Gentle Reminders

I think that it is so important to make sure that your husband feels needed and engaged when you are bringing another one of God’s children into the world. When there is engagement and connection in a marriage, then the home and family that the baby will enter will be so much stronger that if that connection between the parents was gone. I think there are quite a lot of little things that we can do to keep our husbands fully engaged before, during and after delivery of a child.

First, schedule doctor appointments around both your schedule and your husbands so that way he can come and be updated just as you are.

Second, let your husband be the first one to know when the baby does something for the first time, like kicking in the stomach.

Third, both of you can read child raising books together and then discuss how you want to go about certain things and how you want to raise your child, that way you are both contributing and are both on the same page.

Fourth, let your husband spend time with just him and the baby, even if it only includes him giving the baby a bath or changing the baby’s diaper, or even napping.

And lastly, I think it can be really engaging to talk about a budget together, decide early on how to budget now that you are bringing another person into the family. This way future arguments on this subject can be avoided.

What is Love?

What is love? How do you define it? Can you define it? How do you feel love? Typically when we talk about love most people think first about the romantic love. They think about those butterflies in the stomach and the sexual side of things. But it is so much more than that and so much more diverse. There are 4 Greek words that describe the types of love.
First we'll talk about Eros. This is the love that most people think of. It is the emotional and romantic part about being in love. This should be the last type of the 4 "loves" to come into play in a relationship. It can cloud and confuse minds, but when fully understood it is a very binding and forceful love.
The next type of love is Philia. Philia is the friendship formed love. It is also known as the brotherly love.
Storge is the third type we will talk about. This can be described as the love that a parent has for a child. This love is always growing and evolving over time and is a type of love you will want in any relationship.
Lastly is Agape. This is a more general love that one can even have toward complete strangers. This love prompts most of us to do acts of service for one another.
These four types of love are essential for any relationship and especially a relationship with a companion or future companion. Like mentioned above, Eros should be the last type of love to enter into a relationship because of its intense effects on those who have it. When the other three loves come into play first, Eros will naturally fall into its role.

Gender Differences

What does it mean to you to be someone of your gender? That is, what trails and qualities do you have as a male or female?
What messages did you get from your parents about appropriate traits?
How do you think you will continue to develop?

We all can recognize at least one difference between boys and girls, but the question of today’s world is does it go deeper than just body differences? Researchers say yes, although they get in a lot of trouble for doing so. Why? Because some people don't want to admit that there are true differences between boys and girls, they don't want to believe that they are different, when in fact, we are. Boys and girls act in different ways and this is noticed when each are born.

Besides the biological differences that distinguish boys from girls, researchers have noted that there are specific gender roles that come into play at infancy. Gender roles refer to the behavior associated with being either male or female. Many believe that it has to do with how your parents raise you, that they raise you to be feminine or masculine. Although that may be true to a degree, researchers have found that even when you raise your kids the same or try to get boys to play with "girl" toys and girls to play with "boy" toys, they choose their own gender specific toys. They found that when given the choice of toys in front of them, boys would usually turn things into guns and be more aggressive in their play whereas the girls would play on teams, be more willing to share, and choose to dress up and role play.

In a 1997 study done by Raty and Snellman, it was documented that boys have better spatial and quantitative ability compared to girls. Also, in the 2010 Eliot study, girls were reported to be 1/5 as aggressive as boys when between the ages or 17 and 29 months old. It can be concluded that females tend to be more of nurturers and boys tend to be more providers and protectors… that there are differences... naturally.

Personal thoughts and stories: In my Family Relations class we had a discussion on this particular topic.  After discussing it, I began thinking more about my own family and how I was raised. I came from a very conservative, traditional family. My dad ran his own business and my mom was able to stay home and raise us kids. I think having parents who participated in the traditional roles for men and women taught me what was expected for a traditional family, but at the same time, I had all brothers so I grew up as more of a tom boy, dressing up in camo and playing swords with my brothers. Looking back at this was interesting because my parents never saw a problem with this and never tried to suppress it, which leads me to believe that when parents tell a child no, they might take it as a challenge and want to do it more than they would have before. Instead, my parents just taught me about my divine role as a daughter of God, but still let me join in on my brothers play-fighting and games.  So I think that when I have a family, I want to parent like my parents did and not suppress a child’s likes and dislikes, but instead encourage what their divine role is as a son or daughter of God.

Children

In 2001, Dallin H. Oaks gave a talk in the April General Conference. He addressed the importance of making important decisions here, decisions that will affect not only you, but your posterity as well. He stated, 

"In terms of priorities for each major decision (such as education, occupation, place of residence, marriage, or childbearing), we should ask ourselves, what will be the eternal impact of this decision?"

In accordance with this, I thought I should take a second to write about the importance of having children and address some of the questions people have when it comes to starting a family.  

First, it is our sacred duty to have children and give them the opportunity to receive bodies. They are God's children who are waiting to come down to this earth to carry out the will of the Lord. One of the big questions that people have when it comes to having kids is how to decide how many children to have. I believe the number of children you and your spouse have really is between both of you and the Lord. But when we are making that decision of when to start a family, the decision needs to be made with Heavenly Father's guidance and with responsibility. Sometimes accepting what God wants can be a hard thing, but we need to be willing to go and do what is asked of us and as long as we are following what God has asked of us then He will bless us and our families. The Lord will always provide a way, but for it to happen, we need to be doing our part in order for Him to do His. But ultimately, the decision of how many kids to have is between you, your spouse, and the Lord.

Second, we need to realize that we are going to be judged on how we raise the children that God blesses us with. We have been commanded to raise our children in a home where the gospel is taught and encouraged. By teaching our children the gospel, we are adding to God's kingdom here on earth and we will be blessing the generations to come.