When I hear the word tradition, I also think of the word culture. What is the difference? The main difference between culture and tradition is that traditions describe a group's beliefs and behaviors that are passed down from one generation to another. Culture describes the shared characteristics of the entire group. Think of your family's culture; the traditions, habits, practices, and values your family has. What about your family's culture is important to you?
I can think of my own family and what I love about our culture that I will want to keep when I have my own family. The first thing that came into my head was dinner time. In my family growing up, eating dinner all together was an important part of the day. If dad had to work later, we would push dinner back, if one of us kids had a practice we would work around the schedule to make sure we were all eating dinner together at the end of the day. I feel like this tradition was a good practice as a family, because we got to tell each other how our days went or talk about how the rest of the week would look. Or even just have good meaningful conversations!
Another piece of culture, I would like to perpetuate is keeping close relationships with extended family members. Growing up I spent a lot of time with my cousins, mostly on my mom's side because of where we lived. My mom would see her sister, sisters-in-law, and mom once a
week. They had a set time, they would get together and they would rotate who's house they would go to that week. Some people might think that is too much time spent with extended family, but as a kid I loved it! I grew to love my cousins as my own siblings. We are very close to this day because of that tradition my Grandma, aunts, and mom loved to do! I am sure if we all still lived in the same state, we would still do it! Not only did we see each other once a week growing up, but on holidays we would see each other a lot. My grandparents are divorced so we (all of my mom's blood siblings and their kids) basically had 2 separate holiday parties to attend together. It was always fun to see my family more often during the holiday season.
There are some traditions that I grew up with that I would improve or set aside even. For example, education was always something my parents wanted us to excel in. They pushed hard for u
s to go to college and get a degree, since they never had the money or opportunity to get an education as a young adult (my mom just graduated from college a year ago). I would set aside that tradition or expectation for my own kids, because I do think education is important but you can receive an education without a degree. Most of my brothers and my dad have amazing jobs because of them working a trade job (mostly due to the military). I want that tradition of "getting a bachelor's degree is the only way to be successful in life" to be set aside as I have my own family someday.
Another piece of culture that I would improve from my family growing up is how often we moved. I have lived in 8 different states and I am only 21 years old. That is not including all the different houses/apartments we lived in or each city we bounced around to. You could say, making friends was hard when you lived in the area for a short time. I had though we finally settled down when we stayed in Sumner Washington for about years, but we moved my Freshman year of High School...
I want my kids to have some roots they feel like they can come back to. Whether that is the people or the city. I grew up feeling like all I had was a family, and I know how important it is to have friends in the world who truly know you. Or to have a place to call home.
Think about your family, and what you can change or improve about the culture you grew up in. Or the things you love about you family culture that you want to keep alive
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