The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as a state of complete physical, social, and mental well-being, but not only the absence of disease and physical defects (Ray, 2016). The culture of health in any society is a part of the society’s vision, and family relations are of great importance for people’s health. The favorable moral and psychological climate of the family positively affects the health of its members.
The statistics show that in such families, people are less sick and live longer (Duncan & Goddard, 2017). At this point, the family is understood as the union of persons based on marriage or kinship and characterized by a commonness of life, interests, mutual care, help, and moral responsibility. The cultural heritage of the family concerns all the aspects of a person’s life, including spiritual well-being that is connected with intellect and emotions, social welfare that reflects social ties and interpersonal contacts, and physical well-being that is associated with the biological capabilities of a person and the state of his or her body.
Integrity and spiritual health are the key factors that promote family value. The values proposed in childhood and adolescence by the family members and related to the sphere of moral, ethical, religious, and other principles determine their further behavior in life, including the attitude to health and relationships. Thus, to create, maintain, and protect a healthy family, it is important to adhere to a healthy lifestyle, in which there will be a spiritual culture, a healthy psychological climate, and cultural enrichment (Kaakinen, Coehlo, Steele, Tabacco, & Hanson, 2014).
The family members are to learn their family traditions, understand the importance of the family in the life of a person, and master the norms and ethics of relationships with parents and other family members. The main task for parents is the formation of a child’s moral attitude toward his or her health, which is expressed in the desire and the need to be healthy and create one more healthy family (Ray, 2016). It is essential to realize that health is the most important value as it is the main condition for achieving any life goal, and everyone is responsible for maintaining and strengthening one’s health.
If adults teach children to appreciate, cherish, and strengthen their health from an early age and act as an example to demonstrate a healthy lifestyle, then the future generations will be more healthy and developed not only personally, intellectually, spiritually, but also physically. As it can be observed from the assessment of the three families, despite different ethnic and religious backgrounds, it is possible to develop and maintain family heritage by supporting all the cultures presented in the family (Ray, 2016).
For example, the Russian wife and the African husband may introduce characteristics of both cultures into their family life, so that their children would know both languages and participate in holidays. More to the point, it should be noted that the modern world driven by globalization processes tends to unite more and more people from different countries. Therefore, it is important to consider family heritage restoration, focusing on the ethnicities and religions involved in the family. A clear vision of the situation and understanding of each other’s cultural needs will contribute to the preservation and transition of cultural peculiarities from generation to generation. Otherwise, the case of the second interviewee shows that the lack of efforts to support family values leads to disintegration and steady loss of contacts with relatives.
References
Duncan, S. F., & Goddard, H. W. (2017). Family life education: Principles and practices for effective outreach (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Sage Publications.
Kaakinen, J. R., Coehlo, D. P., Steele, R., Tabacco, A., & Hanson, S. M. H. (2014). Family health care nursing: Theory, practice, and research. Philadelphia, PA: FA Davis.
Purnell, L. D. (2014). Guide to culturally competent health care (3rd ed.). Philadelphia, PA: FA Davis.
Ray, M. A. (2016). Transcultural caring dynamics in nursing and health care (2nd ed.). Philadelphia, PA: FA Davis.