They did a lot of moving around, from having to live with relatives to living in government housing. Viola always dreamt of a better life not only for herself, but also for her mother and her siblings. She shared thoughts that if she were to ever be blessed financially, she was going to be a blessing to others (personal communication, May 6, 2009). Well, her opportunity to be a blessing came a few years after she married her husband who is a successful doctor. This has placed Viola in the upper middle class of society, where she no longer has to worry about finances, has both of her children in private schools, and has even purchased a home for her mother.
Now that’s growing up without a childhood. Jane Smiley seems like a great parent who cares about her children but to allow her daughters to put on makeup even entering their teenage years just isn’t right. Her girls where prematurely growing up, where behaving beyond their age, and with their only priority being beautiful at all times it seem to help them in the long run. As they burned off the “Barbie stage” and grew into more important things down their lives. Like for example Smiley talks about her older daughter, “Now she is planning to graduate school and law school and become an expert on woman’s health issues, perhaps adolescent health issues like anorexia and bulimia” (377).
Marilyn came from the part of North that we like to call the “bottom”. She showed me that just because you live in the hood doesn’t mean you don’t have a chance to become something positive in life. Marilyn is a success as a mother and wife. She is a successful woman because she was determined to do whatever it takes to make it out of the ghetto. My mom is the first in her family to have children to go to college.
She explains the struggle of only having little food there because it was the ones her parents brought her during the weekends but she had to save it in order for it to last. When she finally gets back from the 45 day camp stay, her father has made up his mind up his mind and wants him and his family to leave
Even though we have become more independent, she still does her best to be the best mom she can be. She has always tried to find a balance between working and being a wife and mother, but found that she has always put that first in her life before a career. She is now still working to help put me and my sister through college and will still work to pay for our weddings. Then she will work for her grandchildren. I guess you can say her role in life is to be happy, live comfortably financially and do everything she can to make her family comfortable and happy.
As the mother of two daughters I always want for my daughters what I feel was lacking in my life. It makes sense to me that Nanny’s idea of success and freedom is being wealthy and idle. That was what was literally beaten into Nanny. I think in real life, as with Nanny, mothers can get so blinded by their own agenda and their attempt to fulfill their own dreams through their daughter that they don’t stop to ask what their child wants. While I understand that this may not be the ideal way to handle a situation, I believe that Nanny did the best she could considering her experiences.
Jimmy didn’t want to be there no longer and kept on running away until his Aunt Charlotte signed him over to a detention center because no one wanted to take him and care for him. He registered and went to high school and eventually dropped out because he didn’t feel accepted in the type of environment. He got into a relationship with a young girl name Teresa. That was his first love and it was a very dysfunctional relationship. He had left to San Diego to start a new life and meet Marcos, His best friend, and Lonnie.
I did begin loosing weight, which generated in me the greatest appeasement, but I would always recoup that weight, and because of that my mother never managed to perceive anything. I was consumed with the visualization of being tiny and being just like other young girls my age. I was in love with the concept of being “perfect.” At this point in my life, I thought my weight was the most insoluble thing I would have to tackle, but little did I know how early I had spoken. In fourth grade, I noticed drastic alterations in my personal life. My father became more and more withdrawn from my mother, sister, brother, and I. I was naïve and ingenuous at the time, and didn’t
Difficult Decisions While reading No Impact Man there were a lot of changes that Colin Beaven and his family made throughout the course of a year. Some of these included giving up toilet paper, only eating local foods, getting rid of their television, and only taking the stairs. The lifestyle change made by Colin Beaven, his wife Michelle and daughter Isabella that I think would be the most difficult for myself would be using non-carbon producing transportation. In today’s society, it is almost impossible to get anywhere without a car, bus, airplane or some other sort of vehicle transportation. I know that to get to school I had to take the bus or drive because it was too far away from my house.
This looked like revenge to me against what I had said before when I was sixteen. My mother wouldn’t listen to what I had to say not even if the topic was forgiveness. I was about to graduate from high school and it seemed like she wasn’t interested, not to mention she didn’t attend the ceremony. Furthermore, I was in my thirty’s teaching English literature at Boston, Massachusetts. My life was busy, but I would always think of my mother.