My Family Variables - Essay Example

s Narrating a brief background on the composition of my family, I belong to an orthodox Chinese family. I am the only son to my parents. By faith I am non-believer and by profession I am a junior college student, living away from my family in a foreign country. My mother, who is 42 years old, is a housewife who never went to college yet she holds a high school degree. By faith she is a Buddhist. My father turned 57 this year, who is a business man by profession but never went to college. He is also a Buddhist by faith. The kind of community I belong to, is strictly patriarchal where the head of the family is the man, in my case my father. The decision of the head of the family is accepted with utmost respect which also keeps the kinship and bonds amongst the families connected. Furthermore, the respect of the elders in the community building is an essential component of the system. Thus, my father often consults the elders of the family while making crucial decisions about their lives. For instance, when I got admission in an American College, it was the collected decision not just of my immediate family but also of my extended family to allow me to go study in a far off land. It was only with the blessings of the elders of the community that I was able to take this step of my life. Though the values and community building patterns are changing, yet community life is determined by cultural values. In the rural areas, the entire extended families live together with various generations residing together. However, my extended family forms the community my family resides in; also my family socializes with similar social classes as their own. I belong to the upper-middle social class and thus, other families attributing similar values to my social class constitute community my family can relate to. Furthermore, the size of my community is quite large, since we have various social circles. For instance, my mother has close ties with her family and my father`s extended family forms a vast part of my community. Similarly, we celebrate our cultural festivals with a large community belonging to similar social class, they also constitute our community. Thus, depending on the role my family is playing at a particular time, the community becomes small or large, though generally we are a part of a very big community. In order to assess my family, family and couple map may be utilized to see and analyze various trends. (Draper & Marcos 1990) As expected, my family scored comparatively high on cohesion i.e. 6 points. However, the score of flexibility attained by my family is 3. Yet for communication, my family scored 4. For cohesion, the score is quite accurate since the entire family is interdependent and enmeshed in almost all aspects of life. Loyalty, closeness, togetherness and other similar categories form the basis of relationship in my family. However, the categories for flexibility show a complex trend. The leadership and discipline in my family is quite rigid which is quite difficult to detach from. On negotiation, however, it depends on the circumstances and context of the situation which describes whether or not the deal is negotiable or not. However, the element of respect is very crucial over which there is no space for negotiation. The roles are also quite rigid since the culture determines the expectations of the members from the community. Same is the case with communication. In context to self disclosure, there are poor chances of communication since we don’t open up a lot to our families which sometimes is considered disrespect. In context to other categories, the level of communication is satisfactory i.e. not too high or too low. Furthermore, a few instances may be quoted to see why my family scored too high or too low in the respective domains. The family scored high on cohesion, for which instances could be quoted for loyalty and interdependence. In context to loyalty, there is a concept ‘filial piety’ which refers to an enhanced level of respect for the elders. This concept is practiced to an extreme state in my family, where the elders trust their children blindly. For instance, the business that my dad runs in also owned by one of my relatives, however, they have no interest with decision making or running the business. My father is loyal to them, and thus gives them their share of wealth coming from the business fairly, though they have no inputs when it comes to running the business. Similarly, in context to decision making, the entire community is interdependent on each other. For instance, the decision of me going to college all the way to the US was dependent on the blessings of other members of the community, without which it wouldn’t have been possible. Also, the family scored low on flexibility predominantly due to leadership and discipline. The leadership roles are pre-defined in the community, which are not subject to negotiation and change. For instance, the leader of the family in terms of decision making and also the providence of bread to the family is the father. Though my mother is better educated than my father yet she can`t emerge as a leader to the household when it comes to decisions regarding economic perspectives or other significant decisions for the family. Also, discipline is a central pillar to our culture. The entire family gets together on dinner table sharp at 8 o clock every night, and there is no space for in between meals or eating out with friends like that in west since it is detrimental to discipline. There is a very clear line for ensuring discipline. Women are never given the liberty to choose their spouses in my community, rather a discipline is maintained by choosing a spouse for the women and even for men they are of age. In case of communication, instances can be offered for self disclosure and respect & regard. There is no chance for expressing oneself, especially if the thoughts are contrary to the expected norms. For instance, if a women feels a sense of attraction towards someone, she won`t be able to communicate her feelings to that person or to any other member of the community, thus, the sense of communication in this context is quite weak. However, respect and regard for each other is quite high. For instance, if any member of the family is ill for some reason, the entire community would visit in person and even bring gifts and flowers for the person who is sick, and also offer help in every form as a form of respect to that member of the society. Thus, for a few categories level of communication in high while in other instances, the level of communication would be quite low as well. While studying my family along four different points in time, various trends can be observed while assessing my family on levels of cohesion and flexibility. The time when I was born, my grandfather was living with our family, and he was the sole decision maker in every respect for our family. He would decide matters ranging from when to hold family gatherings, when to hold meals, how to deal with various matters in various situations. Thus, at that time, the cohesion as too high and the flexibility was too low. However, as he moved out to live with one of my uncles, the balance changed and my father took the responsibility of the house. My father started taking matters in his own hands, though he still consulted with my grandfather on complex matters. A little more flexibility in context to discipline occurred, while in context to cohesion there was change and there were less family gatherings than there used to be before. However, when I turned 15, the balance of power in the house again took a tilt and my father started relying on my as their own son for various responsibilities. For instance, I was now responsible for assisting my mother with chores and dealing with other community members. My father started focusing more on his business and didn’t worry much about the responsibilities. Thus, there was a balance between flexibility and cohesiveness in the family since roles were more dispersed now. However, when I left for America, the balance was again shifted back to when my father took all the major decisions and there were more responsibilities on my father`s shoulders. The changes around these four points in my family also affected the communication paradigms in my home. When my grandfather was the sole forerunner of the house, there was a lot of discipline in the house while the communication was one-way since my grandfather dictated the values so that these values are preserved. However, when my grandfather left, the communication level was comparatively enhanced which took the most positive turn when I turned 15, since my father communicated much to me and I communicated much to me. However, presently the level of communication has gone back to the balance where there was communication to the extent where balance of power isn`t disturbed. However, in the struggle, I have learned that the strength of my family lies in the values which keeps us together and helps us from falling apart. However, sometimes the rigidity and deterrence in communication affects the confidence level in communication. Since I was too dependent on my family to communicate and decide for me, I had to struggle with my confidence when I moved to US. Conclusively, I would comment that it was considerably easier to rate my family on cohesiveness and flexibility. However, while rating for communication, I hand to think on lines I never even thought about. I previously perceived communication to be the quality to communicate one`s needs to the other person, however, the form made me realize that other categories are also crucial. Thus, I had to make an effort and discuss the components with my family to explore. However, evidently, this paper helped me understand my family better than I already did. Works Cited: DRAPER, T., & MARCOS, A. C. (1990). Family variables: conceptualization, measurement, and use. Newbury Park, Calif, Sage Publications. Read More