My Family Has Shaped The Way I View Essay

My genogram has three generations and includes the most important or influential people in my family life. The genogram includes my grandparents on both my dad and mom’s side, my parents, their siblings, and spouses, and on the bottom row, my siblings and I. My family has had unique challenges personally and systematically that created a stronger bond as the years went on. Though, today, we are spread out around the country, our familial connections have been strong overall.

Traditional gender roles are typical roles for men and women based on biological and social differences. The book describes two benefits of traditional gender roles for males as: Higher Income and Other Job Related Advantages and Less Domestic Work and Marital Stress. Men are expected to always provide a stable income for the home. As personal experience in my household, my dad’s paychecks were always higher than my mom’s. He worked as head of security of a grade school making over $3,000+ a month, meanwhile my mom working as a homecare nurse made only $2,000. Because my dad’s income was higher, he was always expected to pay majority of the bills such as rent, cable, lights, car notes, and insurance. My mom paid for the smaller bills such

Today genograms are used in psychology and medical settings to identify the connection between families and identify how members of the family communicate with one another. There are several types of genograms that created for many reasons such as ethical, career, and sexual. This genogram helps an individual map out the connection of their contextual history with their framework. My experience of creating a genogram was an amazing feeling and it helped me discover several factors that occur in life as an adult. The interview with mom helps me to identify a lot of unknown features that can be possible genetically transmitted to my children. During my genogram creation, a few explanations of conflicts were discussed according to family member’s characteristics and beliefs. Discovery of my genogram alerts me with the many personalities that I share with my family. While reading this book I was eager to finish the book because of the interested information that was listed to help me understand my developmental structures.

This paper offers a critical reflection and analysis of my genogram. My family consists of two completely different families thrown together who coexist together without much intermingling. When viewed as one unit, I would describe my family as a loose knit, hardworking, Black middle-class, southern, Christian family. I use the term loose knit because my family is not close at all. We can go months without talking to or seeing each other and there is nothing wrong with that. There have been many times I have been in conversation with family friends and find out information about my family because we do not interact with family members often. The anchor that each of us is close to is our mother, Sandra Smith-Graves.

Genograms are used to graphically represent a family tree and display detailed data on relationships among the individuals included in the family tree. In essence, families are complex systems that interact with kin groups in specific ways, and a genogram helps to show a diagram of a family tree, but also maps out interactions, relationships, traits, and characteristics that may otherwise not be noticed. The purpose of a genogram is to identify and understand patterns in family history which may influence an individual’s personal behavior and traits. Family Systems Theory, presented by Dr. Murray Bowen, suggests that an individual cannot be understood in isolation from their family members. According to Dr. Bowen, the family is an emotional

Mapping out relationships and interactions between a family system can present a visual aspect to assist with understanding the function as a unit. Creating a genogram gives the clients realizations of why family traditions exist and traits that family members pass from generation to generation.

When my grandparents were being raised, they were raised with a Patriarchal state of mind. My grandparents were raised to believe that the men are the “breadwinners” of the home,

Family genograms are essential to discover family history; it helps doctors and therapists to go deeper into an individual’s background to analyze the individual’s mental, physical and behavioral condition. In this paper, I will introduce my family’s genogram information to analyze three generations with events that impacted each generation. These generations include my grandparents, my parents and my own generation of procreation. I will examine the family structure of each generation, the family relational patterns and the critical family life events that took place. I will discuss the role that culture plays in my family genogram in regards of family development, interaction patterns and communication.

My genogram has three generations and includes the most important or influential people in my family life. The genogram includes my grandparents on both my dad and mom’s side, my parents, their siblings, and spouses, and on the bottom row, my siblings and I. My family has had unique challenges personally and systematically that created a stronger bond as the years went on. Though, today, we are spread out around the country, our familial connections have been strong overall.

The genogram provided a visual aid for information, allowing it to be shared and monitored. In synchrony with developments in systemic family therapy such as attention on the process and not just the content of family interactions, the use of genograms broadened according to McGoldrick, et all {2008} a focus on not just generational systems but the systems of various dissimilar/similar characteristics of families such as rules, beliefs, role, structure and secrets.

Similarly, in my culture gender norms were placed upon males needing to “man up,” and women were seen to be housewives. However, my grandmother wasn’t necessarily your average “house wife.” Indeed, she had children, and cooked for her husband but she also was provider as well. Like I mentioned before she worked at a fabric factory, but later applied to work for a hospital as maintenance. Here was a young mother of four stepping outside of the stereotypical norm to work and ensure stability for her family. Exposure to the workforce was very much embedded into the her children’s lives. Seeing both parents provide towards the household demonstrated a sense of equality among both male and female. As previously noted, my grandparents wanted their children to succeed in life so my grandfather always advised them to do more than he ever could. With money being low and my mom being the oldest she was forced to get a job at twelve. My grandfather helped her receive her first job working at a swat meet. With one child making some money, and two parents working they were able to save enough money to buy a house in the 1980’s.

I chose to create my family genogram based on my father’s side of the family because there are varying degrees of closeness, distance, discord and disconnect. I found this interesting because my mother’s family which consists of 13 siblings, 22 in-laws, 60 grandchildren, and close to 30 great grandchildren has a much lower degree of drama and hostility than that of my father’s family.

“From a traditional view some may believe that women should be nurturing towards their family and the male is believed to be head of the household” (Blackstone, 2008:337). In some traditions and culture men believe that women should stay at home, cook, clean and look after the children, while the man is the breadwinner in the household and provides a stable income.

8). The traditional views of gender roles are indeed quite different from the modern views. The men in society are the bread-winners where as the women take care of the children and home. There are basic and common work roles, however in terms of behaviour and involvement there are gender role distinctions. The sex roles generally play out in modern society as well, some sex roles and stereotypes for girls are that they are “nonaggressive, nonathletic, emotionally expressive, tender, domestic, and nurturing. Boys on the other hand are “aggressive, value achievement, attain goals through conflict, and work towards monetary success” (Whicker and Kronenfeld, 1986; pp. 8). The males in the society are “emotionally anesthetised, aggressive, physically tough and daring, unwilling or unable to give nurturance to a child” (Lewis and Sussman, 1986; pp. 1). These traits are carried out by this particular gender mostly outside the society to demonstrate their strength. Those individuals who ignore to carry out these personality traits are seen as weak and unmanly. The women on the other hand are given the responsibility of looking after the family and are supposed to have the opposite personality traits. For instance a woman can show emotions but not outside of the family because of the shame that would bring to the

No one can’t meet a family like mine’s. My family is well diversified. Every family member plays an important role in all my family’s lives. In my family, there are four people: my father, my mother, my little brother and me. My father is one who brings money home and is also responsible for organizing and planning family trips. My mother is the one who is in charge for making meals and makes sure everyone eats at the appropriate times. My little brother is the pet of the family. He actually doesn’t have any responsibilities, for he’s the pet. I am the rock of support in my family. I always go beyond my parents’ expectations. I also support my younger cousins and little brother, by being a role model that they can look up to. Another