I expect that there are more family members in my grandfather’s generation than my father’s generation. Traditions, customs, social mores, and lack of knowledge and technology are the main reasons for such differences. For example, in the 1940s, the Arab media did not educate people of the social consequences of having a big family. In fact, it was taboo to speak about such topics of sex, birth control and family planning. Instead, the more children and wives a man had, the more respected he was in the community. My grandfather had three wives who each had two or three children (a total of 9 children). He was a farmer and considered himself middle class which allowed him to provide a moderate lifestyle for his family. A lifestyle that included the basics services of shelter, electricity, plumbing, food, gas and clothing. He lived in a safe and friendly neighborhood where the men often had social interactions at coffee shops and the mosques to discuss family, religion and social events. The family home was house to all three wives and their children – everyone was of the same Arabic ethnicity. This large family did not have room for any other individuals to live in the household. For the most part, they integrated with other Arabic people and a few Jewish people who lived in the community. My father has a big family as well, but not as big as my grandfather’s. There are six of us. We all lived together: mother, father, and kids. My father, unlike his father, worked for a large manufacturing company where he was a supervisor. He made a decent salary that put him in the middle class of society and allowed him to provide us a comfortable lifestyle for the 1980’s. We had computers, modern televisions, phones, washer and dryers and we owned our home and property. Unlike his father, my father had a high school education,
