PSYCHO-SOCIAL THOUGHTS ON DEATH

Undoubtedly death and dying have been institutionalized in the United States. This has affected how we grieve and how we deal, or don’t deal, with death in general. Not so long ago the average person died in his/her home surrounded by family and friends. This was part of the grieving process and death was accepted as a part of life.
In my family death is an open subject and it is looked at as part of life. By looking at death in this manner, there is less fear. While it is hard to not fear the unknown, talking about the unknown and the fact that everyone, no matter who they are, will face this unknown makes the subject easier to deal with when it occurs.
Even my young children understand that death is part of life. I do not want them to become desensitized to death and take the human element out of a very human fact. At a very young age, most children begin asking questions about death. It is a common occurrence in everyday life; whether it is a death of a person, a death of an animal life, or even a death of a plant. To ignore a child’s questions about death, not only desensitizes him/her, it does not teach them how to cope with death.
Additionally, by institutionalizing death, we have increased the commercialization of the grieving process. While we are afraid to talk about death before or when it happens, we are not afraid to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars during the grieving process. That is how we deal with death; we throw money at it and those who cannot afford to spend thousands of dollars on a funeral are made to feel as if they have failed their loved one somehow. We are not afraid to make donations to help someone give a loved one a burial. We are not afraid to make our own arrangement, financial and otherwise, for our own death, but we are afraid to discuss death itself. I find that a bit strange.
My family takes the opinion that our funerals should be carried out in the cheapest legal means possible and that the majority of the grieving process needs to focus on connecting with those left behind, not on how our dead selves can be shown how much we were loved by the amount of money spent on our funeral.
Discussion questions:
1. How do you feel that death should be explained to children?
2. What is the best way to deal with the death of a loved one and the grieving process? And does spending a lot of money, really help people cope with death?

When men and women hit the point in their life called "mid life" they express themselves in different ways. We learned in class that men go out and buy the fancy sport cars and women have the plastic surgery done, this is if they can afford it. It's funny because a week after we learned about this in class my dad went out and bought a Harley that he has always wanted and I asked my mom why now? She told me that he has always wanted one and if she didn't let him do it now he would be too old and he had the money from recently selling his business. This makes sense that he purchased it after both of his children have moved away for college and he doesn't have to hull us around because we all know there isn't much room on a motorcycle except for him, which I think was his plan.

The Story of American Life

The American dream at one point in time was the ultimate fantasy for families migrating to the United States. However through out history, even if a person or persons has exceeded into the United States as a legal U.S. citizen they are not treated as such. The clip in class regarding the aliens in south africa touched on this issue. If someone is not born here, but knows that a better life is in America, or in the Aliens case earth, then why would they not want to try and move. When Immigrants try and begin their lives in the United States, they begin to try and fit into the norms of what our culture has developed. Since we see that they do not know how to act and behave to become an "excepted" U.S. citizen we begin to classify and use them. The clip demonstrated this through its website. The employeement opportunities for "aliens" were very poor quality jobs that humans new no body wanted. Since this is the only type of empolyeement humans offered to the aliens, they wanted to fit into society and expect these jobs to try and make it into our culture. Immigrants our no different from us, and if they travel to the United States in search of a better life and demonstrate that they can complete tasks and jobs in our society, what gives us the right to pick and choose their opportunities and income values. Just because most Americans are born with endless opportunities does not give us the right to stop others from different places to access these chances too.

Discussion Questions:

1. Is it right to deny a person of the same opportunties you have had as a U.S. citizen because they are not from America?

2. Can you describe a time in which you witnessed an immigrant being taken advantage of due to their status?

3. What can we do as U.S. citizens to fix this problem?

Alive in Joburgh, MNU

When first watching this YouTube video to be quite honest I was really confused on what was actually going on. Then looking at the MNU website, I was thinking who has this much time on their hands to make up this site. After discussing more about things in class it started to gel together.
This video can be used for educational purporses to show how it relates to how we treat immigrants and minorities everywhere. In the U.S. I feel that this could be very useful. We say we treat people equally, but just until this past year we have an African American President. We need to open our eyes more and not stop judging people by the way they look. This problem is not just in our country it is everywhere. If everyone could use a tool like this to show how we treat "aliens" maybe then it would be a start to stop what we do with the generations to come. This website and video could be used to show how people are treated, and how we as a society let it happen.

Discussion Question
1. If you watched this short clip on YouTube would now show it to others, or even your children?

2. If you answered yes to the question above, would you then explain to them what is actually going on in this clip, and how we as a nation judge others?

American Family vs. Economic Status

Today in the United States much emphasis is placed the value of hard work and what that hard work can get. Everyone, except the very young and the very old, is expected to have a job in order to be a contributing member of our capitalist and materialistic societ. Though our culture values family, women and men that decide to be stay-at-home parents or spouses are viewed as having less value than other working women and me.

Our society also expects Americans to show their contribution to capitalism other way. Displaying ownership or usage of the latest fashions in clothing, technology and entertainment give Americans status and popularity within our culture. Owning the latest video game console or attending the rock concert of the year is a mark of social and economic superiority.

This atmosphere of keeping up with the Jones’ exacerbates the very presence of materialism within our society. Americans have been socialized to desire the attention and status that they receive from their display of wealth. This desire in some cases will even override people’s logical sense of safety, financial security and health. Paying the electric bill or eating healthy foods takes a back seat to buying DVD’s and new clothes. This failing of logic demonstrates the imbalance between the American values of good health and happy family and the American ideal of wealth.

Discussion Questions:

What other American values are contradicted by the American ideal of attaining economic status?

In what other ways is American society influenced by materialism in our culture?