Growing up in Maycomb County

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Every second, there are five children born into this world. That is five living, breathing babies that begin to grow and mature the moment they breathe in the Earth’s air. They start off by learning the essentials, talking, walking, and sleeping, however, as they hit five or six years old, these children start to comprehend the world for what it truly is. In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, this theme of growing up, and understanding the world, is present throughout the novel. The book proves that what a child grows up to be like, has a lot to do with their parental figures in life, and how harsh vs. gentle their upbringing was. Moreover, To Kill a Mockingbird also shows that the type of society, or neighborhood that one lives in, affects how children will think of others, and how they behave. For example, if the characters in the novel had developed in a city instead of a town, they would have been entirely altered characters at the end of the book. Not only is it the type of neighborhood that a kid grows up in that affects how they will behave later in life, but it is also the major events that happen during their childhood. Major milestones during a childhood, and things that have a direct impact on a kid’s life also affects how a child will grow up to be like. It is because everything, and everyone around a child affects how they grow up, that parents have to be careful with how much they expose their children to the world.
To begin, the different parental figures that a child has affects not only how a child behaves, but also how they dress, and think. This is proven in the novel with the characters Atticus, Aunt Alexandra, and Calpurnia, and how each one of their different parenting ways affect the children Jem and Scout...

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...e world, because everything they are exposed to will play a major role in what they grow up to be like. Primarily, the parents or the parental figures in a child’s life play the largest role in influencing the behavior and actions of a maturing child. Furthermore, it is also the childhood setting, where the child grows up, and the kind of neighborhood they meander around in that affects the child. If it is a rough neighborhood and the child is exposed to more dangerous realities vs. a calmer neighborhood, then that affects the way a kid will mature. Finally, it is all of the major happenings, and the lessons learned from them that help a child grow into an adult. Therefore, growing up is a great journey that is affected by various things, and at various points in time.

Works Cited

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: Grand Central, Publish. 2010. Print

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