Broadly speaking, culture is a set of values or beliefs that each individual has as a guide in order to be able to live and get accepted in a society. Mostly, culture is simply interpreted as values that are related to art, which it is indeed an art of a life guidance that are passed down from generations to generations. Culture itself will encompass social behavior, norms, habits, laws, and many more. Although, "it is more interesting to get to know what motivates people to engage in one action rather than another".
According to Samovar, how a member of a culture sees the world is formed by their culture's deep structure. There are three most influential social organizations that may influence how we behave, such as family (clans), state (community), and religion (worldview). In essence, our very first socialization towards culture and the fundamental values and attitudes are mostly socialized through our family. Most of us are thinking that the fundamental values and attitudes that are being passed down to them comes from their extended family. The reality is, as the era changes, I am sure that there are some parents or families that are not passing down culture entirely to their child. In fact, my mom is one of those people.
It is explained as the era changes overtime, globalization has changed how traditional families are passing down the cultural values and attitudes and parenting style toward the next generations must have adjusted following the recent era. By that, the traditional cultural values that have been there do not need to be cut out, otherwise, it needs to be adjusted a little bit. One of the cultural values that dominated my mom's childhood is that my mom has been taught that men are more centered and usually will be very pampered by their parents, specifically, patriarchy is the word to spell out. Contrarily, women are the one who will do all the chores, such being a wife and a mother that is usually understood by serving all the members of the family. Turns out, my mom is quite conflicted with that cultural value since we should generalize gender equality these days. Since I was a child, my mom has always taught me that a woman should be able to take care of their family in any way and stand on her own feet, an independent woman. All the house chores can be done by hiring a household assistant, yet the influential part is they need to make memories with their family such as preparing breakfast everyday, cooking our favorite meals, being a comfortable place to call 'home', and many more memories. A woman should be able to position herself in a family where she feels comfortable and safe in the time she also fulfills the responsibility of being a wife, mom, and friend in a family.
Another cultural value and attitude from my mom that she learned from her parents is the connection in the family usually only limited to parents-child which makes it very rigid and tendency of not having the time to have a small talk or quality time. When my mom passed down the cultural values to her child, she changed the values entirely, instead she chose to be a friend to her child where she will be taking a chapter and stepping in any phase her child is at. My mom always tries to have a quality talk frequently and consistently. By that approach, her children are more likely to open up to talk about their social life, problems, trouble when doing work, consultation for life advice, and many more.
Making a decision has always come to be the hardest thing for everyone when each option is very risky and has to be thought carefully. In fact, as a child who is still in their adolescence stages, it is very important on how our way of thinking toward something is being shaped or formed. Moreover, having any additional consideration, insight, or experience explained from another person could be very important and appropriate. Back then, my mom did not get sufficient knowledge, insight, or motivation which made her very rattled to do any activities or decision-making. The cultural values that she chose to pass to her children is that she provided sufficient knowledge in order to educate her children so the children are more likely able to conceptualize the big picture of life. For example, when me and her are having a conversation about a problem, she will provide me insights either from her experience or her consideration.
Completely, she believed, by passing down the cultural values and attitudes that have been adjusted from her to her child will benefit her children one day. Simply, she wants an environment where all members of the family are open to each other and able to assess anything independently by having sufficient knowledge and supported by their parents. "The social institutions of family, state, and religion carry the messages that matter most to people.".
Ref.
Samovar, L, A., Porter, R, E., McDaniel, E, R., & Roy C, S. (2017). Communication between cultures. 9th ed. Boston: Cengage Learning.
