When it comes to web design, form and function need to be separated. In other words, how your web page works (what are sometimes called “back end” elements, like the code that Google analyzes to figure out your search engine placement, or the security code that keeps evildoers from hacking your blog) should be separated from how your web page looks. Why? Because those back end elements need to be updated from time to time. Security evolves, SEO evolves, WordPress evolves, and your page function needs to grow with those things so that everything works the way it should. But the last thing you want is for your carefully designed web page to suddenly look completely different because you updated your WordPress theme. That’s the beauty of a framework. When you click that button to update Genesis, it automatically takes care of all of those security and SEO issues for you. But it doesn’t touch the design of the page, because that’s handled by “child themes.”