Analysis: Kim Barkey

A woman who has influenced my life in a positive way and who has made a difference in my life is my aunt, Kim Barkey. My aunt has always been someone I could look up too, even from a young age. I always have admired Kim as a positive woman influence in my life. Kim is my mom’s younger half-sister so I have known her my entire life and have spent as much time as possible with her talking about life’s worries, getting amazing advice, and learning how to relax, slow down, and delight in everything life has to offer. Growing up, all kids have periods of time where they are struggling and do not feel comfortable going to their parents, so fortunately I had my aunt for a shoulder to lean on and a hug to make me feel okay again. Kim’s strength,

Raised by both her mom and dad, she revealed that her most important females in her life were her mom and her older siblings. Her family is a very blended family with her dad having three daughters previously to meeting her mom and her mom having one other daughter previous to meeting her father. Her parents had her and her brother and also raised their cousins making a house of six kids and two adults. Kim explained to me that growing up the girls were expected to cook, but all the kids had chores. She narrated how her mother was fair in assigning chores to everyone, but her dad did not make the boys help with cooking, so it was left to the girls. Kim noted learning how to behave from her mother as well as learning right from wrong, which kept her out of trouble growing up. Another important influence on her growing up was the church, as she tried to live as Godly as she

There was an article entitled why woman can’t have it all, and our readings that stated women struggle to both work and be a great mom. Kim is fortunate, being able to continue her job while working from home, so she is there to experience being a full time mom, but Kim also gets to work and make her own money as well. Kim’s family is a traditional family in a sense, with Aden’s father going to work daily away from the house, and his mom being home with him, but my aunt is working from home as well. Kim will be the first to tell you it is not easy being a great wife, mom, employee and keeping up the house chores, but she will also be the first to tell you how rewarding it is for her to balance all her hats. Comparing Kim to what we learned in class, she has many similarities and differences to our lectures. One example is how she spends more time on housework than her significant other, and also works which does not appear to affect her marital relationship or her child. Sometimes I can see role strain with her, especially when she gets busy at the end of the month, but she is great at balancing everything and doing what is important first, realizing her most important roles are mommy, wife, employee, and then homemaker. Kim sees the differences in genders, leaning towards the nature side of it, saying her son is all boy, but also sees the similarities between the genders as an