I am a Girl.

I am a girl. I am a girl and I am not replaceable with a boy. I am a girl with strengths that cannot be replicated by a boy. I am a girl that can admit that a boy can do things better than me. I don't believe that you can subtract a man and add a girl. The results would inevitably different. Don't get me wrong, I believe in women's rights. I believe that women deserve to be equal to men. But not replace men. See we are equally important...

But.
We.
Are.
Different.

You can't call Froot Loops Cheerio's just because they are both round! Men and women have just about the same similarities. For reals. Gender differences aren't just taught by society. They can't be. You know why? Because children show gender differences from day one. Infants only a few months old show differences. Baby boys will look around more during nursing, while baby girls will watch their mothers and try to mouth what their mothers are saying after and before nursing.

True.

That's not the same as women belong in the kitchen and men belong at work.

But.

It shows differences. Different interests, different ways of thinking, different in general.

So my question is...

Why would someone want to give up their strengths, their natural abilities to be great...

Just so they could be politically correct?

Just a Letter

Dear Unmarried, Newly married, Married and struggling, or the just plain interesting,


       You don't have marry someone who is a different race or ethnicity from you to marry into a different culture. Every family across the world has a different culture. Seriously, you can grow up in a small town and live next door to a family for 20 years but still when you get married to the girl next door, you will both have different idea's and expectations within your newly formed family. Why? Because of family culture. Every family, knowingly or not, has their own specific rules, understandings, beliefs, idea's, points of view that is unique to each family.  If every person on this earth is different, then it makes sense that for each family to need a different culture, Right?! Seriously! Think about it, if you grew up in any other family would you have had the same rules and background? Would you want to continue the same traditions you grew up with in your own families you will establish? You wouldn't because you wouldn't know about them! You're family culture is what's normal for you, but abnormal for someone else. The way you handle family conflicts, family vacations, family affection, family time, family communication, everything right down to how your family handles the right way to put the toilet paper on the holder is part of your family culture! Everything that you just assume is normal for every family is so different, it's almost unbelievable!


This is why, my friends, the first year of marriage is so shocking and such an adjustment time. You have lived your whole life with norms, and your spouse has lived their whole lives with norms, and it takes just about a year to decide which norm is right. And I don't mean fighting over which one is correct, but which one is right! Right for your new family. Should we have ham for Christmas Eve dinner? Or Geese? Neither one is "correct" but each or norms for one person. So maybe what is right for our new family is switching off every year. Or maybe she fell in love with geese, and that's what becomes right. Or maybe her great great grandma's ham recipe won over him. Or maybe the right thing is creating a whole new tradition. Of course this sounds silly, menial, trivial, and ridiculous, and yet it happens all the time. Who are you to tell me something I've done for years is silly, menial, trivial, and ridiculous?! You can't. That's why it is so important to be aware of your own family culture. To realize that its normal for you, but not the world. When you expect things to be different it's easier to adjust. You can expect different norms to be thrown at you after the honeymoon. But most importantly, when you know what you're family has made normal for you, you can decide if that's something you really want to be a norm.

Traditions of our fathers can be a great thing, but it can also be very hindering. Your personal family culture is yours to create if you see it for what it is. So pay attention, and you might learn a lot about yourself, your family, and even why other families act the way they do.

Signed,

Jenn!!

I'm the Youngest and Oldest in My Family

So for my class, we have to make a metaphor that describes our family. For example a girl from a different semester drew that anatomy picture where its half bones and half muscle/skin type thing. Then she labeled the different parts of the body the different people of her family. Her brother was the heart, the mom was the brain, the dad was the head and so on. So I started to map out a really good metaphor about my family. I happen to like metaphors and I usually can come up with them quite easily [mostly because that's how I learn things, I compare them with random other things that make sense to me.] However I have had the hardest time figuring out a metaphor for my family. You see I am the youngest of seven kids. And when I say youngest, I mean youngest. By the time I can really remember my childhood my four older sisters had already moved out and gotten married or gone to college and my two brothers, who are in line right before me, were already in elementary and middle school. My first memory of all of my siblings together in one room was when I was seven years old, and my second memory of all of my siblings together in one room was in March of this year. I know all of my siblings, and I know my parents, but what I don't know is how we all interact as a family. I've never seen it. I can't decide if we are a systems family, an exchange family, a symbolic family, or a conflict family because I really honestly don't know my family as a whole. I just know them as individual separate entities because that's the only way I've ever interacted with them.

But don't pity me and think that I was robbed out of having siblings. I had my siblings in a different way. My oldest sister has seven kids. My "oldest niece" is my best friend and no matter what anyone, including birth certificates, my sister. Same with the other six kids. Especially the four oldest. My mom babysat the three oldest almost everyday from the time I can remember until I was in third grade. And then in the fourth grade I'd go to their house everyday for homework help be around the four oldest. And right before they moved all seven plus my sister lived with us for about four months. I remember almost all of them being born, and I feel like the big sister even though I am their aunt.

So I have no idea how to go about this whole metaphor thing. Do I make one for my widespread, hardly ever together siblings, or for my Nieces and nephew who are my acting siblings? Or all of them... Which would be a very complicated metaphor indeed! It's like I am the youngest of my siblings, but the oldest granddaughter at the same time! If there's a metaphor for that somewhere out there.. I hope I find it, and soon too! I need to keep up my good metaphor-er title!