Fathers, Finances, and Communcation

 This week was filled with alot of valuable lessons and important issues within the family. Father involvement, finances and communication. I loved learning and studying about the importance of father involvement and how it has been shown to drastically effect childrens development. In my own life I experienced having a very involved father in my early childhood and then having my father become completely univolved in my later childhood. It was interesting for me on how much I could relate to the studies of causes and effects that result. Alot of things I have struggled with through out my life as a result of my father not being involved I was able to see how it was directly related to that. It made me realize how essential that truly is and know that I will do everything I can to ensure that my husband is involved in my future childrens lives. I loved the insight of how the level fatherhood involvement is in many ways determined by the relationship he has with the mother. It was also eye opening that the quality of that relationship is the greatest influence above anything else for a child.  The parent relationship truly is the most important in the family. If that fails, the family fails. If that succeeds the family succeeds. What I gained from learning about fatherhood involvement increased my resolve to always be aware in the future that Im putting my marriage first and my primary focus on nourishing that relationship first. I also found articles that stated when couples are satisfied in their marriage not only is the father more invovled and a better parent, but the mother as well. They are more able to work together and there is a greater sense of unity in the family which is so important for it to grow and flourish. Finances is a big one as we hear all the time that it is the leading cause of divorce. I feel that although it is a sympton leading to that, i dont feel that its really finances that are the cause. In society today we live way beyond our means and are not smart with our money and put too much value on money. Alot of people say that they cant afford alot of essentials but alot of times those same people are still able to buy things that they do not need and most often do and thats why they constantly feel they dont have enough for the essentials. Alot of the problems is communication. Couples dont sit down together often enough and work together through finances and figure out how they can manage their money together and make sure that their making correct decisions together. Money isnt everything, but it is essential to live. And if we arent being smart, because it is so essential it has the power to tear people apart and destroy marriages, but its not because financial stability isnt possible, I feel its most often a lack of communication and poor decision making. If couples would communicate with one another and follow the advice of money managing especially those stated in the "one for the money" article by Elder Aston to: pay an honest tithe; teach children importance of work and earning money, learn how to manage money, live in a home you can affort and involved yourself in food storage , and also learn other methods of proper money managment their wouldnt be the amount of these divorces over fianncial issues today. We all need to take control of our lives and learn how we can be happy doing it. Im grateful for the knowledge im learning now as I know it will help me to be better prepared to know the importance of Fathers involvement in the lives of children, to know the importance of putting my marriage first, to know the importance of money managment and communication so that I can protect my family and marriage from neglecting these issues of what causes the breakdown of so many families. The knowledge is there of what we need to do, and how to do it, along with the experiences and ways we can prepare, protect and preserve our own families now and in the future we just need to seek it, learn it, apply it, and share it.