Fences: The Parenting Cycle'

- While children are influenced by many things, there are no stronger influences that that of their parents as they are usually their child’s first playmates and while the world expands with each passing year, parental influence is still one of the greatest factors in determining the ways in which a child will grow and develop.

It just goes to show how one can not go without family, especially their father because “These wanderings are the searching of sons after fathers and fathers after sons” (Rick Wallach). Family looks after one another to ensure they do not fall behind the herd.

August Wilson’s Fences is a play about Troy Maxson, and how his values influence his family’s. The play takes place in 1950’s Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Troy Maxson is a black, middle aged man working for a garbage company. Each member of the Maxson family has a special relationship with Troy, that affects their behavior throughout the play. In life you learn the most from your parents. They teach you how to walk, speak, and respect one another. Your parents also give you a set of values for life. As you grow up as your own individual, your values will change from your parents. There will be things that are much more important to you, and not as important to them. In the play Fences Troy Maxson has a very strong set of values that he believes are true in how you should live life. Troy imposes these values on everyone in his family to the best of his ability. Each character in Fences is at a different stage in their life, so Troy can’t push his values onto characters that already have their own beliefs. The character that Troy has the most influence on in the play is Cory. Troy is in Cory’s life throughout his childhood, and as his father Cory must respect Troy. Troy is very firm with Cory, because he wants Cory to be successful. Cory has a dream of becoming a football player, and this does not follow Troy’s values. Troy influences Cory so much that Cory will always be like Troy whether he realizes it or not. “Your daddy wanted you to be everything he wasn’t … and at

Using the law to aid Troy’s argument strips his claim of anything personal or emotional. Laws are rules that have nothing to do with love or family and they are made by complete strangers. Troy is saying that there is nothing personal about him liking or disliking his own son because there is not a law that forces him to “like” his son. This part of the speech is an important piece of support for Troy’s claim because it begins to challenge the largest, yet simplest and least questionable piece of evidence that Cory may have to counter argue his father’s objective. This also gives the reader insight into Troy’s views because he values the law over the fundamental caring that is expected of a father. Toward the end of this section of the speech, Troy mentions that he puts in hard work for his family that is in no way a token of how much he likes them and it would be foolish to think otherwise.

Chapter 5 of Freakonomics, What Makes a Perfect Parent, raises the question, “how much do parents really matter?” This is a very interesting question with a number of different answers. Steven Levitt, the author, goes into great detail to answer this question. Right of the start, Levitt mentions, “Clearly bad parenting matters a great deal” (Levitt, Dubner p.154). He uses the correlation between abortion and crime, making the argument that unwanted children will be worse off in life versus other children who are accepted into their parents’ lives and loved. Levitt raises yet another question asking how influential are those loving and accepting parents on the outcome of their child. Interesting enough, genes are responsible for about fifty percent of a child’s characteristics and personality but what is responsible for the other fifty percent? Judith Harris, author of The Nature Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do, argued that peers are more influential on a child than parents are. Levitt challenges her position and mentions that parents are usually the ones responsible for deciding a children’s peers. For instance, parents are the ones who choose what neighborhood to live, where to send their child to school and strive to find their child the right friend group.

Parenting played a big role in shaping the two boys lives. Having a parental mentor is important because they assist and guide children to take the right decisions about their lives. The author had his two parents at the beginning of his life. Also, the author’s parents, especially his mother, tried to raise him in an effective way wanting him to know the right from wrong at an early age. “No mommy loves you, like I love you, she just wants you to do the right thing” (Moore 11). This quote was a live example of the author’s life with his parents. It reflected the different ways his parents used to teach him “the right thing.” Though his mother was upset from his action toward his sister, his father

Relationships between people can change lives forever. For instance, the relationship between a parent and a child is one of the most important ones because that is where our consciousness about love, trust, and assurance comes from. Depending on the relationship, it can either benefit or negatively affect the child’s future, since little children always look up to their parents as role models. In the novel, Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, Chris McCandless is negatively affected by his relationship with his parents. Chris McCandless’ parent, on the outside, appear to want Chris to be a successful student. Meanwhile, in the inside appearance, especially Walter, was an abusive father. This reflected a double life and could cause a devastating

A parent’s parenting styles are as diverse as the world we live in today. Nowadays, parents only want what is best for their children and their parenting styles plays a crucial role in the development of children which will in the long run, not only effect the child’s childhood years, but later prolong into their adult life as well.

Whether you agree with Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, or Erik Erickson, theoretical approaches to human nature all agree that early childhood years play a major part of our conscious and unconscious decisions we make. For instance, even though both Wes Moore’s were brought up without a father in their home, the reality is that these absences meant something different to each of them. For Wes 1 his father died an unnecessary death due to lack of training of emergency personnel. He remembered his dad as being compassionate, loving, and kind. Wes 1 always knew that if given the choice, his father would have stood by him throughout his life. Wes 2, however, is left with negative fatherly feelings. In the three times they were together, his own father acted as though he didn’t recognize him. What’s worse is that Wes 2 knew that his dad didn’t want to know him, he chose to leave. That left not only a hole where there should have been a very important role model, it left rejection in its place. When Wes 1 was visiting Wes 2 in the jail and asked about the impact his father had on his life, the second Wes said, “Your father wasn’t there because he couldn’t be, my father wasn’t there because he chose not to be. We’re going to mourn their absence in different ways” (Moore page 3). Later in the chapter Wes 1 gets emotional thinking about how he misses his father. He was left,

    Humans have come to a conclusion that all lives are different, but all go through many hardships and tragedies. The impact from a slight difference can vary to be very vast to very small, such a slight difference, however, can change a person’s life as a whole. In the book, The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore there is a difference that can be identified between the author’s life and that of the other Wes. This difference, though can be very critical and is ultimately able to lead to a path of triumph or failure for an individual. The lack of involvement a mother has for their child can fundamentally deprive them from succeeding, and parent involvement has the opportunity to

Many may contradict Doctor Epstein’s view of the top ten competencies of a good parent, but there are many factors that are needed in order to conclude that one may or may not raise successful children. From the point of view of Rose Mary and Rex Walls, both individually had horrible parents. As the common idiom goes, “Like mother, like daughter” and “Like father, like son,” Rose Mary and Rex Walls “inherited” their parenting styles from their parents. However, following up with Doctor Epstein’s ten competencies, Rose Mary and Rex Walls individually split the responsibility and gave their children the ten competencies in different forms average parents would not expect to give to their

Psychology is the study of the human mind and behavior. In psychology there are for parenting styles. They are Authoritarian, Authoritative, Permissive, and Uninvolved. I believe that the best parenting style is Authoritative. This parenting is more involved. They explain rules and punishment. They are open to conversations and questions. In“Fences” by August Wilson we learn that the type of parenting Troy Maxson exhibited was the Authoritarian style. We also explore the minds and behaviors of Troy and Cory Maxson. Is their relationship a strain on them alone or does it affect everyone around them? How, if at all, is their conflict resolved?

There are plenty of resources to support the importance of parents and the effects they have on young children. Not only is having a parent figure important, but when a parent figure enters the child’s life it makes a huge difference to how they will act when they are older. Tree-ear and Izidor Ruckel, both grew up as orphans. They both had a parent figure to look up to as young children, but in Tree-ears case all his life. How they were treated as children affects them as much as a parent figure.

Although times are different for Lyons and Cory compared to what Troy went through with his father, Troy stands his ground in striving to raising his sons to work hard

At first, the parents had an idealized view of how their life would be with the children because they had been in the process of adopting for a very long time. However, when they started their lives together they learned that is was