As one man said, "Children are like wet cement. Whatever falls on them makes an impression." (Dr. Haim Ginott.) This quote clearly states that the factors within children's lives are what shapes them into who they are as adults. Within this book Sandy is a housewife living in a time of racism and had the expectations of the epitome of a wife and mother. The influence of her mother, the value of money over love, and religious upbringing have all been important factors that shaped her into who she is. This is the story of Sandy Pressman's life as a child living in the 1950s.
Sandy's mother always had such a huge impact on all of her decisions in life. Growing up, she obeyed men as told and was taught the ways of a successful homemaker. Sandy's mother, Mona, took her to cooking classes every weekend and had Sandy clean the house to perfection everyday that she got home from school. Mona constantly reminded Sandy that, "A happy husband is the answer to a happy life." (60.) Sandy, too worried to go against her mother's wishes, about growing up to the "perfect housewife", did everything that was asked of her. Sandy took on the stereotype of a typical housewife at a young age. For example, she was a wonderful host to
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Sandy casually had her stuff animal tea parties to practice her proper etiquette. It was the only task given by her mother that she loved to do. But then on her tenth birthday her mother took away her toys, her beloved possessions, her only fun, and told her, "Remember, you can't eat love..." (89.) Sandy never understood this saying or the reason for such actions, but as she grew older she came to realize what her mother meant. That love doesn't get you a husband or a nice house in the suburbs of New Jersey. It was money or as her mother might say "a husband", that made these things possible. She learned to put her needs aside to get where her mother wanted
“Children are not blind to race. Instead, like all of us, they notice differences” and the character of Ellen Foster is no exception to the rule (Olson). Ellen Foster is the story of a strong willed and highly opinionated and pragmatic child named Ellen, growing up in the midst of poverty and abuse in the rural south. Her life is filled with tragedy from the death and possible suicide of her mother to the abuse she endures at the hands of her alcoholic father and his friends. Despite her hardships as such an early age, she never gives up hope for a better life. In addition to her struggles with poverty she is surrounded by a culture of racism in a society that is post Jim Crow
Jeannette Wales, author of The Glass Castle, recalls in her memoir the most important parts of her life growing up as a child that got her where she is now. Her story begins in Arizona in a small house with her parents and three siblings. Her parents worked and didn’t do much as parents so she had to become very independent. Her parents and siblings were the highlights to most of her memory growing up. She is able to recall memories that most small children wouldn’t be able to recall with as much detail.
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
Sandy not only learned through the conversations of the adults around him the importance of skin color, he witnessed a number of events that cemented the notion. Sandy’s somewhat wild Aunt, Har...
Kathy Harrison starts her personal story happily married to her childhood sweet heart Bruce. Kathy was living a simple life in her rural Massachusetts community home as the loving mother of three smart, kind, well-adjusted boys Bruce Jr., Nathan, and Ben. With the natural transitions of family life and the changes that come with career and moving, she went back to work as a Head Start teacher. Her life up until the acceptance of that job had been sheltered an idyllic. Interacting in a world of potluck suppers, cocktail parties, and traditional families had nothing in common with the life she would choose after she became a Head Start teacher.
Jean Louise “Scout” and Jem Finch experienced life in the 1930’s living in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. Their childhood was a nonstop adventure that brought jocund days and testing trials that teenager’s today experience even with the world around us changing every day. The moral upbringings, educational importance, and the crime rate of small towns all contributed to the childhood memories that were built every day in Maycomb County. These attributes to childhood experiences have changed a lot over the vast time period between the 1930’s and 2000’s. The moral upbringings are different in the way that children living now are experiencing a different surrounding in their everyday life and have lost morals that were taught in the 1930’s. Education is more important now than in the 1930’s because of the many laws that have been established to keep children well educated to help them succeed. Living in a small town had many advantages like the low crime rate; crime rate has risen and caused an effect on small town life. There are many similarities as well as differences between the childhood in the 1930’s and the 2000’s. The changes that have occurred affect my life as a young Alabamian every day in many ways.
“People will be people good or bad, and if you say you love them then you have to love them through it all”, says Pearl Brewer eighty year old widow and mother of twelve. By looking at Pearl you can see that she has lived a full yet hard life. She is a mother, a wife, and daughter. She has migrated from rural Oklahoma to the Midwestern factory town of Peoria, Illinois where she has experienced a successful career at one of the town’s most booming factories: Caterpillar.
In John Connolly’s novel, The Book of Lost Things, he writes, “for in every adult there dwells the child that was, and in every child there lies the adult that will be”. Does one’s childhood truly have an effect on the person one someday becomes? In Jeannette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle and Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner, this question is tackled through the recounting of Jeannette and Amir’s childhoods from the perspectives of their older, more developed selves. In the novels, an emphasis is placed on the dynamics of the relationships Jeannette and Amir have with their fathers while growing up, and the effects that these relations have on the people they each become. The environment to which they are both exposed as children is also described, and proves to have an influence on the characteristics of Jeannette and Amir’s adult personalities. Finally, through the journeys of other people in Jeannette and Amir’s lives, it is demonstrated that the sustainment of traumatic experiences as a child also has a large influence on the development of one’s character while become an adult. Therefore, through the analysis of the effects of these factors on various characters’ development, it is proven that the experiences and realities that one endures as a child ultimately shape one’s identity in the future.
In contrast, as seen with Dee Ann’s grandmother’s recollections of Dee Ann’s mother, raising her well from her birth results in a very emotional reaction to her death, crying with Dee Ann’s father on the couch (357). By focusing on the needs of her daughter, Dee Ann’s grandmother became emotionally attached to her mother’s well-being, having a connection to the way in which they have lived their life. Likewise, although their relationship was not healthy, Dee Ann’s mother’s addiction to her father’s actions resulted in a dependency that ultimately held their relationship together: “Her momma lived for these routines, she watched till watching killed her (370).” This dependency stems from her father satisfying her mom’s desire for these captivating acts, creating the emotional ties that held the marriage together, at least for some time. In both of these cases, the dependence on the other in the relationship resulted in a reason to maintain it, as their existence is contingent on the other person. In the case of Dee Ann and Chuckie however, their propensity to go out and enjoy themselves on their own suggests a lack of physical dependency on their spouse, weakening the bonds of need by satisfying a desire for company through other means. Chuckie for example, satisfies this desire by going out with friends for a drink, and Dee Ann immerses herself in digital entertainment such as TV or music (362). Their independence results in lacking the emotional attachment necessary to hold their relationship together, destroying the reciprocated love present in healthy
Rose Mary is a selfish woman and decides not to go to school some mornings because she does not feel up to it. Jeannette takes the initiative in making sure that her mother is prepared for school each morning because she knows how much her family needs money. Even though Rose Mary starts to go to school every day, she does not do her job properly and thus the family suffers financially again. When Maureen’s birthday approaches, Jeannette takes it upon herself to find a gift for her because she does not think their parents will be able to provide her with one. Jeannette says, “at times I felt like I was failing Maureen, like I wasn’t keeping my promise that I’d protect her - the promise I’d made to her when I held her on the way home from the hospital after she’d been born. I couldn’t get her what she needed most- hot
James, A. (1998). From the child's point of view: Issues in the social construction of
Social pressure to raise pleasant, good mannered children who become grounded and productive adults has been a driving influence for many generations. If our children do not fit into this mold then we’re considered failures are parents. Emily’s mother is tormented by the phone call which sets off a wave of maternal guilt. Emily’s mother was young and abandoned by her husband while Emily was still an infant so she had to rely on only herself and the advice of others while she raised her daughter. After Emily was born her mother, “with all the fierce rigidity of first motherhood, (I) did like the books said. Though her cries battered me to trembling and my breasts ached with swollenness, I waited till the clock decreed.” (Olsen 174). Then when Emily was two she went against her own instincts about sending Emily to a nursery school while she worked which she considered merely “parking places for children.” (Olsen 174). Emily’s mother was also persuaded against her motherly instincts to send her off to a hospital when she did not get well from the measles and her mother had a new baby to tend to. Her mother even felt guilt for her second child, Susan, being everything society deemed worthy of attention. Emily was “thin and dark and foreign-looking at a time when every little girl was supposed to look or thought she should look a chubby blond replica of Shirley Temple.” (Olsen, 177) she was also neither “glib or quick in a world where glibness and quickness were easily confused with ability to learn.” (Olsen 177), which her sister Susan had in
When I am at King’s Buffet, I always wonder what the interesting sushi tastes like, but I always eat the sweat and sour chicken instead because I don’t know what the sushi tastes like. I always wonder what would happen if I used the shampoo that Heidi Klum advertises but it might make my hair too oily or too dry. So I continue to use the same brand of shampoo for my hair. How can you pass a test if you don’t study before? How can you play in a symphony if you have never learned to play an instrument? How can we expect a shallow and spoiled princess who was raised with money to choose priceless objects over riches? As you grew up, who did you look up to the most? Who had the most influence on you when you made hard decisions? For most of us, it’s our parents. They’re our idols and our role models. We see them as people who don’t make mistakes. As we get older, we do our best to mimic them and we think about what they would have done in our place. In The Princess and The Tin Box by James Thurber, a princess has to make a decision to marry one of five princess based only on what gift th...
Amanda, somehow, finds a way to be both selfish and selfless when it comes to Laura. Amanda wants Laura to be happy and successful, but does not understand that Laura is too shy and unmotivated to be either. When Amanda discovers that Laura has stopped going to typing class she is beyond disappointing. When discovered Amanda yells at her daughter saying, “Fifty dollars’ tuition, all our plans- my hopes and ambitions for you- just gone up the spout, just gone up the spout like that.” Laura quit something as simple as learning how to type; this realization struck Amanda because if she cannot do that there is no way Laura could provide for herself without a husband. Mrs. Wingfield’s worst nightmare is is for her children to become dependent on relatives and not being able to take care of themselves. After Laura drops out of typing school Amanda says, “What is there left but dependency all our lives? I know so well what becomes of unmarried women who aren’t prepared to occupy a position. I’ve seen such pitiful cases in the South—barely tolerated spinsters living upon the grudging patronage of sister’s husband or brother’s wife!—stuck away in some little mousetrap of a room—encouraged by one in-law to visit another—little birdlike women without any nest—eating the crust of humility all their life!. Amanda had always wanted for Laura to find a nice husband, but then the situation became desperate when the younger women
Motherhood is a traditional role for women. From the time they are young, girls are taught to grow up, marry and become mothers. Of course they can do other things with their lives like play sports, have careers, and travel, but an overwhelming amount of women want to be mothers no matter what else they accomplish with their lives. It is common knowledge that being a good mother is one of the hardest jobs in the world. It is to forever have a special link with another person or people and have a tremendous influence, maybe the most tremendous influence over their lives. Motherhood is a roller coaster ride for women, full of ups and downs, fears and accomplishments. But what happens when motherhood defines who a woman is? All children grow up, and while a woman is always a mother, children need their mothers less and less until eventually their dependence is very minimal. What happens to the woman whose singular role and purpose is no longer needed? In The Summer Before The Dark, and The Fifth Child, the maternal roles of Kate Brown, and Harriet Lovatt are analyzed and traditional motherhood behavior is deconstructed due to these characters’ experiences and relationships with their children.