Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Assignment 2 Part 2

1. The difference between women today and women 40 years ago is very substantial. As the article explains in great depth, women today view independence as a norm and more so, a strong trait. Statistics show that more women are going to college to get degrees to land higher paying careers, rather than an average job. With this independent lifestyle comes buying homes by ones self, vacationing more, spending money on fashion, and constantly dating, while keeping marriage and child rearing on the back burner.

2. The norm for women these days is to graduate from college and get settled in a career long before any thoughts of marriage. Women are taking their time to establish themselves in the business world and enjoying the single lifestyle while doing so. Marriage comes after a steady career, but only if a husband is whiling to allow his wife to continue her career that she has built for years.

3. Women work much more now then they did in the past. As the article explained, Yoko Harruka, author of I Won’t Get Married, found a man that she was certain to marry until he brought up the idea that she would leave her job and be a housewife for him. This trend is degrading to many women who have poured so much into their jobs, only to be asked to leave it all behind and stay at home. With that being said, women take pride in their work now and view it as a lifestyle, rather than something they need to do until they find someone to marry and can stay at home after.

4. My personal views of my future are to graduate and get a steady career well before I even think about getting married. I am a firm believer in saving money and getting on my own two feet before diving into a marriage and inevitably having children. As of now, I can definitely see myself married in my future, but not until I feel financially stable enough to support a married lifestyle.

Assignment 2 Part 1

1. The third bullet point was very interesting because it states that married-couple households would be a contributing factor to the raise in the growth of families, even though the number of married-couple households would decrease. This took me a while to understand because the two factors are contradicting, while lead me to blame this contradiction on the fact that our population is vastly growing everyday.

2. I feel like these statistics would be very confusing to someone with little to no knowledge on the subject, but after taking countless college courses on things of this nature, these statistics are not very surprising to me due to two major factors, including the growth of our population and the societal change of view in having children. These numbers are bound to increase from 1995 to 2010 because our population in the US is constantly growing, and I feel like societies view on waiting to get married and have children is to blame for those parts of the chart where the 1995 categories is beating 2010, such as two parent and mother households with children.

3.The chart, in a nut shell, basically shows that our population in 2010 is living without children, whether is be from the increase of living married with no children and living alone or the decrease in two parents and mother households with children.

3a. The families with higher percentages in 1995 are those with children, more specifically two parents households with children and mother households with children.

3b. The type of families that are becoming less the norm are these families with children. The chart shows that there are significant increases in people living alone or only with a spouse, while there are decreases in families with children.

4. I expect these trends of single and childless living to continue for the next 5 to 10 years, as I feel my generation strongly believes in having children at older ages. With that being said, when I am 70, due to so many people holding off on marriage in their younger years, I feel like the statistics will switch and family households with children will overwhelm those of childless households.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Assignment 1

       My name is Joe and I am a junior at Montclair. I enjoy skateboarding and taking photographs of anything. I am currently unemployed, but don't really mind because I am not a big spender. I love being with my family and hanging ot with my friends.  I guess something that makes me interesting is that I recently started a skateboarding company with one of my good friends. We are looking to press our own decks and keep the whole process made in New Jersey, but being 21 years old and somewhat lazy, we have not been able to completely follow through.

     I am a Family and Child Studies major here at Montclair State and I hope to use my degree to get a job as an elementary computer teacher. I got into the Teaching Program last Spring and am excited to be apart of one of the best teaching programs in the US.

     I currently live on campus, but during breaks, I live with my parents, who are happily married. I have two older brothers that I constantly keep in contact with, and get to hang out with all the time. My parents also have two dogs, Flanders and Maude (Simpsons reference), who have become part of the family. As for activities, my family is usually pretty busy with my brothers being older and having careers, but during the holidays we always get together, and always wake up extremely early on Black Friday to shop together. It's become somewhat of a tradition, as we have been doing it for years.

     One topic that I found interesting on the syllabus was gay marriage. I think it will be interesting to learn about the family sociology of gay families, rather than the stereotypical idea of a mother, father, daughter, son. I also feel like this material isn't really given much attention in the media.

     From what I remember from freshman year, wikis were pretty easy to deal with. Once I got in the groove on constantly posting and updating, it became an easy process. I'm looking forward to using the wiki again, and integrating technology with the classroom.