Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines culture as "The integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations." So, with that in mind, how can one carefully choose the aspects of one's culture to keep, and how do we perpetuate those into coming generations? Times are changing, society is changing, families are changing, almost everything is different today than it was hundreds of years ago. Because cultures are typically passed down from generation to generation in a society, the things they started doing in the past are not going to be relevant, impactful, or beneficial to the people in the present. Change in inevitable- and often needed- in order to grow and develop, and families might have to do things different than their ancestors to achieve that growth; it shouldn't be looked down upon. If parents can carefully examine their cultures- the negatives and positives about it- and in what ways it has influenced them, then they can make decisions about wanting to continue certain aspects of those cultures or perpetuating other aspects of it. I've noticed that when it comes to perpetuating parts of culture within a family, the parents are doing it for the benefit of the children, which is so important! I believe that a person is influenced more by the experiences they've had instead of where they're from. If a family can block our and remove negative culture behavior, they all will be able to have better experiences that will better influence them.
The same can be said for traditions. This is how Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines tradition: "An inherited, established, or customary pattern of though, action, or behavior (such as a religious practice or social custom)." Tradition and culture are very similar to each other. The biggest difference between the two is tradition is more family based, where culture is more society based and tradition doesn't have to start so far back in the past like culture does (an immediate family could start and establish their own traditions). Both can have significant influences on an individual person or family group though. The question about which aspects of culture should be kept or perpetuated, can be asked about traditions as well: which traditions encourage the best in families and individuals, and which might be best discarded? Some traditions that my family has (or had when I was growing up) includes eating dinner together every night, visiting family members on Sunday's, having specific activities around certain holidays, reading the scriptures and praying together every night, and lots of other things that include spending time with one another. These traditions truly encouraged me and my family members to be our best and grow closer together. I can confidently say that I have such a good relationship with my parents and siblings because of these traditions. Something that's really cool about some of my family traditions, is that my parents had those traditions when they were growing up. They were able to see the positive impact of them and they decided together which ones would help us kids to grow closer together and become a stronger family. Although I've had such positive experiences with the traditions in my family, there are often traditions that could be seen as unnecessary and unbeneficial. These traditions, obviously, are the ones that should be discarded. I would say, if you can't find a specific reason why a tradition is being practiced, it should be discarded or perhaps modified so it can have a more positive influential reason for existing. It ultimately is up to each individual family to decide which traditions encourage the best in the family and individuals of the family and which traditions are best discarded.
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