Family Culture

Have you ever felt out of place? Like you didn’t belong? Most of the time when I feel this way it is because I don’t feel like I fit in with the people that I am around. Like they all know something that I don’t know. It’s an interesting feeling. It comes from differences in cultures or classes.

I never thought that in a marriage that this difference could cause a problem. But the other night I had a dream. I learned two things from this dream. First, I was thinking way to much about my homework and therefore it incorporated itself into my dream and second what it would be like to date someone who was from a different class then I was. I would consider myself from the middle class. I had the things that I needed and sometime the things that I wanted. In my dream this gentleman asked me to accompany him to this ball. Before the ball, I joined him for dinner with his family. It was a very formal event and not at all like my own family dinners. After the dinner he told me to go and talk to his mother. So I did. His mother then proceeded to tell me how to improve my looks to better “fit in” with the people I was with. In the dream it was very hurtful what she said I needed to “improve” upon and I realized that this guy was not worth my time because he didn’t like me for who I was. He didn’t like that I didn’t have “manners” and wasn’t up to his standards. It’s a good thing that this was a dream because I was not happy about being treated that way. But it got me thinking.

Everyone comes from a different culture. I’m not even just talking about geographical cultures but more of a family culture. Each person is unique in how they were raised and in what morals they were taught to cherish. It was really interesting to see the difference between the students in my class. For intense, we talked about when people open Christmas presents. Some people have the family tradition of opening presents on Christmas Eve and that is when they have their big celebrations. Others have it on Christmas day. It was also interesting to see how the married students in my class changed their traditions when they got married because their spouse celebrated things differently than they did. It’s something that I have never really thought about.

What traditions do you have? How have they effected your life? How have they dictated the choices you made and make? I realize more and more that nobody, even within my own family, thinks quite the same way as I do. I also have realized that the family traditions that I hold dear are extremely different from ones that others hold dear. Someday when I get married, I’m going to be more aware of how to blend my culture with my spouse’s culture and form a new culture that makes us both happy. One culture is not necessarily better then another. There is good to be found in most cultures and what we should do is take the good from each and make a better one that fits us perfectly.