Future of The Family

 This was the last week of classes. My heart hurts as I say goodbye to all the people in my classes. I have enjoyed this semester more than any other semester I've had in college.

This Thursday, we had an in class final. We brought a list of the top ten things that we had learned in class with supporting paragraphs, and class was to be left as a surprise for the actual final.

My top ten list includes:

Marriage age increasing

Birth rate per woman decreasing

LGBTQ+ and family structure

Tammy and poverty in families

Dating in the modern world

Transitions from dating, courtship, engagement, and marriage

Affair prevention

Transgender brains

Science behind same sex attraction

Parenting children

We were told to put a star next to our three favorites, and write a ten-minute lesson plan on two of them. After preparing, we would choose a partner and teach them both our lessons, and they would teach us theirs. I decided to write about dating and affair prevention. My peer wrote about social media and pornography.

I loved learning about dating so much because it is very prevalent in my current life. I learned so many things about dating healthily and really using it as a preparation period for marriage. This semester really opened up my eyes on how much I need to be intentional in my dating experiences. A couple of things that I outlined in my lesson were the three-Month probation period, the relationship attachment model, and always having a plan for the time that we spend with someone we are dating. I learned that we should have a distinction between dating and courtship. Courtship is a bit of an outdated term, and I wish society used it more.

Again, my classmate talked about pornography. For such a crude topic, I can feel the spirit so much. Pornography needs to be talked about more, and not to normalize it. I am thankful that I have never watched or been addicted to pornography, but for how free I was on the internet growing up, it is a miracle. Pornography is becoming more and more accessible and acceptable. As members of the church of Jesus Christ, we need to have a responsibility to help others feel the joy of God's grace and teach correct principles. Instead, our church culture hides, covers, keeps secret addictions of pornography. At the end, my classmate asked, "how do we fix it?" and that is a fair question. Of everything that I have learned this semester, the first step as a country, America should focus on our families. The future of the family is in danger of pornography, but the answer is in the family. Families need to teach their children correct principles and support children to avoid and fortify their values.