This week we learned about the strain and struggle immigration puts on families. I think my eyes and heart we're opened more than they ever have as we did a mock trial of what it would have been like on each member of these families. I have so much more admiration for these families now especially because many actually stay intact despite the complete hardships the family goes through.
So why would these families put their family through such a strain just to come to the US something that must of us take complete entitlement of. Many of these families we're very well off, the father had a high education and a good solid job, but decided to leave all of this so their posterity would have an even better future.
I was reminded of the sacrifice my pioneer ancestors made for me, their posterity, so I could have a better life in the gospel of Jesus Christ. They also left good solid lives, so I could have a better. The most amazing thing though was I never thought of what a strain that must have been in a family dynamic way, of course there is the strain of crossing the plains, but once one starts to research on the emotional strain this puts on families, it opens up a whole other can of worms.
These moves brought to mind a much smaller scale move that my family went through, that although the move was not everything it had an impact. I am the youngest of a large family so sadly most of my facts are hear say, as in I wasn't old enough to have really understood what was going on, but thankfully I have a family that is very open about our struggles and why they may have happened.
So a very huge thing in families is family dynamic and family roles. I was born and grew up for ten years in Snowflake. During this time there was lots of financial hardships on my family, which for any family causes stress and tension mostly on the parents. Well I have an older sister Heidi who even though she was number 5 in our family kind of became the middle child because my parents had   my four older sister super close together and then got tired and started spacing us last three four years apart. So Heidi became not old enough to hang out with the four older sisters and just old enough to be the built in babysitter for us two youngest kids. This kept her home a lot. And when your home a lot you become aware of the way things are handled in the house. Because of the financial strain, and her frequent presence, Heidi was there for a lot of the discussions between my parents. Now heres a pretty blunt judgement. Our family can TALK but can we communicate? Both of my parents can talk for days, but it became Heidi's role to be the communicator. Dad would say something and Heidi would explain it to mom and vis versa. Until the year 2000 when Heidi graduated high school. I'm not sure why but the family decided to move to the valley. And Heidi moved away to college. I remember the morning she left, she came to say by to me while I was still asleep, and she was in tears, saying something about feeling so bad leaving David and I on are very first day of school with all our clothes in boxes. She felt a great deal of responciblity for us, her role had become one of the parents.. or both.. the in-between parent that even helped my parents. A couple years late my parents divorced. Now this may be a serious crime of hasty generalization that I have just committed. But i only do so to shed some light on how much affect family dynamic and roles have on a family.