The Major Influences Of My Family And Friends

Growing up in Park Ridge, Illinois was significantly different from where I was born in Morristown, New Jersey. One of the most startling differences was apparent in the make-up of the student body. In Morristown, I attended an elementary school with a diverse student body; many of my schoolmates were African American and I remember even at a young age, students regardless of race interacting all-together without any sense of stigma attached to it. In that sense, while attending elementary school, since it was the norm to have friends of different races, I did not think very much of my race.

That day when I returned home from school, my mom’s boyfriend called me asking to speak to my grandmother. Typically, Gus would call my grandmother himself if he wanted to speak with her, which was rare. I found out about my mom going to the hospital from my grandmother after that phone call. The doctor told my family that a stroke afflicted her in the middle of the day. My mom confused the date with her birthday, had trouble getting words out and remembering our family member’s names. The nurse had to take her for walks periodically and exercise her legs and arms because they were weak. Seeing my mother in this condition made me appreciate my mother and everything she does for me tremendously. However, I was terrified for my mother’s health.

When my dad came home that evening he sat me down and asked me if I knew what cancer was. I had an idea so I just nodded my head, he went on to tried to explain to me how bad the cancer was that my mom had been diagnosed with. Seeing my dad so afraid scared me. The fear I felt then led me to realize that I needed to try and hide it because it would only hurt my dad more to see his children so upset. I did my best to help, I tucked my little sisters into bed while my mom was away at the hospital, read them stories and did the best I could at preparing snacks to comfort them. After my mom arrived home and she recovered from the surgery she started chemotherapy. The miserable treatment that attacks the cancer also makes her very ill. Every other week she was sick. Before every bad week I wanted to cry, but that wouldn’t help anyone. Lane and Kenna already were crying, if I cried it could only hurt my parents

My pre-adolescent years were spent in a community thick with diversity. My friendships were as diverse as the environment in which I lived. It never struck me that racial and ethnic ideals separated people in society. However, upon moving to a predominately white upper-class community I began to question such racial and ethnic ideas. From my adolescent years through today I began noticing that certain people are viewed differently for reasons relating to race and ethnicity. As a result, the most recent community I grew up in has kept me sheltered from aspects of society. As a product of a community where majorities existed, I found myself unexposed to the full understanding of race and ethnicity. Prior to the class I had never fully dealt with issues of race or ethnicity, as a result I wondered why they would be of any importance in my life.

By the time my PopPaw was diagnosed the disease was progressing fast. My Mom and I would take turns with my Aunt in going every other weekend to help care for him. I was the only grandchild that had the strength to face the problem and never give up on him. I would read to him and tell him all about my activities. We would watch shows on tv and I tried so hard to be patient when having to explain things to him multiple times a day. He lost the ability to walk and was unable to leave the house unassisted. This was devastating to a man that thrived on being outside and when this happened he went into a deep depression. My Mom, my Aunt and my MomMaw struggled to get him to eat and interact. I was the only person he would talk to and even eat for with encouragement. But my Mom would say, “I don’t think it is good to put that much pressure on Amelia. She is so young and it is a huge burden for her to bear to be responsible for keeping him

Since freshman year I have lived in Rosemead, Los Angeles. The residences are mostly Mexican, Chinese, Vietnamese but without a caucasian in sight. This is totally different than what I expected of America, and definitely different than the little village of Pawling in upstate New York where I attend a lily white boarding school. However, I started to blend in; I played basketball. I rode bikes, and I hung out with other teens. We all were basically the same but just embraced different cultures. For instance, the Vietnamese insisted on entire families

I was born in New York City in Harlem hospital on July 26 1989. My parents Gwen and Donald Ames grew up in Pensacola Florida and Norfolk Virginia. They had two different lives growing up. My mom being from Florida mainly grew up around mostly African Americans and in a more country like town. My mom’s father was a pastor at a Baptist church and my grandmother worked for the state. I remember talking to my mom and she said she grew up when segregation was big. She would march and protest against desegregation. My mom went to Florida State where it was predominantly white. She said she had trouble with the transition from being around mostly African American to a school with mostly Caucasian. She felt that she had to prove something. The drive

During my middle childhood the pivotal influences on my development were participation in extracurricular activities and a love of reading. During middle childhood my parents enrolled me in ballet classes, various sports, and I competed in rodeos. These activities contributed to my social identity and social development. Through my extracurricular activities, I became aware of multiple aspects of my identity. For example, I knew to behave differently in my ballet classes than I might at a rodeo. I also learned to befriend and accept different types of people through my exposure to these different environments. These processes helped me to acquire appropriate social behaviors and positive group identity (Hutchison, 2013). When I was 9 years old I moved to another school, and though my parents re-enlisted me in ballet and sports, I had a difficult time fitting in. During this transition I picked up a love for reading. I thoroughly enjoyed any book assignments at school, and I was constantly asking my parents to buy more books or to take me to the library. I believe this love for reading greatly influenced my intellectual and cognitive development, as I was put into more advanced classes at my new school and did exceedingly well on tests and assignments. I scored especially well on reading tests and could read at a high school level in 5th grade. While I had positive group identity earlier in middle childhood, I believe my reading may have been excessive concerning my social

Growing up in America, I have always been surrounded by many cultures and different ethnic groups. Many of those cultures differ from my own traditionally. For the first half of my life, I was raised in detroit, a predominantly black city - I had always assumed. My family eventually moved out of Detroit and we moved to Inkster. Inkster was a much smaller city, but it was also a predominantly black city. In 2011, my family moved from Inkster, Michigan to Canton, Michigan. Although the two cities are less than a half hour apart - the cultural and ethnic groups are extremely diverse. While attending my freshman year of high school in Canton I realized, I was a minority there. More than half of the student body, more than half of the community

I grew up in a diverse community where not a lot of people were making smart choices and with people who had different appearances than others I went to school with. My family being the only Caucasian people in the neighborhood made us come off as if we were different type of white people.

This story was influenced by my worldview, which is if you do not have a solid foundation then you can not grow. This is exactly what we see illustrated in this story a person who did not have a solid foundation in God. We saw how he started to grow and then got sucked into all this sin and started to crumble because he did not have a solid foundation in God. I believe that if you want to grow in life you need to have a strong foundation in God and on top of that a solid foundation in family and friends. There are many things that have influenced this worldview and one of them would be the book we read in eighth The Cross And The Switchblade. This work of literature impacted my worldview by showing me that a solid foundation looks like. In this

Born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina until the age of twenty-five. However, I grew up during the time when racial tension was prevalent in American especially the South, therefore, I lived in an all-black neighborhood and attended an all-black school until my seventh grade year. Upon entering the seventh grade, integration

When my mother first got her diagnosis, the words were difficult to comprehend and it was difficult to deal with the repercussions of her diagnosis. Since the disease effects the nervous system, my mother could not do all of the tasks that she was once able to do.  Becasue

There were several instances in my childhood when my Family had a direct influence on me according to

The world has many different influences that affect the way we grow, think, and act. It is interesting how some people from the same background and upbringing can become completely different people simply by the people they associate with. Psychologically association can be one of the best or worst things that can happen to someone. Depending on the type of association can determine which road you go down in life. Choices like this start at a very young age, such as grade school to high school.