When we talk about truth we talk about things that are always true. I feel that today’s world has gotten lost and are now working to trying to make opinion truth rather then just hard concrete evidence. There is a song out there that talks about how 5,000 people could never be wrong if they teach the same thing. However numbers in belief do not make things true. Having any number of opinions do not become fact. Truth does not change in different cultures and truth does not change over time. Truth stands firm and do not move at any moment. Now that we have established what truth is we are going to go over some theories which are not truth but might explain different things in the world.

The first theory we are going to go over is family systems theory. Family systems theory talks about how families work together and function. Such examples are like family roles that take place. This could be as simple as the mom role and the dad role. When it comes to kids it can vary a bit differently in the fact that kids do not all take the same role. The older kids could take on roles like the test child. This is the child that the parents test everything on it to figure out what works. The test child also ends up showing the younger kids what not to do in life. The other role that is common for the older kids to take is being little mom or little dad. This is the kid who tries to kid order in the younger kids in order and help the parents’ parent. The middle child most of the time needs to kid draw attention to them selves by taking the role of acting out or the role of being the family clown. They youngest child can take the role of being a spy and telling mom and dad what is going on in the family. Family systems theory can also go into the larger family and explains the unspoken rules that the family must follow. Such as in my family if you don’t show up for prayer at dinner they you get to do all the dishes. This rule was never told but learned by experience. These rules are in every family and are not talked about but learned by breaking these rules. The other theories do are not quite as complicated.

Let’s start with my favorite theory, exchange theory. Exchange theory talk claims that nothing gets done unless a person is getting something out of the task. A vary simple example is like why we go to work every day. We might not like going to work but the paycheck that we get makes it worth doing. Other examples are like in my life when my wife wants to go shopping and I don’t want to go for whatever reason. My wife will then say we can go get food during our outing. This then becomes worth it for me and I end up going shopping. This can be done in families however this is not always the wisest thing to do all the time. What makes a really good strong family is one that does things with out the thought of an exchange going on but for the fact that they love one another, not because they think they’ll get something like ice-cream out of it.

Another theory is symbolic interaction, which talks about how we gain meaning into objects as we interact with them more often. This could be as simple as words, which are just sounds that we have given meaning to. The last theory we talked about is conflict theory. Conflict theory does not have to involve conflict for this theory but can be as simple a disagreement to what color refrigerator, or where we end up living in the world. These theories help us understand but are in no way fact or truth.

It is very interesting to see where the family is at right now. Looking at the modern trends that the families are at and head more towards is really sad. Seeing that the average age of first marriage for females is 28 and males are 30 is really crazy to think about. That marriage is really being put off for so long. That people are growing up being told to take your time on family, in getting married and having kids. This really baffled me because I was 21 when I got married and 22 when I had my son. This was something that I wanted my whole life so why is it something that so many people put it off for so long? Many people want to try and create their lives before settling down. Which puts marriage and kids far down the line of life.

            Some things else that really stood out to me is what the divorce rate is. Many people who have heard that 50% of marriages end in divorce, the reality is that 24% of first marriages end in divorce. This was very interesting because of the fact that it talks about first marriages showing us that going for a person’s first marriage is not as scary as everyone makes it out to be. What a lot of people also forget is that things that are hard to do are always the most worth doing like marriage. It might not be easy but it is the most worth thing in life, as are most hard things.

             The other thing about family in today’s world is really sad. That the average house hold size is down to about 2.3 persons per home. This includes college dorms that have six people living together and bachelor pads and bachelorette pads. All this information coming together and still most homes really only have two people living together. This is really sad to see because this means single mom’s and just husbands and wives living together which means there is not a lot of new life coming in to the world, with a proper nuclear family.

            Something else that is interesting is that living alone is up and depression is up. These two things really seem to be connected and correlated. We know that man is not men tot be alone and that we are meant to have families and to get married and live with one another. If people were not so scared to commit and focused on the important things in life, I believe that in the case of depression and living alone the solution is simple and people need to work towards marriage. Now do not take this the wrong way do not just go about starting to live together out side of marriage. That is not the solution for this but to take the leap of faith and go ahead and get married. Start to have faith in the way God has planned all of us to live and grow.

            Sexual intimacy out side of marriage is also up from the past and out of wedlock births are up to 41% which is crazy that almost half of the children born are born out of wedlock. This could also have an interesting correlation. We know from studies that the best way for kids to grow up is to be in a family with a Mom and a Dad. To really get a better future this trend needs to change and that people need to get people to stop having premarital sex so that kids have the best chance in life as they grow older. It is amazing to see all these trends and they can all really be connected and fixed together in sort of a reverse domino effect.