Epiphany #5: Traditional is Tacky?

Flashback to 1947. A young military man just back from war asks a "beautiful dame" on a date. He asks her father and promises to have her back right after dinner. They get to liking each other more and more until one day in the late fall, he gives her a kiss at the front door. She knows what that means: They are dating now, and she's okay with it! They date well, doing a variety of activities and getting to know each other better. One night, amid a light snowfall, they walk down mainstreet, looking in all the store windows. She looks over to see his reaction to the new electric train and finds him with a knee on the ground and a ring in his hand. They get married in April and live happily ever after....

For years, the love scene in the United States has been changing. Not even fifty years ago, families were organized into a nuclear system consisting of a man (the bread winner), his wife (the stay-at-home mom) and their children. How much the world has changed since then! Now we are introduced and sometimes bombarded with new classifications of a marital relationship. Plus, cohabitation has skyrocketed in popularity. Now, up to 80% of Americans are or have cohabited in the their lifetime. So what's with the change? 

My epiphany from class this week is that we are no longer formal about our relationships that mean so much. We have gotten into the trend of just sliding through the steps of dating, courtship, engagement and marriage. If someone were to ask you when you officially started dating your significant other, chances are that you couldn't pin point an exact time or event. We may have gotten kissed on your first date, but it probably didn't mean anything. Then comes the controversial topic of living together before marriage. 

Sometimes I wonder if we are lost. We are becoming confused with what it means to move through a relationship. We need to have hope. We need to have faith. We need to be more formal in our progression of a love that can in fact last forever. It is possible to have this. We just have to be willing to work for it one clear step at a time.

Epiphany #4: Battle of the Sexes

Boys are from Mars, girls are from Venus... you know the drill. As we grew up, we were all trained how to tell boys from girls, and not allowed to mingle with the "other people" on many occasions by peers. Growing up in America, everyone knows that boys and girls are very different from one another. 

All of this  adds up to what we think of as the differences between men and women in today's world. The Earth is full of fighting back, retaliating, tolerating and trying to neutralize what it means to be a male or female. Today we have activists for both sexes, and the world is fighting about what it even means to be any one gender. 

My epiphany happened this week when I learned about the importance of the differences that seem to be so trivial. Men and women are different for a reason! We are meant to be different so that we can complete and compliment one another. Afterall, I don't think that one person could do all that two people of opposite gender could do. 

We need to stop seeing these differences as problems, and embrace all that we can be. We are who we are, and I personally believe that we are all that we have been forever. Gender is so important to who we as humans are in this world. It was not made to be unequal but to be equally yoked in everything that we do. We need to recognize that we are different, for that is what unites us.

 Epiphany #3: Social "Class"

Oscar Wilde once said, "There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor. The poor can think of nothing else." This simple truth is seen in many American communities today. Families that live in high social standing have money in excess, while the middle class has the need to save and the lower class has necessity to scrimp. Society is defined by monetary income. 

Social classes are made up of families. In the Upper class, you have to have a strict and untainted pedigree to be accepted as a member. In the lower class, families tend to be larger, not as intertwined, and in some cases, rather uncivilized. It's easy to see the poor as people who don't have manners, and the rich as a population of jerks. However we know that these stereotypes aren't true. So there is a different meaning that I attach with social class, and it has nothing to do with money.

 I have been taught and I believe that being "high-class" has everything to do with how you act and who you are. I believe that you can have a successful family no matter which tax bracket you are in. If the focus is on money within ANY family relationship, it is at risk of great unhappiness. When one is obsessed with their paycheck, this extreme (yet all too common) lifestyle can severely interfere with family time. Whether a family has no food in their cupboards, or money dripping out of their pocket books, an obsession with obtaining money is stressful and never complete.Simply put, you cannot focus on anything else. You have no time to talk with your kids, and you definitely can't afford to take a moment to laugh. It's work work work, all the time! This is stressful to all family members.It decreases happiness, and like the addiction it is, never fills the hole left in any individual's heart. Before you know it, we've all ended up in the world which we live.

My suggestion is to put our perspectives back in balance. We as a nation need to stop worrying about social class, and start being classy. Success is really based on high morals and standards, instead of the lack thereof. We need to go back to the basics, start over, and focus on the relationships that supposedly matter to us more than anything else. If you notice the quote that sits below the title of this blog, you'll find these words of a very wise man. "MOMENTS are molecules that make up eternity," not money, prestige, or square footage on your home. You see, money does not have to define who we are. I believe that we let it define us because we have nothing else to lean on.