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Personal Narrative: The Impact Of Parenting

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My parents were teen parents and got married while my mom was pregnant and just finishing High School. I think that their age really impacted how they raised me compared to my siblings, I am 11+ years older than all of my siblings. My parents were young and not fully ready to parent. My parents separated when I was 5 and divorced soon after. The divorce greatly impacted my family experiences. I had to learn to navigate two households, blended families, different rules/expectation, conflict between my parents, etc. I feel that being the child of young parents and then divorced parents, a lot of responsibilities were expected of me at a young age from my single parenting mom. This experience made me a pretty responsible teen and young adult. I was working at 12 earning my own money and responsible for buying my own clothes and other needs. I was one of the few in High School who had enough money saved to purchase my own car when I turned 16.

How does this influence your thinking about parenting?

I knew from a young age that I was not having children until I was much older and I wanted to ensure that my relationship was going to last. My …show more content…

I think that there is so much about my parenting that is impacted by where I grew up and that I grew up in a white Scandinavian influenced household. There are probably so many things that I am not even aware of at present. I remember in my undergraduate studies I had to do a cultural family study. And one thing that sticks out for me, which takes me a lot of effort to change in my own parenting is talking about emotions and being empathic. I grew up with a family that was “stoic”, something that apparently is “common” in Scandinavian culture. Emotions were not always validated and feelings that were considered negative, children were not allowed to express them to adults. My greater family definitely believed in the “children should be seen and not heard”

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