¶ … Parents on Life

The Influence of Parents on One's Life

How much of an effect do our parents really have on our development as individuals? Are different styles of parenting specific to different cultures? Are women treated in a more oppressive manner by their parents in traditional cultures, as opposed to more developed nations, such as the United States? These are some of the questions I found myself asking this past semester after reading three memoirs of growing up under conditions that might be subtly described as "less than normal." Jeannette Walls's book the Glass Castle addresses the author's experiences growing up with two nomadic parents - an alcoholic father and a schoolteacher-turned-painter mother - whose unconventional lifestyle puts their child's well being into danger. But our parents do more than merely teach us morals in our first few years of life; they also tie us to a larger history. The struggle with tradition and one's personal history comes to the forefront in two other family memoirs, Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel and Maxine Hong Kingston's the Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. In the case of the former, Ali is thrust into exile because of her unwillingness to conform to her parents' expectations of what is proper for a woman in her native culture. Maxine Hong Kingston experiences similar issues, although the consequences for her are far less extreme.

In my analysis of the issues outlined above, I intend to show how all three writers transform the personal into the political, effectively establishing that the most minute, particular happenings in our lives can indeed have universal implications.

Bibliography

Ali, Ayaan Hirsi. Infidel. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007.

Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. New York: Vintage Books, 1975.

Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle. New York: Scribner, 2006.