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This week I want to talk about diversity in families, specifically in social class and cultures. I want you to think about how different social classes and cultures would affect a family. Something that I found interesting is that research shows that lower class families have more childbirths outside of marriage compared to middle class families. Along with that, the divorce rate of middle-class couples have dropped over the last fifteen years. The divorce rate of lower-class families has not changed much over the last fifteen years.

Although it is the lower class that has higher births outside of marriage, it is more and more common for people to not associate parenthood with marriage. Famous people and prestigious people are having children outside of marriage. They have nannies to watch their children twenty-four hours of the day, seven days out of the week. They have resources available to them that most people do not. However, not everybody realizes this and copies that trends.

One side effect of having children outside of marriage, is that more children are being born into an unstable relationship. One explanation of this could possible be because people that do not have marriage in mind, or a long-term relationship, could possibly lead to a breakup. It can also increase the amount of complex families. As a result of that, there could be material or economic challenges, as well as, being unprepared to have a stable relationship and family.

In his video, William Doherty talks about a program he is a part of that works with couples to improve their marriage and families. He points out that most of the people in the program do not have a good example to look up to. They are used to just leaving a relationship when times get hard. Who are some examples in your life that you look up to? Are there any? If not, how can you change that?

William Doherty continues to tell another story about a program he helped with where they help fathers be better. The group is full of low-income fathers. He tells about a father who was fighting with his wife and then she says, “Why don’t you just leave?” The father confessed that usually that would be his ticket out the door, but this time, he knew how that would affect his family. So, he told his wife that he was going to work, and they would figure it out when he got home. They did work it out. What can we learn from this story and how can we apply it to our lives?

Doherty emphasizes that we need a culture shift for people to learn what it takes to form lasting and stable relationships, or else our bad habits will just continue.

I totally agree with William Doherty in the fact that we need to educate people and shift societies way of thinking about the family. We need to encourage people to have healthy relationships and to prepare for families. Everybody has their hardships and trials in relationships, so it is so important to have healthy relationships.

Not only will healthy relationships help the couple, but the whole family can benefit from it. When Doherty talks about how most of the troubled couples did not have good examples, on the other hand, I believe that if people do have a good example to look up to, it can help them and their relationship.  

*Information is from William Doherty in the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0Oqeov0Gcw e