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Roles in the Family

We all grow up believing that everyone in the family has a certain role, but what happens when that role in your family is different than the role in a different family? That has happened in my family actually and I've had people think it wasn't normal, but to me it was normal.

In many families the father is the provider for the family and the mother is the care taker of the children. In my family that isn't the case. My parents switched roles when I was about a year old because my father hurt himself at work and wasn't able to work anymore. My mother went to work to provide for the family and my father stayed home and took care of us kids.

Many families the kids are closer to the mother because she stays home with the kids during the day while the father is providing for the family at work. The kids just have more of a relationship with the mother then with the father. That wasn't the case for me, I was closer to my father only because he was always home when I would get home from school and he would help me with anything. My mother on the other hand was still a great mother and I have a relationship with her it's just not as strong as the one with my father.

There is a document called "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" in this document it talks about the roles in the families. It states, "Fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children."

Don't get me wrong my father does protect and preside over the family, but he doesn't provide in a normal way. The way my father provides for his family is cooking us hot meals on freezing cold days. Or cold meals on blazing hot days. My father does everything around my house and he doesn't complain about it. My mother does nurture her children. When she isn't at work she is with her children trying to grow a relationship with them and help in anyway that she can.

My role as a sister had changed because I'm the youngest of 4 and my older siblings are brothers. Growing up I wasn't bonding/getting along with the other girls because the things they did in my opinion were boring. I was always playing the games the boys were and I thought it was fun. That was a little challenging when I started making friends who were girls because non of the guys ever cried and some of my girl friends would cry. I was so uncomfortable when they would cry because I had no idea how to help them (I'm getting better though). The only way I knew how to stop them from crying was to make them laugh at something I said so I would just say something that would make them laugh, but sometimes that wasn't what the girl needed/wanted. Sometimes they just needed a hug and to be told that it was going to be okay, but I wasn't ever that girl to do those things. I was more of a listener to what was happening and telling them my opinion on what to do even though I had no experience in what they were going through.

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