Sociological Portrait M. Foster

We are all the product of our sociological environments. Millions of different things combine to make millions of different combinations, resulting in unique individuals that can potentially find something in common with anyone that has a shared sociological background. This includes race, gender, education experiences, social status, sexual orientation, societal roles, familial expectations, and so on. What I have experienced is what has made me who I am and how I live my life is a result of what I have learned is expected of me, what I have decided makes sense to me, and what I have realized I like and dislike.
I was born the third of four children to a stay at home mom and a civil engineer. My parents eloped in 1965, and I heard a number of stories as to why they chose elopement over a traditional marriage. According to my parents, both of my grandfathers were abusive drunks who each had several affairs. In the 1940's and 1950's, society expected women to stay with their husbands, regardless of abuses they may have endured. According to Stephanie Coontz, my grandmothers may have had trouble finding places to live due to a possible inability to obtain legal residence on their own or to sign contracts (1995). This may have been one reason why my parents chose to elope and keep their marriage a secret for a few months. They were in love, and could see how my grandparents' marriages were broken, and perhaps thought that the last people they wanted to get marriage advice from were people who were still married out of necessity or social expectation. My parents were also from different religious denominations; my father was raised Catholic, and my mother was raised Anglican. My father was a devout Catholic and my mother had to take catechism classes. This was a divisive matter, and my parents' marriage resulted in my mother's parents shunning them for a few years, until