Ethics When I Turned Twelve, I No

Ethics

When I turned twelve, I no longer shared the close relationship that I once had with my grandmother. Whereas I had grown up in her arms, with her watching over me and protecting me from life's harms, I suddenly found myself feeling like a different person. As a child, I took everything my grandmother said seriously and did not doubt her words. However, when I turned twelve, I developed a mind of my own, a mind that caused me some difficult ethical problems. While it is natural for younger generations to diverge from the older generations, it was particularly difficult for me. I was torn between the new world I had adopted when my parents moved the United States and the old world, from which my Korean grandmother came. Disobeying my grandmother was more of an ethnical dilemma for me than it was for my Caucasian-American friends, whose cultural values were different from mine. However, I stood between two worlds, which is why the conflict between my social development in the United States and my respect for my family became an ethical dilemma.

The pursuit of happiness naturally involves the conflict between self and others. As I tried to please myself, I would anger my parents and grandparents. In particular, dating became a problem. I wanted to date members of the opposite sex because all of my friends were dating and I also felt the tug of adolescence. However, traditional values also tugged at me, and I found myself torn between satisfying myself and my desire for friends and satisfying my family and their desire for my conformity. These were some of the toughest years of my life, as they are for many other teenagers. This situation drew attention to the ethical choices that people make, which are often compromises between self-fulfillment and social obligations. I made a compromise by dating behind my grandmother's back. I felt like I was lying to her by hiding my behaviors and until this day I feel slightly guilty. However, I could not have survived socially if I had totally agreed to her restrictions on my social life.