Sarah Vowell's Shooting Dad

Shooting Dad, by Sarah Vowell, is a story about the author's relationship with her dad, herself, and guns. Not being a huge fan of guns, as much as her father is, she continues to live with her father in a "divided house,'' confirming that one of them is republican and another is democratic. Instead of the author starting off the story with " i am a gunsmith's daughter,'' she created a short explanation of both point of views, herself and her father, allowing the audience to have a better understanding of the situation. This , of course, is effective to the reader to capture a sense or feel into what the author is trying to express with statement as '' a home for the civil war'' or ''hunter's orange was never my color.''

In present-day society, families go through several problems and arguments regarding numerous issues which would have been considered unacceptable in past times. Throughout a variety of different cultures, the level of respect and obedience for one’s parents has diminished while the negotiation of conformity and rebellion has risen. This statement is supported and evidential in two different stories, “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan and “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker. Although these stories represent different cultures, they both exemplify the values and importance of family relations; as well as demonstrate in every culture families face social problems. In both these stories, two major topics stood out which allowed me to compare each one to one

“Shooting Dad” by Sarah Vowell tells the interesting story of a girl with views that oppose that of her father's. Sarah’s father, Pat, works as a gunsmith and is a massive gun enthusiast, while Sarah herself is more into music. Throughout this story, Sarah relates to the reader how passionate her and her dad are about their different hobbies and perspectives. With all of the tension in the house from the drastically different points of view, they must figure out how to coexist. Sarah and her father find their bond through the joys of cannons, which also leads Sarah to the conclusion that they are not as different as she once thought. This story goes to great lengths to show the reader that just because people have differences, does not mean that they cannot or do not have similarities as well.

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

Arm Wrestling with My Father Change is inevitable, and often leads to emotional repercussions. Brad Manning expresses this idea in his coming-to-age essay “Arm Wrestling with My Father,” in which he traces the evolution of his relationship with his father. Using rhetorical devices such as repetition, selection of detail and analogy, Manning further proves his ambivalence towards his and his father’s impending roles reversals. Manning begins the essay by describing a regular arm wrestling match with his father, and uses repetition while describing the match “…is what he always said…he would always control the outcome… Dad would always win; I always had to lose” (156).

Sarah Vowell’s “Shooting Dad” discusses the relationship between a daughter and father. Engaged in a lifelong opposition to her father’s politics, interests, and his work, Vowell discovers just how much she actually has in common with him. Throughout her adolescent years, she was her father’s polar opposite. Her room was littered with musical instruments, albums, and Democratic campaign posters while her father’s, an avid gunsmith, was strewn with metal shavings and Republican party posters. Amongst all this conflict, Vowell found that they had more in common with each other than either of them realized. As she looks back on her childhood, Vowell explains that although it may take a while to see and understand others’ perspectives, once you

In Sarah Vowell’s essay she talks about her life and the role her father and guns have played in it. Being a gunsmith, her father’s life revolves around guns and he loves it. This is not a view shared by his daughter who finds that guns are constantly getting in her space. Due to this overabundance of guns and gun-loving ideas in the household and her father trying to force his own republican opinion on her, Sarah has developed a strong distaste for guns.

I was mortified when my dad purposely farted in Buehler's. Two minutes prior we had been walking down aisles joking about stuff in the store and poking fun at my little sister. Then all of the sudden he looked around, saw we were pretty much alone in the aisle and farted. I immediately gave him the ‘I cannot believe you just did that’ look and he just laughed, not seeming to mind that a Buehlers associate was only a couple yards from us. When I think about this it is easy for me to say that I am nothing like my Father. Sarah Vowell also felt very different compared to her dad when she wrote the essay “Shooting Dad”. However when Vowell looks past their differences she finds how similar she is to her Father. I find this to be true about many child-parent relationships, even if the child does not wish to be like their parents. Children cannot prevent themselves from becoming similar to their parents.

Both “Arm Wrestling with My Father” and “Shooting Dad” written by Brad Manning and Sarah Vowell, respectively, portrays a damaged and rough relationship that a son and/or daughter holds with his father. Although they both find themselves struggling, they are dealing with different things, Manning is dealing with a physical bounding, while Vowell finds herself handling a more emotional and communicative type of bonding. Eventually, both characters find themselves in a mature relationship over time. The characters had similarities and also differences with their respective father. Throughout the stories, both authors dig into the relationship between child and father and how it can be shaped and changed over time.

“Our fights didn’t bother me too much. I still wanted him to love me…” (27) Some interesting fact is that Junior wish to feel loved by his father, but since his father is abusive with him and do not have any gesture of love for him, this increases his feeling of disgust and repulsion towards him. Junior finds the love that he needed in his mother.

The line between being an acceptable and unacceptable parent is often blurry and is seen on different perspectives when it comes to class, culture, and generation differences. Based on the two stories of Amy Tan’s, “Two Kinds” and Tillie Olsen’s, “I Stand here Ironing” we see these two perspectives that derive from different maternal upbringings of the children in the stories. What is found between them is the conflict of being too little or heavily involved in a child’s life has had more negative outcomes during their childhood than positive.

Dumlao, Rebecca. Botta, Renee.”Family communication patterns and the conflict styles young adults use with their fathers.” Communication Quarterly. Vol. 48 no. 2 Spring 2000: 174-189.

Every person reaches a point in their lives when they must define themselves in relation to their parents. We all come through this experience differently, depending on our parents and the situation that we are in. For some people the experience comes very early in their lives, and can be a significant life changing experience. In William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” Colonel Sartoris Snopes must decide either to stand with his father and compromise his integrity, or embrace honesty and morality and condemn his family. This is a difficult decision to make, especially for a ten year old boy that has nothing outside of what his father provides. Sarty’s decision to ultimately betray his father is dependent on his observation of Abner’s character

The Andersen family Bill, Jill, and Riley from Pixar’s film, Inside Out, was used as the subjects for a systemic assessment of child and family relationships. The author selected this film because it 's centered on an adolescent who has to deal with significant developmental and emotional changes occurring in her life that are brought on by a move to a new state. The move forces the character, Riley to leave behind everything that she has ever known and loved, like her best friend Meg and her hockey team, and travel to a far away unknown place. This causes an emotional as well as developmental change in Riley. The author is able to empathize with the character due to her own childhood experiences as an Army brat and having to frequently move, leaving friends behind, and as a parent in the military who had to frequently move her own children. She has first hand experience with the emotions an adolescent goes through as well as those of a parent who has to deal not only their own emotions, but with those of their child.

For example some teens probably have gotten mad at their parents and ignored what their parents said. It would be no surprise that this has happened to the teen’s parents, as they were once teens. For parents, saying mean things to teen kids are not good ideas, arguing usually is a short-term conversation as later in the week or week’s teens will forget about it. But if a parent bursts and says something so bad and hurtful, teenagers can take it to the heart, as it was one of their parents who said the harsh words in their face. Examples would be such as if a child was getting yelled at so much to the point where he/she runs away. Occurrences of teens running away because of parents are rare but do still happen. As a teenager when arguing last for a short-term with their parents there is not much he/she can do if a parent has denied them something. Such as if a teenage girl wanted to go to the movies with her friends and her parents both have said no, the only thing she can do is pout. Another thing she can do is argue until her parents change their mind, which this is a common thing for teens to do when they argue to get things going in their favor.