Marriages And Families

Maria Teresa Gomez

Marriages and Families

Final Assignment

I was born in Cali- Colombia. It’s a big town, were I have beautiful memories of my childhood. My maternal Grandparents and my nuclear family hold for me the most beautiful memories. My grandmother died before I was born, but my grandfather lived in our house until his death. My grandmother and my grandfather were married for 10 years until my grandmother died. She died having her son, after my grandfather struggled to care for his farm and children; at that time my mom was 5 years old, and her brother’s were 3 years, and youngest was two months old, my grandfather decided to seek support from his sisters, and sent my mother and brothers to the city with his sisters.

My mother grew up with her aunt and his husband. There she went to the school and got married when she was thirteen and my father was eighteen. Her aunts agreed with their weeding. People married very young at that time. Sometimes when I saw my nuclear family photos, they brought me the most beautiful memories. I grew up around my six sisters and one brother we are large family.

My father took care of his business, while my mother did housework and took care of us. Like “Leave It to Beaver” where the model of the traditional nuclear family was to have the mother role responsible for feeding and caring for the family, while the father provided its members shelter, clothing, food, and others basic necessities. A man providing for his family was part of his masculinity identity. Additionally he was the authority in their house. When we returned from school my mother had a warm food in the table, clean clothes, the house cleaned, and the most important love. When my father came home, my mother took his shoes off rubbing his feet, after my mother served dinner, and before to eat diner my father thanked Jesus for work, food and family.

During we were eating dinner my family had different conversations; my sisters with hers crazy stories about her classmates, teachers, and what they learned through their experiences. In addition my parents with theirs stories about their parents, and grand parents; how they grew up full of values and how happy they were, made dinner more enjoyable.

I remember that for a long time my father's business was not well. My mother and my sisters wanted to work to support him, but my dad did not allow it. He always said, " Women have to finish school because if their husbands are not good, they can stand up by themselves and be independent" so “you be ok my girls.”

Immediately my father found a job, and my mother worked at home doing crafts and paper bags to sell. Despite that bad economy situation, we always had soup before bed and hot chocolate for breakfast, the soup and hot chocolate are still in my mind one of the most beautiful memories, “they were made with love.”

In order to, my grandfather sell his farm and came to live with us. There were great memories about my grandfather. On Saturday night my whole family sat in the living room while my grandfather told different stories about his adventures in his farm and how he raised and trained his horses. His stories also included my Grandmother, and the love that they had. Later, My grandfather was sick my mom took care of him until he died in our house. “In Colombia we don’t have nursing home, Family takes off their parents until they die.” Different than America culture (Pearson 416)

By the time some of my sisters got married and moved to live in US. They freely chose their husbands. Previously, I also got married and had two children; my son and daughter. As I grew up I wanted to have the same family that my grand parents and parents had, but there were difficulties due of the different conflicts surrounding my marriage; one of the biggest conflicts was differences irrelevant, also there others factors of macro level; culture, religion and employment. As a consequence our marriage ended in divorce. “Couples who differ each other in some of these important ways may have different values, norms or experiences.” (Pearson 338)

The court gave me permanent custody of

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