Thoughts and reflections on family

In 2003, Chinese newspapers reported about 10 million children being raised by a single parent or their grandparents due to parental migration for work, and in 2004, approximately 9 million children in the Philippines were going through the same situation. This same pattern was seen in many developing countries in eastern Europe, Asia, South and Central America, and in Africa. Overall, this phenomenon was observed among parents that were considered “lower-skilled workers” and many reports in the last few years share that this situation has slowly grown with time. When forced to choose one or the other, should providing for those you love take priority over healthy family relations? Would you choose to stay with your family knowing that they would live in poverty, or would you leave them to give them the chance to carve a better future for them? What would you abandon and why? I do not believe there are easy answers for these questions, and I do not believe that one answer to be super...

What makes a man? There are, certainly, many traits and values that constitute a man. Today, I wanted to share some of the qualities that I believe every man should possess to have a positive impact as a father. Of course, all the attributes that I will talk about today can also be present in women, but I will be speaking only in terms of men seeing that the framework I will be addressing today is the role of the father in the family. The first two attributes I would like to share some thoughts about are gentleness and toughness. For a father, these attributes should be present in a balance because a father that is only soft, sweet, and mild-mannered at all times would lack the strength of character to bring forth change when needed, either to protect or correct his family. On the other hand, a father that is only tough, strict, and temperamental in every situation would lack the ability to be approachable and provide emotional support and council; he would not be able to be a safe h...

How do you find meaning in a cruel, meaningless world? Is it worth living in this kind of world? If not, then should we cease to exist? These are some of the questions I stumbled upon after look deeper into two feelings that surfaced in class while discussing some of the trends in families nowadays, fear and hopelessness. Throughout the week I decided to investigate both feelings and how they affect families, and I stumbled on, perhaps, some of the strongest concepts caused by these two, Nihilism and Anti-Natalism. Nihilism is, in essence, the belief that life is meaningless. This concept fully embraces the idea that we came into existence out of chance, and that, once our life is over, there is nothing after it. I found hopelessness to be strongly tied to Nihilism because if we are here only by mere chance, and there is no purpose or meaning to our existence, then many things stop being relevant to people, and they simply take the most convenient route to achieve whatever they want....