Growing up in a family where so much emphasis is placed in strong familial ties made me appreciate my family. I love spending time with my family because they have taught me so much about life and what I should value in life. My parents emigrated from Hong Kong to New York City when they were in their teens. My brother, Jacky, and I are one and a half years apart from each other. As we were growing up, my brother and I had a very interesting relationship. We fought a lot, like every sibling but we would get along when we wanted to play together. During childhood, my grandparents often took care of my brother, while my parents took care of me. My mom didn’t have the option to opt-out of work because she was my dad’s partner in business. It was hard for her to take care of my brother and me at the same time. When my parents were working during the day, my grandparents babysat the both of us. During night time, my parents took me while my brother stayed with my grandparents, but we were only next door. Growing up, I’ve always valued friendships. Friends were as important to me as family. I’ve attended Catholic school from first grade through eighth grade. My classmates were the same 35 people throughout grade school. I went through many hardships and obstacles trying to find peers who were similar to me. In 6th grade, I went through identity crisis to find out who I was. Before that, I was constantly changing myself so that I could fit in and be like others. Throughout the years in grade school, I struggled with my identity but as I went through high school and am going through college, I have a good grasp of my identity and who my friends are. One of the topics I am going to discuss is the relationship with my brother and how i... ... middle of paper ... ... and perceived peer relationship quality in emerging adulthood: The mediating role of attachment-related emotions. Journal of Adolescence, 35(6), 1417-1425. Milevsky, A. (12/2005). "Compensatory patterns of sibling support in emerging adulthood: Variations in loneliness, self-esteem, depression and life satisfaction". Journal of social and personal relationships (0265-4075), 22 (6), p. 743. Scharf, M. (01/2005). "Sibling Relationships in Emerging Adulthood and in Adolescence". Journal of adolescent research(0743-5584), 20 (1), p. 64. Wong, T. M. L., Branje, S. J. T., VanderValk, I. E., Hawk, S. T., & Meeus, W. H. J. (2010). The role of siblings in identity development in adolescence and emerging adulthood. Journal of Adolescence, 33(5), 673-682. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2009.11.003
Lastly I’ll tell you about my oldest step-brother Ty. Ty and I may not be related by blood, but we have similar personalities at times. Ty is a junior in college, and he loves fishing, hunting, football, and just about any other “guy” activity. He is so in love with football that he’s going to school to be a teacher just so he can coach football. He has always been protective of me when it comes to boys, but I like knowing that he cares. I can always count on Ty to put a smile on my face, but then again, it’s more likely he’ll be picking on me instead.
My family had moved to Oregon when I was 7 into hunter’s run apartments and we moved AGAIN when I was 9 to SW Bonnie Meadow Ln, into a fairly nice house. Now, as older children do when they have younger siblings, I didn’t get much attention, but I did have many more responsibilities. Most of which were chores or keeping an eye on my brother, John, and my sister, Mikayla. Mikayla was by all means the closest to me at the time and John was just my younger brother whom my mother adored. Our relationships, however do change but that’s
Before my years in high school, I rarely put time and effort into studying and constantly associated with my friends at school; that is until I entered high school. The different competitive atmosphere at high school caused me to suddenly prioritize my studies ahead of everything else and my ambition became greater than ever. I began to interact less with my old friends and become less sociable with those around me. My parents also began to notice this drastic change and encouraged me to once in a while contact my old friends. During the beginning, I contacted my friends about two or three times a week, but the phone calls began to gradually diminish. I began to abandon my previous cheerful, ebullient nature in order to conform to the competitive, tense study environment at high school. As long as I successfully accomplished my goals and was accepted by others, I was willing to alter myself in order to assimilate into the mainstream environment. Through my hard work and perseverance, I was able to reach my goal and receive the acknowledgement of others; however, despite fulfilling all my ambitions, I did not feel any joy or satisfaction within myself. Even though I successfully accomplished my objectives in school, I realized that in return I completely sacrificed my social life. Despite being accepted by others, I began to feel a sense of loneliness and longed to
When I was in high school, for the first time in my life I developed a group of exceptionally close friends. We referred to ourselves as The Family. We were looking for meaning in life, meaning . . . and acceptance. We were a coed group consisting of about ten people-five girls and five guys-and we learned a lot about ourselves and life. One thing that we learned was the freedom to be who we were. We did all kinds of things together-we laughed, we cried, we talked, we fought, we loved, and we hated; we unselfishly supported one another through the storms of adolescence. In the process, we learned how to become truly whole persons. We were not afraid of our masculine or feminine sides, and self-discovery blossomed with the water of mutual acceptance.
My brother was born December 15th, 2002. I remember trying everything I could to help raise him. I knew he was different, he didn’t act like any of the other kids. I still loved him though, I would always try to play with him. Through time he would begin to trust me, we solved puzzles, we watched movies, and we even started to wear the same clothes. He trusted me and he would copy me any way he could. We became closer after our apartment building burnt to the ground. I helped him through his trauma and soon enough we were back to play again. My family uprooted and moved to Utah to live. My brother struggled with school, I’d remedy this by helping him read, write, and
My family is very different from my best friend Michael’s family in a variety of ways. My parents have been married for over 30 years and Michael’s parents have been divorced since he was 12. Even though Michael’s parents are divorced they sincerely love each other. My parents are together but cannot stand each others. My father has always worked and my mother has always been a housewife. Michael’s mother works and his father stays at home. I grew up with two older brothers; and Michael has two younger sisters. Michael has two step-parents. We have a very different sibling situation. I was never allowed to have pets as a child and Michael had several. Michael and I have families that are entirely different.
Througout the course of our questioning he fondly reminds me of a time when he’d walk me home from school hands interlocked when I was very young. The time when we got separated from our parents Party City at the age of 7 and 4 respectively and when an employee approached us attempting to help asking us where our parents were he grabbed him and started biting allowing me to run away. Of course our parents had taught us about “stranger danger” and though there was in fact no danger it was still a loving gesture in hind sight. He also reminded me of him teaching me how to catch a baseball and ride a bike. My brother as he remarks may not have taken much pride in his academic work, but he always took pride in being my big brother and though I always recognized and appreciated his efforts I never realized just how much they meant to him. I am slightly ashamed to admit this got a little too emotional for comfort between two men over the age of 18 so we had to move on. Moving on to my dad brought up a sore spot because my brother and dad didn’t have a particularly close relationship to put it lightly until he took up an interest in plumbing much later. He describes how he felt my dad was always disappointed in his academic failures to the point of shutting him out entirely even admitting to holding a hint of jealously toward myself which
When I was born, my 3 year old brother, Ronny, bored that I was not the playmate he envisioned, proposed to throw me down the garbage chute in our Manhattan high rise. When my younger brother, Nicky, arrived I held no animosity towards him. Sandwiched between 2 strong willed brothers, I am naturally inclined to get along with everyone. My mother loves to brag she had to maintain a waitlist of playdates for me; she claims I was the most sought after playdate. That’s my mom for you. We moved from Manhattan to Southern California when I was 6. My dad is very sports centric and baseball became our community. Since then I have moved onto tennis and captained my high school team since sophomore year. Where one sport relied on team work
During these family gatherings we play games, have food, and really just enjoy ourselves. With us being separated it only made us closer. This did not affect our relationships in any way. Growing up we looked out for one another. As all of us graduated high school we are now starting our own lives in a way that we should be. Most of us has started our own family as of now. Now, we get to share a very special moment with our nieces and nephews. Family has always been very special to me not only because we have the same parents but because we grew a bond together. Our bong only expanded as we grew up. Creating a bond with my brothers and also my sister makes me feel very special because I am able to spend the rest of my life with them. It has been such a blessing to watch all of us grow up and start our own families. As of now, I currently have two nieces and two nephews. It is so surprising to see how much we have all grown. We all have accomplished some of our goals, but more to come. Hopefully in the future our own little families will expand. I tend to have a very special connection with all of my nieces and nephews even though we are far
I have three siblings along with three nephews. I have a younger sister, older sister, and one older brother. My older sister is the one that had my nephews. We all lived under the same roof until I moved out for college. My mother was more like my father in the house because my father was away working for us, and even though my siblings are her children, it seems that they 're her siblings too. It felt that I was the parent of my nephews and little sister because of the way I had to care for them because everyone else was working. I connect with my immediate family firmly. We always look out for each other because we mean so much to one another. I
On a conscious level, we rarely spend much time actually thinking about and classifying our friends. However, since I was a small child, my mother taught me to recognize and appreciate various types of friends. I have discovered that there are three different types of friends. I group them according to how well I know them and how well they know me. We encounter each type of friend everyday, whether in school, home, or at the gym. First, there are the "pest friends"- general acquaintances. Next, there are "guest friends"- social partners. Lastly, we have "best friends"- our true friends.
My big brother despite of his grumpy personality that made have for any reason some difficult moments when we were growing up, he is now one the person I trust the most and who I can share anything when I need advice with any issue and decision I have to make. Even though my brother and I are very closed and united at the moment, I still feel some rancor feelings with him because of those ungraceful moments I had with him, moments where he could guide me, teach me and be a friend instead of being a judge to everything I did. But, I always try to forget about it and enjoy this time of great brotherhood. On the other hand, my little sister has always been very closed to me, she has always looked for my advice, and I think I have been there for her every time she has needed; obviously, we have had our fights and discussion, but those were issues we have overcome by a simple talking.
Firstly, I now know that it’s okay to be interested in different things and to want to venture down a new path. There is nothing wrong with being alone in something because if it’s something you enjoy then it shouldn’t matter whatsoever. If I had followed my friend into things she enjoyed instead of things I was interested in, I wouldn’t have grown into who I am now. My empowerment in student council allowed me to receive multiple scholarships and gain the leadership experience that I travel with today. I feel that this was a personal challenge which allowed me to see my own potential. Secondly, I learned that it is okay for change to occur. Once I had created an attachment to my best friend, it was hard for me to understand the small-scale change we were undergoing. This lesson allowed me to make a connection with an article we read called How Friendships Change in Adulthood, written by Julie Beck. Beck discusses the hierarchy of relationships as peoples ages increase, and unfortunately friendships falls towards the bottom. She explains that during adolescence, there’s a lot more self-disclosure and support between friends, but they’re still trying to discover their personal identity. William Rawlins states that the unfortunate part of this is, “In adolescence, people have a really retractable self. They’ll change,” (Beck, 2016). Although Beck also notes that young adults have time to devote to their friends, they’re constantly changing. By growing up and moving onto bigger things, such as grade school to high school, our networks are also growing. This allows for them to experience new things and get to know new people (Beck, 2016). I feel that this is exactly what happened between Makayla and I. Thankfully, now I know that without change, there is no room for new knowledge or adventure. I believe that this allowed my attitude and behaviour to take on a more positive and confident role in
As I reach the seemingly boring age of 19, I am able to look back and reflect on how my choices in the past have gotten me to where I am today. One of the most significant decisions I have made in my life was to minimize my friend group. Now, losing friends is something you hear about before you even hit junior high. The common phrase is repeated over and over again, when referring to high school, “You find out who your real friends are.” As a scrawny little freshman, with no sense of reality, I refused to believe that that phrase would ever apply to my life. The end of my sophomore year is when my then, sixteen-year-old self, realized that that overused phrase was more relevant to my life than I wanted it to be. So I did something about it.
Throughout high school, I had my same friend group that I had since middle school and elementary school. I always tried to make new friends, and join groups when I could, but I learned that the group of friend’s I had were a great group. My friends and I were in many of the same clubs, which made it more fun being in those clubs, and knowing people.