Being a single mother of two kids is much more difficult than it seems, being a mother with two kids and a abusive ex husband who won’t pay for child support is unimaginably difficult, now being a single mother with two kids, an abusive ex husband who isn't paying for child support, and working over 15 hours a day to support her two kids seems impossible for most, but my mother? She was in that exact position and only got through the troubles because of her strong will to live and love for me and my older sister which encouraged her to work hard to make enough money to ensure me and my sister have a future. In the book “Krik? Krak!” by Edwidge Danticat, the theme of how the love of family encourages people to survive through times of hardships, …show more content…
In “Caroline’s Wedding”, Caroline’s mother shows how love of family encourages her to survive through the breaking of tradition for her daughter's happiness. “Caroline too was going to get married whether Ma wanted her to or not. That night, maybe got the first time, I saw a hint of this realization in Ma’s face. As she raised her comforter and slipped under the sheets, she looked as if she were all alone in the world, as lonely as a woman with two grown daughters could be. ‘We’re not like birds,’ she said, her head sinking into the pillow. ‘We don’t just kick out children out of our nests.’” (Danticat, 145). A mother who chooses her daughter’s happiness over her family tradition was only made possible through the encouragement of love for family over love of tradition. Shown in the quote is that Caroline’s mother had always followed tradition through her life in Haiti but once her daughter and her move to America and her daughter falls in love with a non-haitian man (which is going against tradition of marrying a haitian), Caroline’s mother first is hesitant to accept the marriage but in the end, her love for her daughter over throws her love for tradition and she finally agrees to allow the
...promising dreams, relationships often fall apart under strain from unemployment, drug and alcohol abuse, imprisonment, conflict and betrayal. Finally, we get to the heart of what marriage means to these mothers and why they say that successfully raising children is the most important job they will ever have. Almost all of the women said things like “It’s only because my children that I am where I am today.”
She would mostly be alone and sit by herself being buried in books or watching cartoons. In high school she attended a program for troubled adolescents and from there she received a wide range of support from helping her get braces to helping her get information to attend community college. (59) Even with this she was already too emotionally unstable due to her family issues and felt like she couldn’t go through with her dreams to travel and even go into the art of culinary. She suffers from psychological problems such as depression and worries constantly about almost every aspect in her life from work to family to her boyfriend and just hopes that her life won’t go downhill. (60) Overall Kayla’s family structure shows how different is it now from it was in the 1950’s as divorce rates have risen and while before Kayla’s type of family structure was rare now it is becoming more common. This story helps illustrate the contributions of stress that children possess growing up in difficult homes in which they can’t put their own futures first they must, in some cases, take care of their guardian’s futures first or others around them. Again, this adds into the inequality that many face when it comes to being able to climb up the ladder and become successful regardless of where one
Anna Quindlen’s short story Mothers reflects on the very powerful bond between a mother and a daughter. A bond that she lost at the age of nineteen, when her mother died from ovarian cancer. She focuses her attention on mothers and daughters sharing a stage of life together that she will never know, seeing each other through the eyes of womanhood. Quindlen’s story seems very cathartic, a way of working out the immense hole left in her life, what was, what might have been and what is. As she navigates her way through a labyrinth of observations and questions, I am carried back in time to an event in my life and forced to inspect it all over again.
No matter what actions or words a mother chooses, to a child his or her mother is on the highest pedestal. A mother is very important to a child because of the nourishing and love the child receives from his or her mother but not every child experiences the mother’s love or even having a mother. Bragg’s mother was something out of the ordinary because of all that she did for her children growing up, but no one is perfect in this world. Bragg’s mother’s flaw was always taking back her drunken husband and thinking that he could have changed since the last time he...
She was my only support system and took on the responsibility of caring, disciplining, and raising me in ways that my mother could not. My older sister ensured that I completed my tasks at school and at home. Being only a year apart and aware that I was growing up right beside her, she made it her priority to do her best academically to demonstrate the importance of education[an aspect that we were not raised to value]. She was my inspiration to become college bound and to take advantage of the resources at my school. I learned how to be resourceful and utilize the outside programs to improve my academic performance to compensate for my high school’s inadequacy. The hardworking qualities that have been instilled in me by my older sister have helped me get into UCLA, but witnessing my mother struggle is what further motivates me to obtain a college
This was the illustration of this entire story. As the story goes it present a lot perspective and though of the mother and very little of the girl. More importantly, the story shows that the mother doesn’t really care about how the girl feels about her advice; it wasn’t a choice either she take her advice and become a good daughter and a good wife in the future or she will become known a “slut” who doesn’t follow her tradition. This story will make you wonder if the girl will ever become the perfect girl that her mother wants her to be or if she gets use to the American tradition and not be the perfect girl her mother ought her to
Life has plenty of harsher circumstance where attention should be focused on. Not all that comes out of divorce hurts. Of course, divorce is no fun at times, but once families settle, the freedom of the family allows for a peaceful home. When Kingsolver’s daughters friends tell her they are sorry that she is a part of a divorced family, she replies with a giddy answer, “Our house is in the country, and we have a dog, but she can go to her dad’s neighborhood for the urban thrills of a pool and sidewalks for roller-skating. What’s more she has three sets of grandparents!” (Kingsolver, 2014, p. ?). What better than to have two homes, to live in the country, and have three sets of grandparents? Children of divorce, along with the parents, face hardship, but once freed from the bondage of marriage, separation allows the children to mature in a safe environment, and to enjoy both sides of the family. Sadly, divorce rates have grown in the past decade, but the families are finding opportunities to make the best for their children and themselves. Should the attention then be focused on something with a need of help? Yes. Kingsolver claims, “The number of children in the U.S. living in poverty at this moment is almost unfathomably large: twenty percent.” (Kingsolver, 2014, p. ?). If the
In Mary’s household, her two sons and daughter are dependent on her. Mary is head of the household and is currently going through a divorce. Mary is close to losing her house, car, and internet services. She hires babysitters for the days/nights that she has to work. Her children know that times are tough, and continuously encourage their mother. However, her son Quinn is dealing with the divorce and poor living in
...ey have surrounded her with. She longs for a deeper connection with her past, but she realizes this is not to be, at least not as far as her family is concerned. She must adhere to the role of the loyal daughter as it has been established through many generations, and strive not to shame the family as her aunt did many years ago.
Marie, who is a product of an abusive family, is influenced by her past, as she perceives the relationship between Callie and her son, Bo. Saunders writes, describing Marie’s childhood experiences, “At least she’d [Marie] never locked on of them [her children] in a closet while entertaining a literal gravedigger in the parlor” (174). Marie’s mother did not embody the traditional traits of a maternal fig...
In the essay “Suitcase Lady” by Christie McLaren, she proves that even people you least expect to be successful can be. Although the main character may not be successful in the business aspect, she is successful! She may be in an uncomfortable situation but as she states here: “I...always try to do the best to help people- the elderly, and kids, and my country, and my city of Toronto, Ontario” (5). Even though she is homeless, she still is relatively happy and she is respectful of other people, making her successful. However, she is unsuccessful when it comes to her family. The suitcase lady seemed to have struggled with money for quite sometime making it hard for her to start a family, “We never got along well because I didn’t bring him up. I was too poor. He never called me mama” (4). She seems quite upset about the fact that her own son and her do not get along. She clearly does love her child but she had a hard time making sure he had a high quality of life so she had to give him away. Therefore, she is unsuccessful with her family, making her lack the happiness she
When I was born, my mother breast fed me for two weeks, I stayed in the hospital room with her instead of going to the nursery, and she was home with me for the first five years of my life. My father worked and my mother tended to the home, with the help of her mother and grandmother. I ate Gerber baby jarred food and my mother read to me every night. My family did not adhere to many other cultural norms however. It was culturally expected that a husband and wife would have a home, with stable jobs and an established relationship before having children. My father was eight years my mother’s senior, and my mother was only 18 when I was born. My mother never earned her high school diploma. My parents were married the month before I was born. My father worked in construction and had a criminal record. Every single one of these descriptions violates the cultural norms of where I grew up in North Carolina. Although my story starts to sound a lot like a Lifetime movie, my mother defied all odds to provide a safe and secure haven for me. “When they sense that a parent is consistent and dependable, they develop a sense of basic trust in the parent” (Crain, 283). I could rely on my parents and trust that they would be there to take care of me which lead to my development of “the core ego strength of this period: hope” which emerges from the child developing a favorable balance of trust over mistrust. “Hope is the expectation that despite frustrations, rages, and disappointments, good things will happen in the future” (Crain, 285). My mother is the living embodiment of that sentiment. As early as I can remember, I can remember her insistence that as long as we were together, we were
As the youngest of five children she was often overlooked. The pride of the family often overrode the opportunity to receive health care, handouts and a decent chance to become something. My mother spent her childhood in a tiny house with her family and many relatives. She was never given the opportunities to excel in learning and life like my generation has. My grandfather was a carpenter and on that living fed many hungry mouths. But despite this already unfortunate lifestyle my mother maintained good grades and was on a path to overcoming her misfortune.
“There is no perfect relationship. The idea that there is gets us into so much trouble.”-Maggie Reyes. Kate Chopin reacts to this certain idea that relationships in a marriage during the late 1800’s were a prison for women. Through the main protagonist of her story, Mrs. Mallard, the audience clearly exemplifies with what feelings she had during the process of her husbands assumed death. Chopin demonstrates in “The Story of an Hour” the oppression that women faced in marriage through the understandings of: forbidden joy of independence, the inherent burdens of marriage between men and women and how these two points help the audience to further understand the norms of this time.
While in school, Mom didn’t have it easy. Not only did she raise a daughter and take care of a husband, she had to deal with numerous setbacks. These included such things as my father suffering a heart attack and going on to have a triple by-pass, she herself went through an emergency surgery, which sat her a semester behind, and her father also suffered a heart attack. Mom not only dealt with these setbacks, but she had the everyday task of things like cooking dinner, cleaning the house and raising a family. I don’t know how she managed it all, but somehow she did.