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Sociological Reflection Paper

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Sociology is a new subject for me. It is not something that I was familiar with prior to the fall semester of 2017. I had never taken a class that studied human behaviors or societal structures. However now that I have some basic knowledge of sociology, I can see the different ways to study behavior. Many times throughout this semester, I have looked back on my life sociologically and started to dissect the different ways that my family, society and my own life choices have affected me as an individual. The first thing that I truly started to analyze was how my family has played a role in who I am today. A child’s family is recognized as one of the most influential agents of socialization. I am the first-born child in my family. I was born three days after Christmas, on December 28, 1986, in Santa Barbara, California. My parents had not known each other for long before I came into this world. I was the result of too much fun one weekend in Mexico. My mother and father tried to be a couple, I think out of obligation to me more than anything else – but it was never meant to be. My mother was my primary caretaker; she was a drug addict and an alcoholic all throughout my childhood. That is a really difficult sentence to write. I feel it defines a large part of who I am. I have two younger sisters and one brother, all from different fathers. Personal relationships were difficult for my mother; maybe she also was not properly socialized as a child. Naturally, as the oldest female in my in my family, I became the caretaker in our home. We bounced from home to home, all across the country. By the time I had finished high school at sixteen, I had attended more than thirty different schools.

I parted ways from the mother at twelve years old. I left my siblings behind, it was excruciatingly painful to do so and they endured several more years of insanity before finally being rescued and taken in by extended family members. I lived with anyone that would take me, presenting myself as the person I perceived others would want to help. Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical perspective within sociology uses the theater as a metaphor; our front stage self is what we present to others, while our backstage self is who we are

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