Thoughts on week 1

There's a lot of research and statistics done on families, and it's critical to keep in mind that some information out there may not be true for various reasons. We can't assume every graph or table we see is correct and accurate. There are a lot of common challenges like researcher bias, population, control groups, intentionally skewed info, sampling problems, correlation vs. causation, and the list goes on. For credibility on research and statistics we need to look a little further than google search. There are websites, journals, and studies done by professionals and doctors that we can trust more. I've found a lot of great stuff on Proquest, EBSCO, and other sites that have more credible documents.
I think one of the most important reasons why we've been studying how family research is done because, number one, we shouldn't believe everything we see or hear, and second, a lot of these things create myths about marriage and family that aren't true and have the potential to ruin relationships.
Some other interesting research that impressed me was how much cohabitation has increased, people are having fewer children, more marriages are motivated by self-interest and are put off till later in life, 46% of High School teens have premarital sex, mothers are working out of the home more, and divorce rates have gone up and back down in recent years. A lot of this is not too surprising, like the raise in cohabitation. When couples go cohab their chances of going through with an engagement or marriage decreases. We learned that this is mainly because couples who do this are often looking for a relationship that will be low cost high reward. Testing it out and seeing if it'll work for them. The problem with this mentality is that marriage requires work and selflessness, putting the other person above yourself. They are already putting themselves in a me centered frame of mind.
Success in society really stems from the family. An environment where children can learn morals and values from their parents and contribute to the world around them.