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Relationships within the family are the seed for success. After all, the guy
who dies with the most toys does not win. The guy who dies with the most
memories does win. This is why relationships with your family members are so
important. Most of the memories we hold on to are the memories with our
families. I especially connected with Langston Hughes' view of family life
through the piece "Mother to Son" (52). In the poem I feel a close
connection between the mother and son. My own mother has always encouraged me
never to give up when times get rough. She always uses herself as an example,
telling tales of her hardships. I know that my mother and I have closeness and
that is why we are able to communicate this way. I sense the same message from
this mother when she says, "Don't you fall now-For I'se still goin', Honey,
I'se still climbin' and life for me ain't been no crystal stair" (Hughes,
52). The mother acknowledges that everyone climbs stairs in life. She explains
that sometimes people climb small, smooth steps, and others must climb raggedy,
old stairs with holes in them, making it difficult to keep climbing. Hughes also
portrays poverty through the mother's rugged words. Hughes uses very
understandable metaphors when he refers to the stairs. His symbolism technique
helps the reader to connect with the words more intimately.
Families can be poor and happy or vice versa, as the core, family relationships
help lay the path for life. As I mentioned before good and bad experiences can
stay with a child for a lifetime. Lucille Clifton writes, "Forgiving my
Father" (47), where a young woman questions why her father had not given
her deceased mother more financial security. "I wish you were rich so I
could take it all and give the lady what she was due…" (Clifton, 47). The
daughter persona feels that with better financial security the family would have
been all around…happier. The daughter holds forgiveness captive from her
father because now she must take over her mother's financial stress as the new
woman of the house. This experience happens to show a loose connection between
family members. As a result, the daughter has even more hatred toward her father
for putting her mother and now herself in such a terrible position. I can relate
with these two family views. In my family we were raised with the ideal that
happiness is the key whether you be blessed with money or not, although my
mother's explanation didn't seem to make my outlook any easier. I can say that
we were loved and that has made my outlook on life much easier. I will also
admit that I was embarrassed when we didn't have enough money for a candy bar,
and I looked at my mother with resentment. As children we are helpless, we are
the victim of our parents choices. Children learn from their parents, put them
on a pedestal because they are role models. It wasn't until I was sixteen and
began to work that I realized how truly blessed I was. I noticed how much more I
appreciated the possessions I had. Whereas my friends who had more possessions
than I, did not appreciate what their parents had done for them. I think that my
family's Friday night shopping sprees at Kmart, and 99-cent whoppers at Burger
King were more valuable than a day at Disneyland. These memories are the ones I
will never forget, because they were full of love, and I learned many life
lessons.
Jamaica Kincaid's "girl" (13-14) expresses cultural differences as
well as a different child role. The old saying "children should be seen and
not heard" is evident in the girl's culture. Throughout the poem the girl's
name is never mentioned, as if she were a ghost. The girl never plays about as
we think a young girl to do. The girl's thoughts are very chronological and
repetitive. This family is showing how important children and families are,
"…this is how you set a table for dinner with an important guest; this is
how you set the table for lunch…" (14). From the poem I realized that
this girl lived in a completely different culture. Interestingly enough I also
found that this family carried high family values. From the poems that I
identified with I cannot say the same. A drunken father, and a mother who
subjects her son to the same environment she is in doesn't exactly show family
values.
Cultures can model the level of respect dealt from children to others. For
example a teenager from the Middle East may learn to hate religion because of
war, while a teenager in the US may learn to hate their parents for not buying
them a car. We can see the same contrasting with Clifton, and Hughes to Kincaid.
The children in Clifton and Hughes resented their position in life, while the
girl from Kincaid resented not being able to be a child, and having so much
responsibility.
Postscript
I realized after writing this paper that my ideas were good, yet I didn't
have enough to back them up. My one person in the group helped very much with
productive feedback, and I used it! I threw in a little more detail, and
explanation to a few paragraphs and it already looks better. The first time
around I also forgot to cite, and do my postscript. I am uncertain about citing
these poems that I have used through Bridges for in text citing! I can tell I am
already learning.
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