The Challenge Of My Family

This is extremely hard for me to do. I am not one to delve into my family with friends, let alone people that I hardly know. I view my family as something of a challenge. It has always been a challenge. A challenge from how on one side of my family almost didn’t make it to America, to how I came into this world, to how I was raised, and to my adult life. I am sure that you are looking at this thinking, this might not be how I want this paper structured. But to trace how my family looks at items like divorce, economic demography, child rearing, and even life itself…it should be told this way.
I will begin with my great grandparents on my mother’s side. The Ritzke family. The name Ritzke is in itself quite unique. From Austria, Ritzke

Pat and Cindy watched. We find that television becomes more of a persuasive force in people’s lives and how society gets their news. Going to school became a challenge for the children. Constantly being bullied, both were scared to go to school. Even teachers were asking question after question. Maggie was raised that hard work, determination, and perseverance always worked, but after the death of a daughter, she pushed her remaining children that having a good education and knowing the difference between right and wrong were more important than working with your hands and following traditional gender roles. She did not want them to become like their father. Education became a priority. But still, the openness and open dialogue ceased to exist. There was not an opportunity for my mom to expel her feelings about the entire situation, nor was there one for Pat. In fact, Pat was even more subdued because he was told the cliché, “You are the man of the house now.” There was still not an outlet for feelings nor was there a way to discuss the events in an open forum. There was still a feeling that children were meant to be seen and not heard from. Things became so challenging for the family, that for two months from April to June when my mom was ten, the family of four lived out of a van at the family homestead because Maggie could not pay for everything alone. They finally found an apartment and Maggie found another man. But not before Butch was sentenced to 5 years for killing his daughter. Later when he got out of prison, he committed suicide. The reasoning that he left in a letter was because he hated that what he had done, and he wished he could go back and fix himself for his family. He thought that leaving this world was better than trying to make amends with his children. My mom didn’t have a father figure in her life. She