Cultural family background and its effects on development

¶ … young Americans any consideration of their cultural background is deemed irrelevant to their daily lives. Having been a part of American culture for several generations, they look beyond themselves as being purely American and being unaffected by the foreign cultures from which their ancestors emigrated (Hayden, 2003). This viewpoint, however, represents a narrowness that ignores the subtleties that remain and a denial that one's historical roots matter.

In my own case, until recently, I have only remotely ever thought about my cultural background. From what I understand from my discussions with my parents and grandparents over the years, my family was originally from Ireland but that at some point in our family's past one of my grandparents married a Native American and so I am the beneficiary of American Indian influence as well. No one seems to know when and how this marriage occurred but everyone is certain that it did. Otherwise, my family is Irish-American through and through although there is little evidence of it or at least this is what I thought before I actually sat down and thought about (Callahan, 1989). Now, I look at the situation differently.

My family, on both the maternal and paternal side, has been living in the United States for several generations. As a result, one would expect that the cultural effects of their being from Ireland would have little impact on their daily lives. As I indicated, I gave little thought to my family background. I did not discuss the issue with my parents or grandparents. I grew up thinking of myself as American, not Irish, but I have learned that such deep seeded influences are not so easily ignored or overcome (McGoldrick, 1996).

The most obvious connection with my Irish heritage is my family's devotion to the Roman Catholic Church (Morris, 1998). From my earliest days, I remember my mother and grandmother's dedication to their faith. Sunday and holidays were special days in our home and it began with our attendance at Church. The entire family would attend Church together and there was never a thought that anyone could either not attend or go to Mass without the family. Our parish priest was considered a role model for me and my siblings and my mother never missed an opportunity to stress this fact. It was always, "Father O'Brien, this" and "Father O'Brien, that." To speak irreverently about the Church or the Father O'Brien was the greatest of sins in my house (Douthat, 2009). It was simply never done.

Until I became engaged with this assignment, I never gave much thought to the fact that my entire family was also avid Democrats. I figured that such loyalty was based on our family's socio-economic situation. I grew up in a comfortable home but it would hardly be described as fancy in any way. Meals were eaten at home. Dining out was a rarity even at fast food places; new clothes were limited to Christmas and back to school; and movies were viewed on video. It was a simple life but I always felt loved and secure. It was this background, however, that I always imagined provided the backdrop for my family's avid political loyalty to the Democratic Party. Little did I know that it went much farther and had lasted several generations.

From conversations with my father I learned that my family's connection with the Democratic family dated back to at least the Great Depression (Ignatiev, 2008). My father was not sure when my family had emigrated to the United States but he was sure that, at least in his side of the family, their political loyalty dated back to President Franklin Roosevelt (Kennedy, 1995). Like the parish priest, Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy were heroes and anyone speaking of them negatively was considered persona non grata in our household from that date forward. I grew up warning my friends of this and encouraged them to hold off on making any such comments. I always thought that such reverence was unusual but find myself adhering to the same beliefs now that I have reached adulthood.

This devotion to the Church and the Democratic Party was reinforced strongly at the various family functions that I attended growing up. On both sides of my family, large families were the rule and so I had numerous aunts and uncles and cousins. Holidays of all sorts, whether religiously-based or otherwise, were occasions for my family to gather with card playing, great food, and heavy drinking part of the festivities. Such events were not much different than spending the day at home with my parents. The activities were just larger. Every one of my aunts and uncles seemed to be clones of my parents in their political and religious leanings and this tendency extended to all of my cousins as well. There were a few exceptions but, generally, it was a large gathering of Catholic Democrats (Scott, 1997).

The unifying force in our family was definitely my grandparents. I never really knew my father's father but his mother and my mother's parents were at the center of our family's social life. I grew up being quite close to all three of them and their fairly recent deaths have impacted on me greatly. It was at their houses that I spend nearly every holiday and it was there that I developed my relationships with my other relatives. These relationships have figured significantly in who I have become and I am hopeful that once I begin having children of my own that I will be able to pass on this tradition of large family holiday gatherings onto my children.

In my immediate family I am the youngest of four children (Kaye, 2011) (Morris, 1998). My siblings, two half sisters and a brother are much older than I am and my relationship with all of them is good but not particularly close. There are a variety of reasons for this including the difference in years and this is something that has caused me concern for a number of years. I largely grew up alone with my parents. My sisters and brother would be there for Sunday dinners occasionally and I would see them at other family functions but on a day-to-day basis I lived the life of an only child. I wish that it would have been otherwise but being the only child did come with its benefits. I received the full attention of my parents and never had to suffer through dressing in hand me down clothes.

My father, believe it or not, was a police officer as were several of my uncles. In the small town where I was raised my father was a sort of a cult figure being one of only eight officers on the force but, in keeping with Irish tradition, several of my uncles who lived in large Eastern cities were also police officers (Bio.true story). This irony was lost on me growing up but I appreciate it now. My father's becoming a policeman had more to do with job availability than it did with his being Irish but the large number of policemen in my family cannot qualify as coincidence. As I understand it, police work was one of the few jobs available for the Irish when they first began coming to America and, apparently, this pattern has continued in my family.

My father's job was a steady one but not a well-paying one. As my mother did not work, we could not afford a large house but it was a comfortable home and, for me, it holds many wonderful memories (Macgregor, 2011). Memories that provide me with the comfort of knowing that I was loved and that my life was always secure. Home cooked meals, help with my homework, and a constant eye on my activities were not appreciated by me growing up but I now recognize how fortunate I was to have those guarantees in my life. Because money was often short in my home, I found myself wanting things that my friends and neighbors had but my parents never apologized or offered excuses. They provided me with what I needed and I learned in time that I the things that I often longed to own and which my parents could not afford were items that I really did not need. Not having them bothered me for the moment but the pain of not having them passed quickly. My parents provided well for me to the extent that they were able and I can state with total confidence that I had a great childhood and hope that I will be able to do the same for my own children.

Remembering the house that I grew up in causes me to think of how live has changed since I was little girl. Our house was nothing fancy but it was comfortable. It had few of all the modern conveniences that seemingly are "musts" in today's home. We all shared one bathroom and somehow still managed to make it work. There were times when waiting was necessary but such waiting did not result in my being psychologically damaged. Air conditioning was a fan in the window and, amazingly, we somehow managed with only one television. My father largely dictated what we watched but Saturday morning was my time and I took full advantage of it. Growing up all I ever wanted was to live in a similar home. Now, my dreams have expanded but I sometimes wish that I could bring myself to want nothing greater than what I grew up with. There was a beauty in the simplicity of it all.

Growing up as essentially an only child I was expected to help out around the house considerably. Both of my parents were severe taskmasters who did not tolerate excuses or prolonged explanations. They only wanted to know how and why something did not get done. My tasks were not difficult ones, helping with the dishes, taking out the garbage, and walking the dog were typical of what was expected but I was expected to do them and to do them without being reminded. Being reminded was the same as not doing them so there was no advantage in procrastination. Unfortunately, this pattern has not carried over to my adult life but I still can hear both of my parents preaching to me the values of responsibility and timeliness. I still carry the guilt.

Being only recently married and still childless, I have thought very little about the values from my own childhood that I would like to instill in my own children. I strongly believe that my parents were wonderful and that I never felt unloved or unwanted at any point in my childhood. They made me feel like I had value and that I was capable of doing whatever it was I wanted to do in life. I guess, reflecting upon it now, that I hope that I can instill the same feelings in my own children. I hope I can make them realize the value of family, hard work, and honesty. My parents never had any great dreams of accomplishing anything other than to live by the values that they had been taught by their parents and, I guess, that is all that I want for my children as well.

As comfortable as I was growing up in the home with my parents, I was never comfortable growing up in the small town atmosphere that my home town provided. From the time that I first began going to school and learning about things outside my hometown I wanted to experience life somewhere different. It did not matter where this somewhere different was. I just wanted to be there. My hometown seemed so small, so limiting and I wanted to be part of the larger picture and not stuck knowing the few square miles that represented my home town. I wanted to be able to see movies when they first came out and not months later. I wanted to eat at nice restaurants and not the local diner. I wanted to experience the hustle and bustle of the big city and not the quiet sameness of my little town. These desires inspired me to read constantly as a young child but they also caused me to dream of a life beyond the confines of my comfortable home. Neither of my parents ever understood this desire but, to their credit, they never discouraged me either. I believe that they wished that I could be comfortable in my home town but they always encouraged me to follow my heart.

School for me served as my gateway to the rest of the world. My parents lacked the resources for us to vacation anywhere beyond the confines of my grandparent's lake cottage and, therefore, what I knew of the world came from school and what I managed to read on my own. The rest of the world seemed to be so exciting and full of new experiences and I soaked up as much information from my teachers and what they had to teach me about the world outside my home town. From the first grade on I excelled in school because I viewed it as my way to the big city. Interestingly, seemingly everyone else in my class of 60 students felt the same way I did about living in our small town. From junior high on that is about all anyone talked about. The only difference in the conversation was how each of us would get it done. Some chose college, some chose the service, while the more adventurous and less directed, just said they would just pack it up and go. As a result, high school graduation was a true ending of my childhood and the beginning of my adulthood. To date, I have seen very few of the kids I grew up with since graduation day. They have seemingly spread out in every direction and returning home has not been a priority for most of them.

Despite my intense desire to leave the confines of my home town, I have to admit that I learned valuable and lasting lessons from the experience. My teachers were dedicated and sincere individuals who instilled in me not only a love for learning but also an appreciation for the process and not just what it could do for me in my career. My teachers did not teach me with an eye for what jobs it would ultimately make me eligible for but with a focus on my being educated. They taught me that the process of learning and becoming educated had value in itself and that becoming a teacher, doctor, or lawyer was just a by-product of education. My teachers taught the whole person and not just the writer, mathematician, or scientist within us. I think they believed that would all come later but, in the meantime, they were entrusted with the responsibility of making us think and make responsible decision. In this regard, at least as to me, I believe they were remarkably successful. Deciding what I wanted to do with my life took some time but I never lacked the confidence that I could do whatever I wanted and that I had the tools necessary thanks to the small group of dedicated teachers in my home town.

High school, without a doubt, was a wonderful time for me. It marked the home stretch in my goal to escape the clutches of my home town and it was my first real experience with personal freedom. For the first time I was being afforded new opportunities outside the house to socialize with my friends and I was being exposed to new subjects in school that offered me new challenges that were not available in grade school. I was beginning to feel grown up and my dreams of moving to the big city became even larger in scope. Now, I not only thought of getting away I also thought of the various things that I could do once I arrived wherever it was that I was heading. High school was the last level of preparation for what I felt I was destined to do ever since I was a little girl and I was determined not to waste a minute of it. I became involved in every activity that the school offered while remaining determined to receive the highest grades possible. I was resolved that I would not be denied the opportunity to attend college based on my grades and I knew that my parents would not be in a position to provide me with much financial support. Getting a scholarship of some form was my only chance so my every effort was directed toward that goal. Unfortunately, the dream that I had relished since I was a small child confronted a large obstacle as I neared my high school graduation. Although I had performed well in my high school being from a small town proved to again be a problem (U.S. News and World Report, 2011). Even though my high school grades were exceptional and I had participated in a variety of extracurricular activities, yet, the larger universities were not impressed. It seems that the fact that I had attended such a small school in a remote town worked to my disadvantage. I found myself staring into an unknown future with few doors being opened to me. The lifelong dream appeared to be over and my destiny appeared to be a life similar to my mother's. Needless to say, I was greatly disappointed and disillusioned and I remained so for several weeks. During this time my parents said very little about the subject and applied no pressure on me to make any decisions of any kind. They were aware of what I was experiencing but, in their wisdom, they also realized that it was something that I had to determine for myself. In time, I realized that there were options available for me and that I was not going to allow this setback destroy my dreams. With the help of my guidance counselor at school and my own devices I procured whatever financial aid I could and decided that I would have to wait on tables, babysit, or do whatever else I could to fulfill my dream. Again, my mother and father said little but, as they always have, offered their support and love.