Raquel+T’s+Final+AmEx+Speech+2016

=Title of Speech!! =

Over the years I have noticed that as we get older and spend more time doing school, homework, sports, or other extracurricular activities, we tend to forget to spend time and focus on the heart of our lives, which are our families. We get so caught up in our busy lives that taking time off to just sit down and have a nice conversation with your family, catching up on what's going on in each other's lives, is a rare opportunity. And don't get me wrong I love my family and care about them a lot but there are definitely some days where I don't get to see or talk to them that much. But I guess that’s expected when you drown yourself with AP classes and play sports year round. Either way, I believe that family is not something to be left behind as we rush into our future. I always try to take all the time I can to spend it with the people I love and even sometimes when I have assignments due and projects to work I blow off those assignments to go mess around and just have fun with family because I would really rather do that than dumb chapter packets.

One of my favorite memories with my family happened last year. I remember on the 4th of July we went over to our cousin's house and spent the whole night talking and laughing and having a crazy fun night. Then my cousin brought out the game catchphrase. I didn't know how to play at first but my sisters and I caught on pretty quickly. We lost the first round, but after that we were winning game after game. It was actually pretty hilarious because Ada and I would use our twin telepathy to tell each other the word or phrase and there was nothing our cousins could do to stop us! And we would use words or references that only we understood and the rest of the family would get super mad. Overall it was the best night I could have asked for and it definitely beat just laying around on the couch scrolling through the endless feed of Instagram. Sitting out in the backyard playing catchphrase with my cousins and family is one of my favorite memories and I will always cherish that moment.

You see, in the America I would like to grow old in, I would like everyone to have moments like those. Moments where you can spend time with your family and not be distracted by school or sports or social media. Moments where you can talk to each other, and listen to each other.

It doesn't have to be a whole dedicated day for this either. Maybe you only have a short amount of time to spend with family. However something as simple as eating dinner together would suffice. According to the Food Marketing Institute, only 40% of American families eat together. Eating meals with your family is good way to spend time with them and it is good for your overall health as well. A study found that teens who have dinner with their families only two times a week or less are twice as likely to take drugs, more likely to be "high stress," more likely to say they are often bored, and less likely to perform well in school than teens who eat with their families 5 to 7 times a week. Of course at the table there must be a positive environment. You can't expect to nurture a healthy relationship if everyone’s sitting in complete silence or if everyone is yelling at each other. But if there is that strong, healthy interpersonal quality between family at dinner, then it is these small moments that can gain momentum to create stronger connections away from the table.

Once we are all going off to college, starting our own lives and becoming involved with the world, it is impossible to come back and visit these old times when we were young and we got to play with our brothers and sisters or with our parents. We cannot return to the days where we would build forts out of sofa cushions or run around the yard with the sprinklers on. So I think we should spend as much time as we possibly can with our families right now because when we are all grown up it is extremely hard to keep that family environment as close as it used to be.

=...= =Sources = The Washington Post Food Marketing Institute