My Family Culture

Family values play a great role in the upbringing of a person with devotion and dedication. A person can never be complete without the significant family values. For a person like me, family values and culture is extremely imperative. However, there are certain times in life when a person has to make choices between the family culture and values, and some natural catastrophic incident. This essay discusses the state where I have to decide between a natural life situation and possessions of my family culture.

Our country has lately been affected with a natural calamity, which has completely devastated the infrastructure of the country. The government has set some emergency plans to decide that the citizens, who have luckily survived must be best served and saved. For this purpose, they have planned that the people must be relinquished willingly as refugees. Fortunately or unfortunately, I and my family are among those survivors, who have faced the catastrophic state, but are still alive. We have no idea where we are going, what religion or culture we would be seeing and experiencing there. All we know is that the basic grounds of culture are totally different from what our culture is. It is possible that we may be living for the rest of lives in the host country. The government’s emergency plan has a policy that every person can take three items with them. In this case, the decision is quite difficult, as I cannot think of losing the asset of my family culture with a mere decision. However, I have decided to take the three things that are most valuable to me, as a representation of my family culture.

The first and the most important thing I decided to take is a folder, where I am used to keep my father’s pictures and obituary in. as I have been raised by my mother only and have never seen my father, I really feel his absence in my life. My father died before my birth, and I was never being able to see him. All I have saved are his pictures and some important stuff related to his obituary. Since this folder has always been dear to me, I want to keep it with me at any cost.

The second important object I want to take with me is a jewelry box of my grandmother that contains traditional African jewelry. It was very precious to my mother and to me as well, as my mother had given that to me. I am the only grandchild in the family, and so the gift from my grandmother is dear to me.

The third important object is the family picture photograph album that contains the photographs of my ancestors. This is significant to me, as it contains the photographs of my great grandparents, grandparents, parents, and me. I really do not want to lose this precious album that is why I want to keep it wherever I go. Unfortunately, the government policy has announced that we can only keep one item when we will reach there, as this is the policy of the host country. I have to decide what I want to keep with me, and the other two things will be dropped. In this regard, I will keep the folder of my father.

This event made me understand the importance of my family values and culture and made me feel that there is no replacement of family. We can live in any part of the world, in any culture, with many differences, but the significance of family cannot be replaced with anything. This essay has discussed the importance of my family values and the three traditional objects of my family that are dear to me.


References

Damewood, C (2014) “African American Family Values” Love to Know Family, Data retrieved from http://family.lovetoknow.com/african-american-family-values on September 11, 2014

 Family Focus (2007) “Families and Social Class” National Council on Family Relations, Data retrieved from https://sociology.sas.upenn.edu/sites/sociology.sas.upenn.edu/files/National_Council_of_Family_Relations.pdf on September 11, 2014