Every
culture has their own set of values along with beliefs, norms and symbols to
support those values. I come from a Lebanese and German family with several set
values. It is a part of Lebanese culture to be family oriented and be
supportive of ones family. My family and I greatly value the bond, quality time
and respect we have for one another. As a mixture of the two cultures, they
both have in common the value of religion, which is also greatly valued in my
family. Another value that is shared among many other families experiencing
American Culture is the value of education.
Having values within a culture is extremely important because it is a
commonalty that unites the culture.
The importance of family is the most valued within my
culture and family. We value spending quality time with family, respecting one
another, supporting one another, and maintaining that special bond. I with
socialized with this value at an extremely young age. My parents socialized me
siblings and I by establishing norms in our home to support the value of
family. An example would be our dinnertime routine. Every night for dinner my
mom would cook dinner, my siblings and I set the table and wait for my dad to
return home from work. Once we were all home, we would sit down and have dinner
together. During dinner we would discuss how our days were, share interesting
things we may have learned, and had casual conversation. My parents made it
very clear that this was an essential to our family and that we must always be
home for family dinner. This remained the norm in our family until my twin
brother and I moved away for college. When we return home from college for
breaks and such, we continue with this norm of having dinner together every
night as a family. When comparing this norm and value to others, I realized
that only a handful of cultures do value the importance of quality family time.
I was shocked that not all other families eat dinner together every night, but
instead they would eat whenever convenient for each individual, which usually
resulting in eating alone. It has made me appreciate the relationship I do have
with family and helped me realize the importance of family that the Lebanese
culture values. I hope to carry on this value with future generations in my
family.
The majority of cultures around the world has religious
values and believes in some sort of higher power. In my culture, especially the
American culture, we value religion. Since a young age my parents would take my
siblings and I to church every Sunday, I did my first communion, and we
celebrated all religious holidays. My
mom would have bibles and crosses around our house as symbols of our beliefs.
As I grew older, I began to question how important this value that my culture
held was to me. This caused me to stop doing the norms such as going to church
every Sunday and lead me to not do my eight-grade confirmation, which many
Catholics believed was an important part of being apart of this religion. I
started to reject certain aspects of this cultural value, but decided to keep
others. I still valued and value today that there is a higher power, that it’s
important to maintain a relationship with this higher power, and I still
celebrate Catholic holidays. However, I rejected the idea that I needed to attend
church every Sunday, pledge myself to the catholic religion permanently, and
accept that the only way to be forgiven for sins is by confession. This
decision was not happily accepted by my culture, but has helped shaped me as a
person. It has helped me make decisions based on what’s best for me, regardless
what other may think. It has also allowed me to help me identify who I am as a
person and what is important to myself.
I will continue to make decisions based on what is best for me and not
based on cultural values.
In America, we a told from a young age that in order to
be successful, one must attend college. My parents shared with and were
socialized with it by their parents, teachers and peers as my siblings and I
were. The value of an education has been on a continual increase and
transferred attending college into a norm. In today’s culture it is almost
looked down upon if one does not attend college or some type of schooling after
high school. It has also lead to people believing that the only way to get a
job in order to support ones self and maybe family is by attending college to
get a well paying job. I share this value, which has aided in shaping me as a
person. This value of a higher education and achieving greater things has lead
me to always be craving more out of life and to set high goals for myself,
which has benefited me greatly. This value has also helped lead me to the
decision of applying to medical school, along with several other factors. I
expect that this is remain a value in American culture and plan to eventually socialize
future generations with these norms.
Having specific values and norms within a culture are
important to help members of that culture identify themselves, whether they
reject that value or not. It is also important in bringing the culture together
as one. Having a mixture of cultures I identify with has helped me determine my
identity; mainly through being socialized with each culture’s certain values.
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