Trends

TREND: a general direction in which something is developing or changing.
    
       This week in class we discussed trends in society that affect family life. These trends we discussed are: premarital sex, births to unmarried women, living alone, cohabitation, delayed marriage, birth rates, household size, employed mothers, and divorce. My teacher put 3 categories on the board for us to place these trends into, trivial, interesting, and critical. All of these trends fell into critical or interesting.While we were placing them in their categories, I thought we were doing a good job of deciding where these trends should fall. Some like premarital sex, cohabitation, and divorce were placed in the critical category. Some like delayed marriage, falling birth rates, and household size were placed in the interesting category (interesting meaning it's interesting that these things are happening, but it isn't critical to the moral standing of our society). It seemed to make sense that not everything would be critical. But the more that we talked about things, the more I began to see things differently.
      Things like living alone and delayed marriage may seem like something that is just interesting. Really, how could it be critical to society to be living alone? And delaying marriage until your a little older really isn't a big deal, right? Thats how I was feeling at first. But what are the reasons people are delaying marriage? The text claimed it was because the emphasis now days is on personal growth and individuality. To me, these sound like selfish reasons. If people are delaying marriage because they feel like it ties them down or because they don't want to have to have the responsibility, then I believe those are selfish reasons. God has declared that we should get married, so we should. Now, I know lots of us out there are just plugging right along and doing our best and Mr. or Mrs. Right just hasn't come our way yet. If that were the cause of all the delayed marriages, then I would place that in the 'interesting' category. We can't control when he or she comes along. That is in God's hands. But, if we are refusing chances or avoiding chances because of selfish reasons, thats when it becomes critical.
      Basically, by the end of class, I had come to the conclusion that all of these things should be placed on the critical list. Obviously things like divorce and employed mothers sometimes cannot be avoided, and sometimes are even for the best. But I think as a trend, or something that is starting to occur more often, that is critical. Every one of these trends goes against what I think Heavenly Father would want to see happen in families. He wants us to live enriching, full lives, helping lift and serve those around us. This is best achieved by living in families, full of commitment, hard work, and love.
      I guess I don't really know what my conclusions are. I often feel overwhelmed at the prospect of trying to 'change the world' and the way the trends are going. But I know I just have to do what I can with my own family and that is all that the Lord expects. So... lets not follow the worlds trends, huh? Okay good. Sounds great! :)