My Mother - Original Writing

The fresh morning air was cool against my face. Father had been gone for a while now, he had been called by his work for some “serious business.” As my sister Aliah, and I played in the pond by our 2 story house, we heard a faint muttering of Father’s pick-up.

I am Spencer, champion-son of William and Ramona. I hail the Park of Orland, where I bore the burden of high school, emerging as the conqueror of subjects. When faced with the ACT-beast, I properly have slain that monster. Presently, I continue to unlock lost volumes of knowledge through my college studies at STLCOP to reach my goal of becoming a pharmacist. As with every situation, struggles will arise along the career path, suggesting a link between the drama in each person’s life alongside the eternal pace and rhythm of conflict and conquest. During this journey of making a mark upon this world, various challenges will arise, which I expect to experience and overcome. As seen in Bonnie Smith-Yackel’s narrative “My Mother Never Worked,” a mother’s conflicts turn into learning experiences. In the same way, I will find solutions to obstacles by learning the pharmacy curriculum, developing internal perseverance, and to a larger extent, by having the courage to overcome a flawed world that discourages me from being myself.

Seven years earlier, I migrated to Hawaii when I was twenty-three. I had flown away from my mother and my life in the Philippines. Like young adults and being rebellious, I wanted to live on my own away from my mother 's roof. I left the city life I grew up with in the Philippines in hope of a better life in another country.

Alison Bechdel ends her memoir Are You My Mother? with the words “But in its place, she has given me something else. She has given me the way out.” While this conclusion might seem flawed, it does a good job finalizing the recurring theme of spiderwebs in the novel. Just a few pages before (275), she depicts a scene of her talking about phobias while her mother throws out a spider. A connection can be drawn between the phobia of a real spider (that her mother has) and her phobia of what a spider represents, perfection and symmetry. Quoting from Adam Phillips, Bechdel says that, “‘Spiders are good to hate people with … she had to find a spider to let her do it.’” (275) The medium of a spider represents a recurring theme that Bechdel incorporates

My mother, Lisa Dawn Hicks Kern, was born at Wadley Regional Medical Center, Texarkana, TX, on Sunday, June 15, 1969. Her father, James Kenneth Hicks, was 28 at the time of my mother’s birth; he was employed at Red River Army Depot as an electrical engineer. Her mother, Sharon Lee Clark Hicks, was 25 when my mother was born, at the time she was the home maker. My mother had an older sister who was a four year old toddler at the time of my mother’s birth. Kimberly Ann Hicks was born at Wadley Regional Medical Center, Texarkana, TX, on Monday, August 30, 1965.

Mama smiled sweetly into her sewing and nodded. “I was anxious to prove myself useful to the show. I’d been with Binewski’s Fabulon only two weeks

Society has developed the gender role of women to be caretakers of their children and the household. In her poem “Girl”, Jamaica Kincaid writes a short narrative of a mother giving her daughter advice about how to behave and her responsibilities as a woman. The mother tells her daughter how to do several of the traditional housewife’s duties, such as washing clothes, preparing meals, and cleaning the house. She also instructs her on how to behave when men are present. According to her, the daughter must smile to men she likes, dislikes, despises, and is unfamiliar with. The mother informs her daughter about abusive and

Being a part of the outdoor world and assisting her father out on the farm was important to her. The girl was pleased when her father complimented her hard work, she “turned away and raked furiously, red in the face with pleasure” (4). Although, whenever the narrator’s mother asked for help she quickly did the task, but she stated, “as soon as I was done I ran out of the house... before my mother thought of what she wanted me to do next” (4). It seems as if she did not want to be like her mother. She viewed her mother as boring, and she did not want to become a modern housewife with little importance to the world. The girl clearly stated “it seemed to me that work in the house was endless, dreary, and peculiarly depressing; work done out of doors, and in my father's service, was ritualistically important” (4). Nevertheless, as the girl aged, her personality towards life began to change. She had been comfortable with the idea of killing animals and found herself watching the process, but later, she matured into a girl who “didn't think of watching it” (9). Without showing regret, the girl seemed to be

Kit sat in a corner chair, during one of her mother’s doctor appointments. Her mother was perched on the center exam table. Kit pointed out to the doctor that her mother was acting odd, belligerent, even though she was snippy before, her mother, was acting more childlike sticking out her tongue when the doctor tuned his back, becoming angry when she was asked questions. If the conversation wasn’t about her, she became angry and demanded they spoke only about her.

In the beginning of the book, an odd scene was described. A mother was rummaging through the garbage, and this was described from the perspective of someone else. This person is the mother’s daughter. She is sitting in a taxi on her way to a party up the block when she lays eyes upon her mother. The author describes the daughters reaction by saying, “I slid down in my seat and asked the driver to turn around and take me home”(Walls 3). The daughter is literally ashamed of her homeless mother. This reaction is appaling to someone who is not in the daughters shoes. “After ducking down in my taxi so my mom would not see me, I hated myself - hated my antiques, my clothes, and my apartment” (Walls 3). Obviously, she regrets the feeling of embarrassment

puberty bring with it a complex tradition of restrictions and behavioral guidelines. Kincaid’s poem reveals the rigidity and complexity of the social confines the girl is expected to operate underl. A girl is an induction into the women community as well as an orientation into the act of womanhood (Walkerdine et. al.). The lectured instructions given to the silent girl child vary from the housekeeping, “this is how you sweep a whole house”, to dealing with intimate relationships, “this is how a man bullies you; …how to bully a man” to medicine, “this is how to make good medicine (to abort)” (Kincaid).The inane patriarchal society expects gender stereotypes to prevail. The mother is tasked to give her daughter instructions on how to be a good woman in the stereotyped society. The advice the mother gives to the daughter cements the gender stereotype and portrays limitations on a woman (Bailey and Carol 107).

The young girl in “Boys and Girls” by Munro, follows her father around and does the job of a “boy”. She was learning to shoot a gun, gave the foxes water, raked the grass after her father cut it and made a canopy for the foxes with it, and anything else her father told her to do. She thought the work in the house by her mother was “ endless, dreary and peculiarly depressing.” Yet, “Work done out of doors, and in my father’s service, was ritualistically important.” Whenever her mother gave her “female” jobs to do indoors, she would “ run out of the house, trying to get out of earshot before (her) mother thought of what she wanted her to do next.” She loathed the womanly work done inside. She did

Society, represented by the daughter’s mother, the father, and the “feed salesman,” tells the daughter (and girls and boys in general) that boys are only meant to work, provide for their family, and make all the decisions for the family; Meanwhile women are meant to be domestic and emotional yet intelligent. As a child, the daughter lays in bed and fantasizes of her future self “in a world that was recognizably [her own], yet one that presented opportunities for

In Bonnie Smith-Yackel’s essay “My Mother Never Worked” she passionately defends her mother after Social Security refuses to grant her death benefit check. Yackel does not realize that Social Security fairly distributes benefits to contributing Americans. Social Security was reasonable to not granting benefits to a woman who never contributed as a wage earner. It would not be fair if benefits were granted to a fraud who never paid wage taxes compared to wage earners who do. Americans who abuse Social Security benefits by committing fraud is unethical and not to mention illegal. Americans that are in desperate need for Social Security benefits require it far more than frauds. By eliminating fraud the government can properly grant social benefits to hard working Americans. Social Security benefits should be permitted to Americans that work and provide back to their country or they are disabled. Hard-working citizens that pay their duties will receive back from benefits, including employees that are qualified as disabled. Benefits should not be granted to any citizen that makes no contribution to their country such as, tax deductions from their wages. Furthermore, Social Security needs to reach out to the majority which is the poverty-stricken. By informing impecunious people and immigrants of Social Security it could save them from the poverty they suffer from. Even though, Social Security relieves some citizens from a financial burden there are still many improvements to be

Of course you always hear people talking about how great their grandmother or grandfather are, I too feel the same way about my grandmother. I see her as more than my grandmother, she’s a role mole, my best friend and also like a sister when I need her. She’s always been a loving and caring person. Not for only her friends and family, but also strangers. People she has never met a day in her life she would be willing to go give her last too. You don’t find to many people like her too often.