Culture is very valuable to our family life.
It is something that has been instilled in us for generations and will always be a part of our lives. It is a tradition. Like many traditions has been done for generations, we might have a turkey at thanksgiving, and Christmas, or we might just cook a big dinner on Sunday’s, and invite everyone over to eat together. There are different kinds of cultures.
It can be the things we do or the different types of people in the world. We have so many cultures; we may iron our clothes on the same day of the week or have a family meeting on the same day and month of the year.There are traditions we learn from our parents that our children will teach their children. I remember I would put my son to bed at eight o’clock on a school night.
Now he does the same thing with his children. This is why culture is so important; it will be a part of everyone’s life for many generations to come. These are some of the traditions that our family do. We come together from near and a far; we cook; we eat; we sing; and we play games, such as dominoes, spades, bid whiz and zip.
These traditions were passed down to us, and we will pass them to our children. Values are the base of a family. Going to school and getting a good education, are not what some families instill in their children. In our home that was expected of us, and nothing less.
In one of the stories we read in class called the “The Pack, three young men grew up in a poor and broken homes, getting an education was not part of their culture, but they broke that trend and make a pack to all go to college together, and become doctors”.They were very determined young men who wanted to show the world it’s not where you come from, but what you want out of life. They went from rags to riches. In most families church was something that a lot of people, wouldn’t raise their families to do.
Our family had to go to church every Sunday, sing in the choir, and attend Baptist training at night. Sometimes we were also in church on week nights. This is a part of my culture and will always be, I still sing today and I instil1ed those same values in my son.I took him to church every Sunday, and now he takes his children to church.
In many cultures, their food at holiday time is very different, and their way of life is also different from the way we celebrate our holiday. The kinds of food Italian’s cook for instants are sausages peppers and onions, pizza, pasta, meat balls, and calzones. Chinese’s have their kind of dish like pepper steak, loin mien, fried rice, and many other dishes. In our home we have mustard greens, turkey and dressing, some have stuffing and we also have yams, rolls, pecan pies, cakes and punch, or ice tea.
We set our table up like buffet style, let everyone fin for themselves the reason is, there are so many of us that we all can’t sit around the table together. In the painting by “Norman Rockwell” this family could all sit around the table with their fine china and eat together as a family around the table because it was not a large family. There are so many ways, for a family to celebrate their holiday. In many culture, some of them, like to try new kinds of food, and sometime we marry into different cultures, which would make us start a new culture by putting our traditions together.
In the “Celebration of Thanksgiving which is one of the stories we read, a couple from two different culture got married she stated that our thanksgiving holiday, even now, is a complicated compromise, a negotiation of northern taste buds, southern desires, and Italian expectations. ” There is a way to compromise, in any culture if we just work together. The reason culture, is so important is, without it we would not have any traditions or no structure, our life’s, would have no meaning. We need traditions; we need to have values that can be pass down from one generation to another.
We learned, how to sit down and eat dinner as a family, we also learned how important values are in families, in this story “The Table Rituals they stated childhood memories often influence people’s opinion about the importance of family dinners. Also that family dinner is a time when families, can be together and talk, that’s when family bonding starts. ” That is when, our family, bonds the most is at a family gathering. When we catch up on everything, talk about old times, that is why family is so important and the culture we come from.
