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Family influence on children's development
Family influence on children's development
Parent influence on child development
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The Other Wes Moore is a novel that shows the different paths of two different men, one successful and the other not so fortunate. We discovered their different identities and how their choices and role models effect their lives. Wes 1 was led by his brave, hard working mother and the great military men. He didn't make incredibly great decisions but the people in his life helped him turn into the successful man he is today.However, Wes 2 had a brother who dealt drugs. The novel guides you through the 8 crazy years that led to Wes Moore 1's success and Wes Moore 2's life sentence for prison. Wes Moore 1 definitely did not have the perfect life but his life had more positives than Wes Moore 2. Wes's family, friends and the military “Wes was so confused. He loved and respected his brother. Tony was the closest thing Wes had to a role model. But the more he tried to be like his brother, the more Tony pushed back.” (72) Wes then got his girlfriend pregnant 4 times and dropped out of school to help out with her. With multiple arrests for shooting someone and drug dealing. Tony his "so called role model" helped Wes rob a jewelry store and they were convicted for murdering Sergeant Prothero along the way. Tony's motives were right but he never really got across to Wes with leading him in the right direction. Tony tried to push Wes away from the drug game but Wes was to drawn to it. The Other Wes Moore is a novel that shows the different paths of two different men, one successful and the other not so fortunate. Wes 1 was led by his brave, intellectual mother who impacted his life positively through small decisions. Wes 2 was led by his step- brother who had good intentions but never delivered or cared enough to help Wes through the obstacles of his life. Most of us are fortunate enough to choose who will impact our future but we have no control over our family members and whether they will help or hurt
In The Other Wes Moore, male figures, specifically male role models, play an important part both Wes Moores’ lives and and are eventually what make or break their futures.
In the passage from The Other Wes Moore, author Wes Moore uses an event to display a moment when he matures and realizes if he screws up his life, he may never get control of his fate back. After getting caught spray painting a wall, Author Wes Moore, AWM, states, “he had control of my destiny–or at least my immediate fate. And I couldn’t deny that it was my own stupid fault”(83).
It’s in these subtle differences that one can identify where it went wrong for the Other Wes Moore. The reason that there was no father figure is drastically different, the author's father died when Moore was
Wes & Wes Moore could’ve of easily ended up with the same fate. It is the choices they made, the environment they were provided with, the support and choices of their families and the mind set they chose to have the set them apart from each other. The two Wes Moore’s paths went different ways for many reasons but some were more significant than others.
The Other Wes Moore is a book talking about two different men with the same name,Wes Moore. They were both raised up by a single mother and live in the same decaying city, Baltimore, where there are surrounded by drug and alcohol. However, the author Wes Moore’s parents completed their education and have a good job while his grandparents also were well-educated. But the other Wes Moore’s parents didn’t graduate from college, his mother tried to get the scholarship but failed, and his father left high school and don’t have a job either. This two Wes Moores both grew up with their mother. The author Wes’s father died for disease while the other Wes’s father left his family. With this situation, they went to the same direction, being absent from
Wes Moore Paper Richelle Goodrich once said, “To encourage me is to believe in me, which gives me the power to defeat dragons.” In a world submerged in diversity, racism and prejudice it is hard for minorities to get ahead. The novel “The Other Wes Moore” is a depiction of the differences that encouragement and support can make in the life of a child. This novel is about two men, with the same name, from the same neighborhood, that endured very similar adversities in their lives, but their paths were vastly different. In the following paragraphs, their lives will be compared, and analyzed from a sociological perspective.
Why have the two boys, with the same name and grew up fatherless in the similar poverty-stricken neighborhoods, developed into two dramatically different individuals: a Rhodes Scholar and a convicted inmate? While the book The Other Wes Moore goes to great length to answer the question profoundly, I also mull over just how and why the two Wes Moores have chosen their own paths to the opposed destines. According to the book, environment, family, education, others’ expectation, and opportunities are the primary factors contributing to the two Wes Moores’ failure and success. On the top of those factors, I find that the role models, the supports of their mothers, and the choices they made are surely worth
In “The Other Wes Moore”, by Wes Moore, the author takes the readers through his life growing up as well as the life of someone who was a stranger to him during his childhood but turned out to be a huge part of his life later on. His name was also Wes Moore and both he and the author grew up in poverty and did not have the best childhood. Although they grew up similarly, their adulthoods were the polar opposite. The author Wes Moore became the top in his class, a Rhodes scholar, and studied at Oxford University to later become very successful. On the other hand, the other Wes Moore is in prison for the rest of his life for a robbery and murder. How did these two grow up so similarly, yet had completely different adulthoods?
In The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore, many people were able to grasp ahold of the author Wes’s life and help him get steered into the right direction. I feel that his mother, Joy, had the biggest impact on his life and meant the most for him. “When we moved to New York, she worked multiple jobs, from a freelance writer for magazines and television to a furrier’s assistant- whatever she could do to help cover her growing expenses (47).” Joy was a very hardworking woman. She worked not one but two jobs to cover her expenses, her kids expenses, and to help her parents out. She did this because she wanted what was best for her children. This later comes back to make Wes respect his mother for all that she has provided and sacrificed for him to get all that he did.
“I guess it’s hard sometimes to distinguish between second chances and last chances” (Moore 67). This is a powerfully central theme to the book The Other Wes Moore, written by Wes Moore. For the two men this book is about, it all begins with a wide-open future. The mothers that gave birth to them and the influences they had, along with their own powerful choices, sealed their fate . People don’t ever stop growing or improving and the two Wes Moore’s are no different. Throughout their lives, they are constantly changing and in some places calling the shots. One chose correctly, and one did not.
Expectations influence who we become. Many factors come into play when we assess the lives of both Wes Moores introduced in the short novel The Other Wes Moore. Some of these factors are the expectations that shaped each man’s life. Moore illustrates his point when he writes, “The expectations that others place on us help us form our expectations of ourselves”(126). The explanation to the quote was it will help people to see the expectation of “thinking outside the box” means that think freely for themselves with better judgment in everyday life for their moral action in their society. Expectations from others have a strong impact on the choices an individual makes, and both Wes Moore’s choices were strongly influenced by the expectations
The other Wes’s father was not a good father because he was a drunk, and cannot guide his son better. The author Wes’s father gave positive influence to him, although they lived together just a short amount of time. The author Wes writes “I tried to copy his walk, his expression. I was his main man. He was my protector” (11). After the Wes did not know why his mother mad at him, his father patiently explained that Wes could not hit people especially women and you should defend them rather than fight them. Later, his father also led the Wes apologize to his sister and mother. As a matter of fact, the series of behaviors have deeply affected the Wes. Therefore he wanted to copy his father and become a good man. For the other Wes Moore, The author writes, “Finally, after some more jostling, his father’s eyes cracked open. He saw Wes standing over him. Still squinting, he looked his son in the eyes. “Who are you?” (102). When he met his father on his aunt’s house, his father was sleeping on the couch. At that time, the Wes had not seen his father in years. Therefore, his father did not care about his life. Although the other Wes considered leaving the house, he still intended to say hello to him. As a result, his father said that who was Wes when he woke up. Obviously, the other Wes did not feel any love from his father, and he was not responsible for the Wes’
There are many ways in which both Wes’s have taken steps down the right and wrong paths. They may have lived and grown up in the same cities, but they had different support systems and different events that made their destinies contrast. Perhaps if the Other Wes had a better support system, he could have gone down a much different path. From the very beginning, neither Wes had a father figure. Author Wes’s father dying from acute epiglottitis (which Wes witnessed) , and the Other Wes’s father leaving the picture. There is an occurrence where the Other Wes does come across his father, and neither of them know who each other are.”The strong smell of whiskey wafted from his clothes and pores. Wes and the man returned each other’s quizzical looks.”(25)
The story of two men growing up in the same neighborhood with similar backgrounds with the same name and eerily similar circumstances that leads and ultimately has each character ending up in very different places in life. Taking completely different paths to their futures is the setting of this story “The Other Wes Moore”. The way a person is shaped and guided in their developmental years does undoubtedly play a huge role in the type of person they will become in life. The author Wes does a good job of allowing you the ability to read this story and the circumstances surrounding the character his mother joy played such an important role in his success, while comparing the roll of Mary the other Wes’s mother. Both boys grew up with strong, hardworking black women in their lives and yet it still allowed for two completely different journeys. I think the lack of fathers and having not so good male role models was also a contributing factor.
When society speaks of “otherness” there is a general ambiguity in understanding. What characteristics define it? What limitations provide to it? The consensus seems to be that otherness is “the quality or fact of being different.” If this definition upholds the test of time, “otherness” as portrayed in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights expands itself beyond the inflicted outcasting of title character Heathcliff to include an examination of “otherness” in both love and creation.