Family Culture

 My fiancé and I are getting married soon and now it is our duty to try and create a new family culture. The questions and concerns we both have are how are we going to raise our kids? What kind of family structure do we want? What family rules are we going to have? And there are many more, it seems like the list of questions never ends. I think what gives me hope is that my fiancé and I don’t have to decide right now. Sometimes it’s better to learn as you go. Because you can prepare all you want for kids, but until you have the child you won’t know how to parent them. But, these questions are good to ask yourself to be thinking about how you want your family to look. The best thing is finding the best aspects from each family culture. 

Both my fiancé and I’s family culture looks very different. My family looks more like the “picket fence” family. I grew up with my parents filling traditional roles. My dad was mostly the sole provider for our family. My mom stayed home and was a homemaker and took care of the kids up until I started kindergarten. When I started kindergarten then all her kids were in school so she went back to work. I think growing up with my mom in the house raising us was extremely beneficial. I believe I learned more from having my mom there than if I had to go to daycare as a child. This tradition is something that my fiancé and I would like to carry into our family. My fiancé and I both would like to have me stay home and raise the kids while he works. 

My fiancé's family culture is not traditional. His parents got divorced when he was 6 months old. They both got remarried when he was around 5 years old. Growing up he was constantly going back and forth between families. My fiancé has 6 siblings, 1  step brother, 1  adopted brother, 3 half siblings and 1 fully sister. This was extremely growing up and trying to balance two very different families. That is why my fiancé is excited to create that picket fence family. Growing up my fiancé was always extremely close with his mom and was never close with his real dad. He missed being close to his dad and that is why he wants to be an amazing father. My fiancé is studying to become a software engineer, and one reason he is studying this is because he can most likely work from home. This is super important for him because growing up he didn’t have his dad, so he wants to be more present in his kids' lives. 

I think some family cultures that my fiancé and I want to put in place now is making family a priority. We are both extremely close to our families and we want to keep that bond. When you have strong family ties, you know that you can lean on them for support, and in turn offer support back. We want to be able to live close to both of our families, so we can receive that support. Another culture we would like to have in our family is to show the importance of education. Both of us are in school trying to get our bachelors degrees, and we want to show our kids that education is important because it can help you be successful. Education is also important because Heavenly Father encourages all of us to receive education because we get to take our knowledge into the next life. 

Our family culture is influenced by our previous families, but the best part is that we don’t have to be just like our families. We can choose the best parts from our family cultures and create a new family. In the future we will have kids and we will learn together how to create a good family culture.