts and dates. While keeping this in mind, I encourage you to look up information regarding current family trends. Once you find reliable information, you will see for yourself the things I discussed in paragraph one are true. We also need to keep in mind that families tend to put their "best foot forward" while being interviewed. So observational studies may be more reliable sources of information. We cannot rely on one experiment to give us accurate data. We need to conduct several experiments and see if they come out with the same results. We can believe a test if it is done repeatedly and the outcome is the same.

Please feel free to comment below your take on the situation and any different opinions you may have about the manner! Stay tuned for more blog posts!