Abigail Adams Letter To My Mother Essay

Snail mail, as we call it these days, was the most optimal way to contact someone traveling to far off places. In the 1780s, letters contained valuable information, either from a loved one or from a high authority. In Abigail Adams’ letter to her son John Quincy Adams, she advises him about his own power, her encouragement for him, and her hopes she has for him back at home. As a mother, she naturally opens and closes her letter with a caring message, to inform her son that her letter is not one of scolding and anger, but instead one of encourage and empowerment.

Power is a strong word for someone to either speak of or become. Before knowing anything about his later presidency, his mother Mrs. Adams, takes it to herself to highlight all of her son’s own powers she notices in him. She identifies to him that “[his] knowledge… must give [him] greater advantage…” She portrays to her son that he is a smart and knowledgeable man; this is what she inspires him to continues to see himself as. This is a great and powerful message itself because it shows she has a great value and aspiration for her son during his travel with his father to the new country. She then tends to her hopes that at this time he will find his calling in life. Adams presents this statement with her sentence, “...whilst ignorant of

it… as you increase in years, you will find your understanding opening and daily improving.” This is her outline that he knows nothing about his own power that he enriches within himself; but as time goes by she hopes that it will naturally shine through and expose itself. Adams then compares her son to Cicero who has bestowed great power over Catiline, Verres and Mark Anthony. Through this example, she tries to motivate her son that power is something that comes from within and and he should not be ignorant of any burning passion he feels within.
Adams then continues her letter with multiple statements of encouragements to her son. While adventuring on the new land, she has a strong desire that he will learn what the new land has in store for him. Adams also has an intense belief that, “These are time in which a genius would wish to live.” She uses this line because it means it is an invincible time to be alive. This is a time where one can achieve so much more than before; a time where one can venture out to seek new opportunities rather than be condemned in one country. She offers him an aspiration to do something where he can excel out of; this is not a time used to be wasted but to grow in.
Adams has high hopes for her son to achieve great things in the American colonies but she also wishes that he does not strain too far away from his roots, lines 52-54.

For it was his father who had brought him to the new land with only his mother’s urge. She only wishes that he must not forget who he is in the new land and to always remember his mother who had urged him to go with his father. If it weren’t for his father, who had been called to the American colonies, they would never had that opportunity. Adams concludes her letter by saying, “...render your parents supremely happy…” She summarizes that anything he should intend to do should still make his parents

proud.
Adams had sent her sons and husband off to America and had written a letter of concerns and aspiration for her son John Quincy. She wanted him to live a life that was not going to be a waste but rather live a life that had meaning for it was a wonderful time. She also has faith that he will continue to bring honor to his parents name and that during his adventure he will finally see himself for who he is. Adams, being a mother, naturally has concerns and worrisome thoughts about her son living somewhere far away from her, but she tries to lend a bright and warm hug through her letter saying that everything was going to be okay.