My Experience With My Family

This semester, you will have the opportunity to construct a family genogram for informational purposes. You will develop a genogram, documenting information from both sides of your family (maternal and paternal) for 4 generations starting with yourself. The genogram may be hand drawn or you may use a computer drawn one. (You can download a basic program from www.genopro.com/free or from http://www.progenygenetics.com/students/ ) Your

The family history assignment was to enable us to gather information from a participant. Used the data collected to build a genogram going back three generation. To tell this families story by incorporating medical, spiritual, cultural, and ancestral history. Then to review the information and show areas that could be modified to decrease the risk of health problems.

In this essay, I will discuss my experience of interviewing a family and constructing a genogram guided by their narrative. For this task, I purposely chose a family that is very different from my family of origin in terms of their cultural heritage. I will reflect on differences and similarities between our families as well as my prejudices and hypothesis that I inevitably constructed before and during the process. To identify this family, I had to approach some colleagues proposing to them to participate in the interview. Fortunately, one of them introduced me to her friend. Francesca had an interest in psychology, and since she was free and not much committed, I did welcome her with a cup of coffee to share more about the

My childhood was typical of a middle-class suburban child, I have a loving mother and father, both who work in education. My father is a retired Elementary School Principal and my mother is a retired elementary school Guidance Counselor who happened to be my elementary school guidance counselor. Our socio-economic status was standard for a middle class family with two incomes. Where my family is rather atypical however is in our ages, I am the child of my father’s second marriage and my mother’s first marriage. I have a half-brother who is 43 years old and a half sister who is 37, my father is currently 70 years old and my mother is 57. This is obviously a very rare family layout and is always a good ice-breaker for conversation, usually eliciting

Alongside my parents I migrated to the US at only two years old. We had no permanent home which is why we became so close to each other. One year later my sister was born and we spent most of our together since now we moved almost yearly. We became close and during high school it was the same and she is the reason I became passionate about mental health. During her transition into and the first two years of high school she became depressed and self-harming. It took me years to accept and realize this experience affected more than I had thought.

Once a close friendship is built with someone, eventually, a relationship with their mothers has to be established; whether it is a close or just a comfortable relationship. We all have felt or acted a certain way toward our friends’ mothers. The friendships I have established with some of my friend’s moms are handled at different extremities, ranging from “nice weather we’re having” to the coffee talks. Each has a different personality that allows us to classify them into certain groups; some are cool like the one you are unusually close to. There are also those mothers in which you try to limit conversation like the one that thinks she is cool and the one that barely partakes in verbal interactions, the strict mom.

A primary relationship in my life would have to be with my mother. This may sound a little strange; however, I used to not be around my mother often. My mom and I had a bad relationship when I was growing up. We fought constantly, or she was never home to support me. Despite this, my mother and I have a very good relationship now. I tell her everything about my life and we go out to lunch and mingle. She is very supportive, listens to my problems, and she tries to help me with my needs. The fundamental attribution error states that there is an error in the explanation for another person's behavior. My mom and I did not understand each other at all. She always thought that there were external attributions affecting my behavior. However, they were internal. My mom did not understand that others were not making me angry, it was her. She would ignore me and exclude me.

I have a very close relationship with my parents. My mother’s name is Becky she has always been very caring and she has stuck up for me ever since I was little and unable to do it myself. My Father’s name is Lonnie he has taught me how to be strong and has shown me how to do different activities like how to build stuff and fix cars. I tell my parents pretty much everything we have a very trusting relationship I never had a curfew and I was able to go where ever I wanted whenever I wanted as long as I let them know where I was going to be.

For two year, the first year my mother left dad, we lived with my maternal grandparents. Although, I was toddler at the time I still acknowledge their efforts and support for a period my family needed it the most. They occasionally visited for Christmas and for four of their granddaughters’ quince, including mine. I visited them four times in Mexico. Because they live in Mexico is it hard to keep constant contact with them. But they both had a huge influence and I have great respect for them. When they visited Nebraska, they stayed in the household for a couples of weeks. The most important extended family relationships are with my mom’s sisters and brother who reside in Nebraska.

My entire life I have lived with or in close proximity to my grandparents. I have had countless conversations with them through my life. But the older I noticed our conversations diminishing and becoming less frequent due to my busy schedule. When this assignment was introduced to me, I jumped at the opportunity to interview and reconnect with one of my grandparents. I decided on interviewing my grandmother because she is comfortable with english and our native language, tagalog. By speaking to someone I am blood related to and grew up with, I automatically gained a sense of rapport. If I interviewed a stranger, I feel it would have been more difficult to gain their trust. Geertz explains in his article Daedalus, how him and his wife struggled to gain the acceptance of a certain group of people and of how one day they finally gained their trust. He states, “In Bali, to be teased is to be accepted. It was the turning point so far as our relationship to the community was concerned, and we are quite literally “in”” (Geertz, 2005:59).

When being asked “Who am I?” there are a few things that come to my mind. For instance, how old I am, my race, my religion, what I do for a living, and so on, but do those things really define who I am? Self – concept is a continuous process. The way you think of yourself, and how you view yourself, can change from day to day depending on a few factors. These factors include family members, our peers, and the generalized other.

My family happens to be deeply religious, conservative and often closed minded about certain aspects of life. In other words, everything that they tend to support and believe in as a family unit, tends to be something I can not personally agree with. As anyone can imagine, this has deeply affected my interpersonal relationship with my family in a negative impact. As an adult, I have come to my own conclusions about my personal beliefs about life and what those entail for myself. These beliefs are usually the exact opposite of what I grew up with, much to the disappointment of my family which has created a deep divide between us. This has probably affected my relationship with my father the most, as he has always been the most outspoken about his disappointment.

I remember growing up in an area of Atlanta, Georgia called Mechanicsville. This area was very diverse with people from various socioeconomic backgrounds. My mother would always share valuable life lessons with my siblings and me. One, in particular, I remember even to this day is, “Life is only as challenging or motivating as you make it”. I did not quite understand what this meant as a child; but as I got older, I understood what my mother was conveying. Although life for me has been both good and bad, it seemed to be better than my childhood friends. If you knew the real story, you would see that my life is not as perfect as it appears. Just to provide you with a little insight into my world, I had a fatherless childhood, problematic

My family is as close as peas in a pod. I have four siblings; three sisters and a brother. My oldest sister, Brianne, is 23, my second oldest sister, Stacia, is 21, my brother, Kelton, is 18, and my little sister, Shaney, is 12. When I was younger, I never understood why I had to spend so much time with my family. I wanted to be adventurous, do my own thing, and talk to my friends. Whenever we went on family vacations I had a spectacular time, but I took the family time for granted. It seemed like I would have forever to spend with my family. To my young, naïve brain, it seemed like forever would never end. However, forever is not nearly as long as I thought it would be.

When I was eight years old my parents separated, and they got officially divorced when I was twelve. After my parents separated, my mother took on being a single-parent. My father gave up all his rights to my sister and I. Prior to my parents separating, my family was considered upper-middle class. My dad worked as a computer engineer, and my mom was a stay at home mother. After my parents split, my sister and I went from having everything to nothing in a day. My mom had to move back in with her parents until she could find a full-time job and a place for us to live. Because I have seen my mother struggle as a single-mother, I matured a lot faster than most children my age. Even though we struggled with money growing up, my mother always made it a point to go on vacation yearly with my sister and I; I have been to over 30 states because my mom loves to road trip. Additionally, it has always been a family tradition of ours to go to the state fair every year. Because of my family experience growing up, I am very independent. I also learned to appreciate the little things in life. My mom always taught my sister and I that time spent with family is far more valuable than materialistic things. My mother and I are very close to this day, and I will forever be grateful for everything she has done for my sister and me.