Does anyone really want to feel isolated from everyone else? From the beginning of childhood we don't want to stand out too much. We want to be like everyone else. We want a normal family, a normal life. We want mom, dad, maybe a few siblings and a dog. No one really wants to be the different kid. I was the different kid without a mom. It wasn't a tragic story of my mom dying so, often classmates asked me, "well, where is she then?" I could never give a solid answer because I didn't know where she was. I would stop and think. Where was she now? Was she in jail again? Maybe she admitted herself in rehab again or maybe she was just down the street staying with a friend. Growing up without a mom always made me feel like I constantly had a piece …show more content…
missing from me. All these other girls had healthy friendships with their moms. They were being taught how to "be a girl." I was envious. Why did I have to figure everything else on my own? Figuring things out on your own isn't always easy but it made me push farther. I had my dad, my grandma and my aunts but something in me told me to figure it out myself. Maybe I was too embarrassed. Or maybe I didn't want to feel like a burdened. This one single detail of my life changed me forever. For a long time not being taught how to do things by a mother made me insecure. Was I doing this right? Is this girly enough? Oh God I look like a slut, don't I? How do I put on mascara? How much is too much? I questioned every move I made. I was someone who was timid and unsure of herself. I didn't know what was socially correct or socially incorrect. Everything I knew was from observing other girls. I became my own teacher, my own mother, and set out to figure it all out alone. Deborah Tannen, a linguistic, states that women usually are indirect and because of that are translated as the powerless gender.
But indirectness in some cultures is deemed as powerful. This back and forth struggle of differences in different situations was how I felt most of my adolescence. In some situations being direct was valued but for others I was a bossy teen. This constantly put me down. It wasn’t just about knowing when to be direct and when to be indirect, it was about not being taught how a teenage girl was supposed to act and being unaware of the fact that being born a women set me back from the beginning. I slowly figured things out on my own. Audre Lorde, an author, states that you have to find your voice and speak up on your struggles because in the end we all die. Tannen's particular article is a strong representation of me trying to figure it out while Lorde is me finally getting it right. I learned that I could find my own voice even if someone decided to walk out of my life. Maybe I wasn't doing the whole girl thing right and maybe I was going to fail a lot but it wasn't going to stop me from growing, learning and living. I grew up without a mother and I figured everything out on my own. I grew up without a mother and learned to be my own mother because I was strong enough, smart enough and willing enough to figure things out on my own. When a person walks out of your life you may feel like a piece of you walked out but you'll always be
whole.
In the article “His Politeness Is Her Powerlessness” by Deborah Tannen, she informs gender norms about talking in a direct or indirect way. Tannen claims that different cultures view indirectness different from western culture. She also informs her audience that being indirect does not mean you are powerless. In paragraph 8, Tannen explains that only modern Western societies place a priority on direct communication. She goes on to say that “Account of mutual indirectness in a lunch invitation may strike Americans as excessive. But far more cultures in the world use elaborate systems of indirectness than value directness. (8)” This is true for the Japanese culture. They will talk indirectly rather talk directly to you. For example, it is considered
mothers out. Mothers were often expected to be happy and nurturing and forgetting that they
The primary issue with growing up without a dad and or role model in your life is that you are more susceptible to be a troublemaker in our society, and that the children
Most people would see growing up without a father as troublesome, lonely, pitiful, and hard. Well, for the most part it’s true; it could certainly be all of these things at times, but other times you forget that people even have fathers until you go to a friend’s house, or a cousin’s house and look at their big, happy, prosperous family. Or when someone in the desk next to you is talking to their table-neighbor, standing by the cubbies, in the bathroom stall, talking about what their “daddy” just bought them. One time, I made a friend. She was adopted, and she had no parents and that was when I knew that I didn’t have it as bad as I very well could have. I grew up with a mom who worked herself to the bone day-by-day at a fast-food restaurant,
Growing up as an only child I made out pretty well. You almost can’t help but be spoiled by your parents in some way. And I must admit that I enjoyed it; my own room, T.V., computer, stereo, all the material possessions that I had. But there was one event in my life that would change the way that I looked at these things and realized that you can’t take these things for granted and that’s not what life is about.
As a child growing up, there were times I would feel my mother would be out to just make
Becoming a mom at sixteen was the hardest thing I have ever done. Trying to work, go to school and take care of my daughter seemed impossible. My mom was always there to support me, but from the moment I found out I was pregnant I was determined to do it on my own. When you become a mom at sixteen the paths you can take in life change, and you are no longer a teenage you become an adult really fast.
I had a doting grandfather who waited on me at all times, solely because I was his first grandchild. I had the world at my feet and a silver spoon in my mouth. To me, nothing was odd, but reality would come fast. By the time I entered elementary school, I knew what a mother was and why mine was absent (or at least why I thought she was absent). I had come to accept my mother’s leaving; it did nothing to bother me.
Research conducted regarding modern society’s motherless children stresses the importance of a motherly (or even parental) relationship throughout the developmental years of a child. Hope Edelman, a motherless child herself explains, “I can tell you, based on both personal experience and interviews with hundreds of motherless American women, that losing a mother at an early age is one of the most stressful life events a person can face. It completely rips apart the fabric of a child's life.” If a child experiences the death, abandonment or absence of a mother, they fail to receive an adequate substitution. This deficiency can generate long-term damage to his or her self-esteem, ability to relate to other people, overall feelings of security and ability to trust others. The absence of a mother in a child’s life limits their support network, discipline, and supervision (Amato). An immense variety of possible negative outcomes emerge from being orphaned or possessing a single pa...
Becoming a single mother, shortly before my son turned two-years-old, was life altering. Moving back in with my family, realizing I had no income, and no longer the team effort from his father, was an indescribable sense of failure as a parent. Obtaining my masters degree in Health Care Leadership from the University of Denver is my way to correct that, and properly fulfill my role and obligations of being a single mother to a remarkable little five-year-old.
James had a very tough up and coming. His mom is a White jew while his dad was an African american. He didn't really know where he belonged or where he would fit in. A major scene in the book where his Identity is challenged and is forced to compare his mom to the others is when James’s mom went to pick him up at the bus stop. James asked his mom,” Why aren’t you like all the other moms?” He doesn't really understand why his mom looks very different from him. He always grew up with his embarrassing him. She would always ride a bike around in her predominantly Black neighborhood. This was her way to handle the death of James’ dad. She was always different and this leads to James not really finding a group to fit in. It makes his identity very different to embarrass because he didn't ever have a “normal household.”
As the breeze of potent smelly feet brushed my nose, I had remembered where I was. The luminous screen of my phone had absorbed me, as I was patiently waiting for my Second Mom, and her two 5 year old twins to arrive at Urban Air. Amanda became my Second Mom 4 years ago, due to her care for me just as she was my biological Mother. Finally, as what seemed to be decades, I noticed my family approaching me. Not knowing documents with vivid emergency questions had to be signed, it took another large amount of unnecessary time. We purchased the one hour tickets and received these neon green wristbands, being placed around our petite wrists. They were color coded to let the employee’s know our time is up and mandatory that we exit.
Here’s a case of one adult that remembers sharply about growing up as an only child. This person blames a lot of their issues on being an only child. The lack of peer interaction, and the great amounts of adult contact created a proneness to loneliness, selfishness, pride, and the need of belonging and approval. They never had to share and everything that their parent owned was also considered hers. She didn’t have to learn to share until a much older age than most kids with siblings. She never had to experience a brother or sister borrowing or simply taking items and losing, breaking, or simply not returning to them to her. The thing she remembers most about being a child was her loneliness. One specific case was when she over-heard her parents arguing one night when they thought she was asleep. The word divorce was briefly mentioned and she didn’t have anyone there to cry with or talk to. Occasionally her cousins would spend the night, but she never confided in them and waited until they left to show her real emot...
Noted author Kristin Hannah wrote this statement about mothers in one of her books, “As mothers and daughters, we are connected with one another. My mother is the bones of my spine, keeping me straight and true. She is my blood, making sure it runs rich and strong. She is the beating of my heart. I cannot now imagine a life without her.” This quote identifies my mother and the connection that we had with one another. As I look back over my life, I realize that my mother taught me many lessons including the importance of kindness, independence, and what really matters in life.
I lost my mother at a young age, when I was 10--old enough to have memories to remember her and miss her, but too young to have a clear idea of who she was. Her absence completely disrupted our family. Waking up and having breakfast made, clothes ironed and washed, and all of the little things that we took for granted were gone in an instant. But this isn 't the story of how I lost my mother or about how I was devastated by her death. My mother’s death was the reason why I became exposed to the business world, and this story is really about how I came to share my father’s love and passion for business.