A Day in the Shoes of a Teenager Who Lives in a House of Seven People Growing up in a relatively larger-than-average household with seven
people who are somehow related to you in one way or another, life is
pretty hectic; especially when you're a 15 year-old teenager with
hormones raging inside of you. It is known that young people at this
stage of their lives feel that the whole world is against them. And
let me tell you: It's absolutely true! (Not the idea of everyone being
against us but that kind of feeling.) Don't believe me? Let me take
you out on a day in my life, in my shoes, a day in the shoes of a
teenager who lives in a house of seven people!
"Good morning, it's Hughesy, Kate and Dave on Nova 100…"
Tangled in my doona, I wriggled over on my back and reached in the
darkness of my room and found the bedside table. Moving my hand around
the surface of the table I eventually found the alarm clock and
commenced my search for the off button. Rubbing the sleep out of my
eyes, I heaved myself out of bed and shook the doona off me.
Suddenly a blinding light filled the room just as I was opening my
eyes! Thankfully my peripheral nervous system was wide awake and my
hands shielded my eyes and saved them from becoming blind.
"Get up!"
It was Dad.
"Do you realize what time it is?
On the night of Saturday, February 1, 2014, I sat down with my grandfather, David Latta, to conduct an interview with him. He currently lives in Clarkston, Michigan, in the newly refurbished basement in my mother's house, along with my step-father, sister, and her son. One could say that my mother's household is quite the crowded nest, with four generation living under one roof. The perspective my grandfather obtains from living in such an atmosphere, is not only something I kept in mind while conducting this interview, but something that guided my questions.
My mother was always stuck watching and taking care of her younger siblings. Sometimes she would get in trouble for not making sure they stayed out of trouble. Not having her own privacy was common for her, since they lived in a...
Lareau, Annette. Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2011. Print.
The lngles family from Little House on the Prairie, a popular television series, demonstrates the working class. Mr. Ingles works while Mrs. Ingles takes care of the household duties. The family displays a genuin e happiness. They have no modern utilities, but they have each other. They have a strong love within their family, and worldly materials serve little importance to them. A typical family today displays tremendous difference s compared to the Ingles family. Jealously and competitiveness play a major part in showing these varia...
This family of five lives in a small apartment on the south side of Chicago. In the story, its described as “a comfortable and well-ordered room… furnishings are typical and undistinguished and their primary feature now is that they have clearly had to accommodate the living of too many people for too many years... and they are tired.” The apartment consists of two rooms. The first room, “shared by mama and her daughter Beneatha. The second room serving as a bedroom for Walter and his wife Ruth… leaving Travis to sleep on the sofa” In this story, the family dreamed to live what is known as the American dream. But yet there is one thing that is preventing them from obtaining that dream. That one things are choices. Due to choices that some of the main characters have made, causing the family less of a chance at living the American
Nothing survives the span of time like coming of age and growing pains. It’s something every teen must endure to enter into the “real world” and claim their place in adult society. It doesn’t matter if one believes themselves to be upper class or lower class, popular or unpopular; every teen experiences the difficulty of growing up, and the struggle to triumph over high school. Though many try to rush this process some are in no hurry to join the ranks of adulthood and walk down the inevitable path that leads to becoming one’s parents. Because at one time or another most have exclaimed, “I will never be like my parents”. This is the underlying theme that binds together the characters in John Hughes’s film “The Breakfast Club”.
is the eldest sibling and has taken on the role of helping with the household chores a looking after her younger brother. Culturally this is expected of the female children and J.G. has more household responsibilities than her young brother. While these duties are expected of J.G, more importance is place on her school work. T.G. and M.G. also feel that it is important for J.G to experience being a child and encourage her to do well in school and engage in extracurricular activities with friends when appropriate. Due to C.G.’s gender and age, he is given less responsibility to take care of the household. While he is expected to clean up after himself, he is not expected to engage in household chores such as cooking, and cleaning the overall house. While M.G. admits to experiencing behavior problems such as untruthfulness, bad attitude, and occasional disobedience, she regards this as normal childlike behaviors and attributes this to J.G being a teenager and C.G being a preteen. At only 2 months of age, A.G. is the youngest of the house and is obviously dependent upon her family members for basic care
Throughout Jeannette Walls' memoirThe Glass Castle there are numerous instances of self-sufficiency among the children of Rex and Rose Mary Walls. Lori, Jeannette, Brian, and Maurice Walls are unfortunately raised by a father who does not have his priorities straight. The kids are forced to become their own person and fend for themselves. With very little money, food, or guidance the Walls children must become self-sufficient in order to live day to day. Had their mother Rose Mary always been there for the kids, they would not be living the lives they live
Mama who is also known as Lena Younger, tries to get her family to live a better future financially as well as a steady fulfilled lifestyle. The money expected for the Youngers brings a great deal of trust issues and thought to see what is best for the family. That is to say, everyone in the Younger’s family give their personal beliefs in what should be done with the large amount of money. Mama; however, decides it would be best to use her husband’s money to invest in a comfortable home where every family member will have space to live in under the same roof. A place where they wouldn’t have to share a bedroom and bathroom with everyone like they have been in the apartment they have been living in for the past time. This woman desires to see her grandchildren have enough play area outdoors so they can invest most of their time in the dirt and provide a well formed garden. The thought of a better future for her grandson motivates Ms. Lena. She is willing to create an image that her family would not been able to see before her and be able to learn to grow together as a family that they
A human being is a man, woman, or child of the species Homo sapiens, distinguished from other animals by superior mental development, power of articulate speech, and upright stance. Although this is the general definition, there are multitudes of personalized meanings to the phrase “human being”. In Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, there are two characters who have extremely differing definitions to what a human being is, and they are very prevalent throughout the book’s entirety. These two characters are Torvald and Nora, a married couple who live in Norway in 1879 and live out societal norms of the time, with the man of the house providing for his family and his wife providing a high image. Nora decides to borrow money from her husband’s co-worker, Krogstad, to purchase a vacation to extend her husband’s lifespan without informing him, and this initiates many predicaments because at the time, woman did nothing substantial without the approval of her husband. Their actions in the play demonstrate their personal definitions to “human being”, even if they cause much distress.
When we are born into the world, it is far from our last birth. The birth of our identities begins as we grow. And while not right or wrong, it is how our minds take on an identity during our key developmental years.
The Struggle for Identity in A Doll's House A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen, is a play that was written ahead of its time. In this play, Ibsen tackles women's rights as a matter of importance. Throughout this time period, it was neglected. A Doll's House was written during the movement of Naturalism, which commonly reflected society. Ibsen acknowledges the fact that in 19th century life the role of the woman was to stay at home, raise the children and attend to her husband.
that life would be better and that my sister and I would be more accepted. For that reason,
The interviewee was born in Saigon, Vietnam. She is the eldest of a total of five siblings, two sisters and three brothers. She was raised in a very poor and underprivileged neighborhood, where providing food for the family was an everyday struggle. At the age of thirteen, the interviewee was sponsored to North Carolina, United States in hopes for a better lifestyle.
The year my sister left for college, was the first year that I was the only child at home. As a result of being the only child left at home, I got all the attention every day, but I also got to do all of the chores. During this transition time, my parents looked to me to fill in the gaps that my sister had filled in when she lived at home. This meant that I needed to do a few extra chores while also growing up some more. I couldn’t be the “little sister that